On the Explanatory Roles of Natural Selection

Can selection explain why individuals have the traits they do? This question has generated significant controversy. I will argue that the debate encompasses two separable aspects, to detrimental effect: (1) the role of selection in explaining the origin and evolution of biological traits and (2) the implications this may have for explaining why individuals have the traits they do. (1) can be settled on the basis of evolutionary theory while (2) requires additional, extra-scientific assumptions. By making a distinction between traits affected by a single factor and traits affected by multiple factors I show that selection can, under certain conditions, help explain the origin of traits. Resolving the first aspect enables us to critically assess the various incompatible and independent philosophical commitments made within the second aspect of the debate.     

Explanatory unification and natural selection explanations

The debate between the dynamical and the statistical interpretations of natural selection is centred on the question of whether all explanations that employ the concepts of natural selection and drift are reducible to causal explanations. The proponents of the statistical interpretation answer negatively, but insist on the fact that selection/drift arguments are explanatory. However, they remain unclear on where the explanatory power comes from. The proponents of the dynamical interpretation answer positively and try to reduce selection/drift arguments to some of the most prominent accounts of causal explanation. In turn, they face the criticism raised by statisticalists that current accounts of causation have to be violated in some of their core conditions or otherwise used in a very loose manner in order to account for selection/drift explanations. We propose a reconciliation of both interpretations by conveying evolutionary explanations within the unificationist model of scientific explanation. Therefore, we argue that the explanatory power in natural selection arguments is a result of successful unification of individual- and population-level facts. A short case study based on research on sympatric speciation will be presented as an example of how population- and individual-level facts are unified to explain the morphological mosaic of bill shape in island scrub jays (Aphelocoma insularis).     

Operational, Representational, and Explanatory Models

This paper offers an interpretation of the concept of social structure in the context of a theory of models, construed as mental structures, conscious or unconscious. Operational and representational models are attributed to members of the society studied, explanatory models to the anthropologists studying them. The social structure is found to have an objective reality but at the same time to be dependent on the existence of the models. And in this it seems to exhibit a general property of objects of the social sciences.     

中国天山的平蒴藓属（Plagiobryum Lindb.）植物

平蒴藓属PlagiobryumLindb.(真藓科Bryaceae)植物在世界上共有8种(IndexMuscorum;Ochi1959,1970;Hedderson1990;Hedderson&Harold1990).中国大陆记录有3种分布(陈邦杰等1963;张满祥1978;Redfearn&Wu1986;Redfearn,Tan&He1996).其中,钝叶平蒴藓(P.giraldii(C.Muell.)Par.)特产于秦岭太白山(张满祥1978).作者基于在天山的实地考察和对标本的研究,报道了中国天山产的平蒴藓属植物共有2种即平蒴藓(P.zierii(Hedw.)Lindb.)和尖叶平蒴藓(P.demissum(Hoppe&Hornsch.)Lindb.),其中的平蒴藓为该区分布的首次记录.从种的现代地理分布和区域地理特点来看,这2种均属泛北极分布类型.依据所采的标本对它们进行了详细描述和绘图.中国天山平蒴藓属分种检索表如下1.植物体上部银白色或白色,下部红褐色.叶覆瓦状排列,卵圆形,内凹;中肋及顶或达于叶尖稍下处终止.孢蒴长棒状,平列或略倾斜1.平蒴藓P.zierii(Hedw.)Lindb.1.植物体红褐色.叶直立,披针形至卵圆状披针形;中肋突出叶尖.孢蒴梨形,下倾2.尖叶平蒴藓P.demissum(Hope&Hornsch.)Lindb.     

Species as Explanatory Hypotheses: Refinements and Implications

The formal definition of species as explanatory hypotheses presented by Fitzhugh (Marine Biol 26:155–165, 2005a, b) is emended. A species is an explanatory account of the occurrences of the same character(s) among gonochoristic or cross-fertilizing hermaphroditic individuals by way of character origin and subsequent fixation during tokogeny. In addition to species, biological systematics also employs hypotheses that are ontogenetic, tokogenetic, intraspecific, and phylogenetic, each of which provides explanatory hypotheses for distinctly different classes of causal questions. It is suggested that species hypotheses can not be applied to organisms with obligate asexual, parthenogenetic, and self-fertilizing modes of reproduction. Hypotheses explaining shared characters among such organisms are, instead, strictly phylogenetic. Several implications of this emended definition are examined, especially the relations between species, intraspecific, and phylogenetic hypotheses, as well as the limitations of species names to be applied to temporally different characters within populations.     

Notes on the taxonomy ofCuscutaceae

The subdivision ofCuscutaceae into 4 genera (Cuscuta L. s. str.,Grammica Lour.,Monogynella Des Moul.,Kadurias Rafin.) is proposed.     

Notes on the karyosystematics ofAnnonaceae

Information and illustrations on somatic chromosomes, structure of interphase nuclei and hair development are presented for 9 genera and 14 species ofAnnonaceae. A few suggestions tend to improve the unsatisfactory current classification. The spectrum of polyploids found in the family ranges from neo- to meso- and paleopolyploids.