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1.
This article critically analyzes the arguments of the ‘generalized Darwinism’ recently proposed for the analysis of social-economical
systems. We argue that ‘generalized Darwinism’ is both restrictive and empty. It is restrictive because it excludes alternative
(non-selectionist) evolutionary mechanisms such as orthogenesis, saltationism and mutationism without any examination of their
suitability for modeling socio-economic processes and ignoring their important roles in the development of contemporary evolutionary
theory. It is empty, because it reduces Darwinism to an abstract triple-principle scheme (variation, selection and inheritance)
thus ignoring the actual structure of Darwinism as a complex and dynamic theoretical structure inseparable from a very detailed
system of theoretical constraints. Arguing against ‘generalised Darwinism’ we present our vision of the history of evolutionary
biology with the help of the ‘hourglass model’ reflecting the internal dynamic of competing theories of evolution. 相似文献
2.
The evolution of secondary sexual characters is the subject of controversial debate between those defending their role as
‘viability indicators’ and those arguing that ornaments are purely ‘attractive traits’ selected by females. Recent theoretical
studies suggest that these hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, as both viability and attractiveness can contribute to improve
the reproductive success of progeny and could thus simultaneously underlie female choices. If that is the case, strategies
of cheaper advertisement, allowing the expression of larger ornaments for the same cost, could proliferate even in species
in which honest signalling of viability prevails. Under this scenario, different males could invest a different amount of
resources per ornament unit of expression, thus using different signalling rules. We studied the relationship between tail
feather length (a trait that is the subject of a female mate preference) and feather mass (a measure of investment in feather
production) in a barn swallow Hirundo rustica population. Different males used different and consistent signalling rules when developing ornamental feathers. That is,
to produce a feather of a given length, each male used a constant amount of resources across different years, but this amount
varied between males. Although the amount of material invested in feathers (feather mass) is a condition-dependent trait,
the organization of this material in ornamental feathers (i.e. the signalling rules) was not. Neither survival nor risk of
feather breakage was related to the signalling rules. Thus, these results suggest that both ‘viability’ and ‘runaway’ mechanisms
are independent determinants of the evolution of ornamental sexual feathers in the barn swallow. A preference for long tails
will ensure that females either obtain a sire with high viability, or one transferring the capability to produce longer and
more attractive tails at a lower cost of production to its offspring. 相似文献
3.
Alan C. Love 《Biology & philosophy》2007,22(5):691-708
“Functional homology” appears regularly in different areas of biological research and yet it is apparently a contradiction
in terms—homology concerns identity of structure regardless of form and function. I argue that despite this conceptual tension
there is a legitimate conception of ‘homology of function’, which can be recovered by utilizing a distinction from pre-Darwinian
physiology (use versus activity) to identify an appropriate meaning of ‘function’. This account is directly applicable to
molecular developmental biology and shares a connection to the theme of hierarchy in homology. I situate ‘homology of function’
within existing definitions and criteria for structural assessments of homology, and introduce a criterion of ‘organization’
for judging function homologues, which focuses on hierarchically interconnected interdependencies (similar to relative position
and connection for skeletal elements in structural homology). This analysis of biological concepts has at least three broad
philosophical consequences: (1) it provides the grounds for the study of behavior and psychological categories as homologues;
(2) it demonstrates that philosophers who take selected effect function as primary effectively ignore large portions of comparative,
structural, and experimental research, thereby misconstruing biological reasoning and knowledge; and, (3) it underwrites causal
generalizations, which illuminates inferences made from model organisms in experimental biology.
相似文献
Alan C. LoveEmail: |
4.
Infestations with ectoparasitic poultry red mites (Dermanyssus gallinae) pose an increasing threat to poultry health and welfare. Because of resistance to acaricides and higher scrutiny of poultry
products, alternative and environmentally safe management strategies are warranted. Therefore, we investigated how volatile
cues shape the behavior of D. gallinae and how this knowledge may be exploited in the development of an attract-and-kill method to control mite populations. A Y-tube
olfactometer bio-assay was used to evaluate choices of mites in response to cues related to conspecific mites as well as related
to their chicken host. Both recently fed and starved mites showed a strong preference (84 and 85%, respectively) for volatiles
from conspecific, fed mites as compared to a control stream of clean air. Mites were also significantly attracted to ‘aged
feathers’ (that had remained in the litter for 3–4 days), but not to ‘fresh feathers’. Interestingly, an air stream containing
2.5% CO2, which mimics the natural concentration in air exhaled by chickens, did attract fed mites, but inhibited the attraction of
unfed mites towards volatiles from aged feathers. We conclude that both mite-related cues (aggregation pheromones) and host-related
cues (kairomones) mediate the behavior of the poultry mite. We discuss the options to exploit this knowledge as the ‘attract’
component of attract-and-kill strategies for the control of D. gallinae. 相似文献
5.
Marc Ereshefsky 《Biology & philosophy》2010,25(4):553-568
This paper examines the species problem in microbiology and its implications for the species problem more generally. Given
the different meanings of ‘species’ in microbiology, the use of ‘species’ in biology is more multifarious and problematic
than commonly recognized. So much so, that recent work in microbial systematics casts doubt on the existence of a prokaryote
species category in nature. It also casts doubt on the existence of a general species category for all of life (one that includes
both prokaryotes and eukaryotes). Prokaryote biology also undermines recent attempts to save the species category, such as
the suggestion that species are metapopulation lineages and the idea that ‘species’ is a family resemblance concept. 相似文献
6.
7.
Ecology is being introduced to Evolutionary Developmental Biology to enhance organism-, population-, species-, and higher-taxon-level
studies. This exciting, bourgeoning troika will revolutionise how investigators consider relationships among environment,
ontogeny, and phylogeny. Features are studied (and even defined) differently in ecology, development, and evolution. Form
is central to development and evolution but peripheral to ecology. Congruence (i.e., homology) is applied at different hierarchical
levels in the three disciplines. Function is central to ecology but peripheral to development. Herein, the supercategories
form (‘isomorphic’ or ‘allomorphic’), congruence (‘homologous’ or ‘homoplastic’), and function (‘adaptive’ or ‘nonadaptive’)
are combined with two developmental mode (i.e., growth) categories (‘conformational’ or ‘nonconformational’) to provide a
16-class system for analysing features in studies in which ecology, development, and evolution are integrated. 相似文献
8.
Dawn Sanders 《Kew Bulletin》2010,65(4):677-680
Professor Stephen Hopper has suggested that ‘possibly the most significant future challenge facing plant conservation is the
achievement of a global shift in value systems towards acceptance of the old cultural wisdom that humans are part of, not
separate from, nature’. Here I examine this challenge for contemporary humanity experiencing increasingly divergent ‘lifeworlds’
and ask if it is possible to be ‘all netted together’, and achieve cultural consilience in the face of increasing plant extinction.
The first part of the article explores a hybrid approach to botanical education, where ‘border crossings’ between ‘Pokémon’
and plant-based inquiry might facilitate 21st century urban children to engage more intimately with the living world. The
second part highlights how botanic gardens can facilitate expressions of lost botanical knowledge carried through human migration
from rural to urban contexts. The article ends with a discussion intended to provoke interdisciplinary discourse between botanical
science and botanical education, contextualised within the wider literature that examines the role of botanic gardens. 相似文献
9.
Psychological evidence suggests that laypeople understand the world around them in terms of intuitive ontologies which describe
broad categories of objects in the world, such as ‘person’, ‘artefact’ and ‘animal’. However, because intuitive ontologies
are the result of natural selection, they only need to be adaptive; this does not guarantee that the knowledge they provide
is a genuine reflection of causal mechanisms in the world. As a result, science has parted ways with intuitive ontologies.
Nevertheless, since the brain is evolved to understand objects in the world according to these categories, we can expect that
they continue to play a role in scientific understanding. Taking the case of human evolution, we explore relationships between
intuitive ontological and scientific understanding. We show that intuitive ontologies not only shape intuitions on human evolution,
but also guide the direction and topics of interest in its research programmes. Elucidating the relationships between intuitive
ontologies and science may help us gain a clearer insight into scientific understanding. 相似文献
10.
Mary Beth Mader 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2010,7(2):187-203
The paper treats several ontological questions about certain nineteenth-century and contemporary medical and scientific conceptualizations
of hereditary relation. In particular, it considers the account of mid-nineteenth century psychiatric thought given by Foucault
in Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1973–1974 and Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974–1975. There, Foucault argues that a fantastical conceptual prop, the ‘metabody,’ as he terms it, was implicitly supposed by that
period’s psychiatric medicine as a putative ground for psychiatric pathology. After presenting the heart of Foucault’s thought
on the ‘metabody,’ the paper investigates the possibility that a contemporary version of a ‘metabody’ may operate today as
a conceptual analog of the nineteenth-century psychiatric theory and practice that Foucault began to expose in the texts examined
here. It speculates that we might identify a contemporary genetic version of a ‘metabody’ in a particular current conception
of the gene as replicator, an item marked by an ambiguous temporal ontology. 相似文献
11.
Embracing comparative biology, natural history encompasses those sciences that discover, decipher and classify unique (idiographic)
details of landscapes, and extinct and extant biodiversity. Intrinsic to these multifarious roles in expanding and consolidating
research and knowledge, natural history endows keystone support to the veracity of law-like (nomothetic) generalizations in
science. What science knows about the natural world is governed by an inherent function of idiographic discovery; characteristic
of natural history, this relationship is exemplified wherever an idiographic discovery overturns established wisdom. This
nature of natural history explicates why inventories are of such epistemological importance. Unfortunately, a Denigration
of Natural History weakens contemporary science from within. It expresses in the prevalent, pervasive failure to appreciate
this pivotal role of idiographic research: a widespread disrespect for how natural history undergirds scientific knowledge.
Symptoms of this Denigration of Natural History present in negative impacts on scientific research and knowledge. One symptom
is the failure to appreciate and support the inventory and monitoring of biodiversity. Another resides in failures of scientiometrics
to quantify how taxonomic publications sustain and improve knowledge. Their relevance in contemporary science characteristically
persists and grows; so the temporal eminence of these idiographic publications extends over decades. This is because they
propagate a succession of derived scientific statements, findings and/or conclusions - inherently shorter-lived, nomothetic
publications. Widespread neglect of natural science collections is equally pernicious, allied with disregard for epistemological
functions of specimens, whose preservation maintains the veracity of knowledge. Last, but not least, the decline in taxonomic
expertise weakens research capacity; there are insufficient skills to study organismal diversity in all of its intricacies.
Beyond weakening research capacities and outputs across comparative biology, this Denigration of Natural History impacts on
the integrity of knowledge itself, undermining progress and pedagogy throughout science. Unprecedented advances in knowledge
are set to follow on consummate inventories of biodiversity, including the protists. These opportunities challenge us to survey
biodiversity representatively—detailing the natural history of species. Research strategies cannot continue to ignore arguments
for such an unprecedented investment in idiographic natural history. Idiographic shortcuts to general (nomothetic) insights
simply do not exist. The biodiversity sciences face a stark choice. No matter how charismatic its portrayed species, an incomplete
‘Brochure of Life’ cannot match the scientific integrity of the ‘Encyclopedia of Life’. 相似文献
12.
At some point in life’s development, membranes formed, providing barriers between the environment and the interior of the
‘cell.’ This paper evaluates the research to date on the prebiotic origin of cell membranes and highlights possible areas
of continuing study. A careful review of the literature uncovered unexpected factors that influence membrane evolution. The
major stages in primitive membrane formation and the transition to contemporary cell membranes appear to require an exacting
relationship between environmental conditions and amphiphile composition and phase behavior. Also, environmental and compositional
requirements for individual stages are in some instances incompatible with one another, potentially stultifying the pathway
to contemporary membranes. Previous studies in membrane evolution have noted the effects composition and environment have
on membrane formation but the crucial dependence and interdependence on these two factors has not been emphasized. This review
makes clear the need to focus future investigations away from proof-of-principle studies towards developing a better understanding
of the roles that environmental factors and lipid composition and polymorphic phase behavior played in the origin and evolution
of cell membranes. 相似文献
13.
14.
Jason A. Clark 《Biology & philosophy》2010,25(1):75-94
In the last 10 years, several authors including Griffiths and Matthen have employed classificatory principles from biology
to argue for a radical revision in the way that we individuate psychological traits. Arguing that the fundamental basis for
classification of traits in biology is that of ‘homology’ (similarity due to common descent) rather than ‘analogy’, or ‘shared
function’, and that psychological traits are a special case of biological traits, they maintain that psychological categories
should be individuated primarily by relations of homology rather than in terms of shared function. This poses a direct challenge
to the dominant philosophical view of how to define psychological categories, viz., ‘functionalism’. Although the implications
of this position extend to all psychological traits, the debate has centered around ‘emotion’ as an example of a psychological
category ripe for reinterpretation within this new framework of classification. I address arguments by Griffiths that emotions
should be divided into at least two distinct classes, basic emotions and higher cognitive emotions, and that these two classes
require radically different theories to explain them. Griffiths argues that while basic emotions in humans are homologous
to the corresponding states in other animals, higher cognitive emotions are dependent on mental capacities unique to humans,
and are therefore not homologous to basic emotions. Using the example of shame, I argue that (a) many emotions that are commonly
classified as being higher cognitive emotions actually correspond to certain basic emotions, and that (b) the “higher cognitive
forms” of these emotions are best seen as being homologous to their basic forms. 相似文献
15.
Retrotransposon characterisation and fingerprinting of apple clones by S-SAP markers 总被引:4,自引:0,他引:4
Venturi S Dondini L Donini P Sansavini S 《TAG. Theoretical and applied genetics. Theoretische und angewandte Genetik》2006,112(3):440-444
Retrotransposons have been found to comprise the most common class of transposable elements in eukaryotes and to occur in
high copy number in plant genomes. Several of these elements have been sequenced and were found to display a high degree of
heterogeneity and insertional polymorphism, both within and between species. The dispersion, ubiquity and prevalence of retrotransposons
in plant genomes provide an excellent basis for the development of marker systems and, hence, may be good molecular candidates
in distinguishing among apple clones, when they represent bud mutations of the original variety, considering that the random
amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) used thus
far in fingerprinting analyses have failed to meet discrimination expectations. The technique called sequence-specific amplified
polymorphism (S-SAP), which makes it possible to identify dominant markers for the detection of variation in the DNA flanking
the retrotransposon insertion site, was used in the present study to distinguish several clones of the cultivars ‘Gala’ and
‘Braeburn’ in apple fingerprinting. Moreover, our results suggest that the bud mutations, which have generated new patented
varieties of ‘Gala’ and ‘Braeburn’, appear to derive from retrotransposon insertion. 相似文献
16.
Mike H. Jurke 《Primates; journal of primatology》1996,37(1):109-119
The fate of most nonhuman primate species is intimately related to man. The increasing encroachment on the natural habitat
has resulted in the decimation and even near extinction of some species. Along with this development, the basic concept in
many modern zoos has changed from one of merely display to self-perpetuating units. Primate research facilities are orienting
their research programs towards reproductive physiology and behavior in an effort to provide basic knowledge of reproduction
in these species. This increased emphasis in the area of reproductive biology and the various efforts to improve breeding
of these mostly endangered primates in captivity has stimulated the author to write this review. It represents an attempt
to provide the reader with basic background information relating to the endocrinology and behavior of reproduction in the
clawed New World monkeys as it exists at the time of publication.
The intermediate evolutionary position ofCallimico goeldii between the clawed New World monkeys and the ‘true New World monkeys’ and our relatively poor knowledge about reproduction
and behavior in this particular species fully justifies the focus on Goeldi’s monkey in this essay. This review is an attempt
to provide a brief history of previous studies but also the basis for research in the future. The current status of knowledge
of the small-bodied clawed monkeys is also discussed in an evolutionary context, with an emphasis on the different reproductive
strategies in this dynamic group of primates.
The outcome, not surprisingly, confirms the unique position ofCallimico goeldii in its social, ecological, and evolutionary environment. 相似文献
17.
Ying Li Yuping Song Gongjun Shi Jianjun Wang Xilin Hou 《Acta Physiologiae Plantarum》2009,31(1):155-162
Changes in ascorbic acid content and antioxidant enzyme activities were investigated in non-heading Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris ssp. chinensis Makino) leaves of ‘Wutacai’ and ‘Erqing’ exposed to excess copper (Cu). Cu treatment reduced the fresh weight of shoot and
root by 57% and 46% in ‘Wutacai’, and 60 and 54% in ‘Erqing’, respectively. The accumulation of copper in leaves was higher
in ‘Wutacai’ than that in ‘Erqing’. Compared to the control, ascorbic acid (AsA) contents were significantly decreased after
copper treatment in both cultivars, while they were higher in ‘Wutacai’ than in ‘Erqing’, which may explain the higher copper-tolerance
of ‘Wutacai’ with higher copper accumulation. The higher AsA contents of ‘Wutacai’ resulted from their lower activities of
degrading enzymes, such as ascorbate oxydase (AAO) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX), as well as the increasing activity of dehydroascorbate
reductase (DHAR) after copper treatment compared with ‘Erqing’. Copper stimulated superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in both
cultivars, but for catalase (CAT), there was little difference between both cultivars. Peroxidases (POD) activity was decreased
after copper treatment in ‘Erqing’, while in ‘Wutacai’, it was significantly increased at 14 days, and POD activity was higher
in ‘Wutacai’ than that in ‘Erqing’ at 21 and 28 days. Therefore, the induced increasing activity of POD in ‘Wutacai’ also
played an important role in its copper tolerance. 相似文献
18.
Nice Edouard Catimel Bruno Lackmann Martin Stacker Steven Runting Andrew Wilks Andrew Nicola Nicos Burgess Antony 《International journal of peptide research and therapeutics》1997,4(2):107-120
Summary The isolation of related genes with evolutionary conserved motifs by the application of polymerase chain reaction-based molecular
biology techniques, or from database searching strategies, has facilitated the identification of new members of protein families.
Many of these protein molecules will be involved in protein-protein interactions (e.g. growth factors, receptors, adhesion
molecules), since such interactions are intrinsic to virtually every cellular process. However, the precise biological function
and specific binding partners of these novel proteins are frequently unknown, hence they are known as ‘orphan’ molecules.
Complementary technologies are required for the identification of the specific ligands or receptors for these and other orphan
proteins (e.g., antibodies raised against crude biological extracts or whole cells). We describe herein several alternative
strategies for the identification, purification and characterisation of orphan peptide and protein molecules, specifically
the synergistic use of micropreparative HPLC and biosensor techniques.
These authors made equivalent contributions. 相似文献
19.
A. J. Lustig 《Theorie in den Biowissenschaften》2002,121(3):252-259
Summary In the late nineteenth century, two German evolutionary biologists, Ernst Haeckel and Erich Wasmann, argued publicly about
how to apply evolutionary biology and where its explanatory limits, if any, lay. The German Jesuit evolutionist entomologist
Wasmann’s (1859–1931) faith and Jesuit philosophical training intersected to reconcile evolution and Catholicism by delineating
the philosophical limits of science: Wasmann demarcated a material and historical world, which science can describe, and the
realm of subjective experience and the soul, which it cannot. Wasmann’s evolution contrasted (and conflicted) strongly with
contemporary German atheistic and anticlerical monistic evolutionary biology. This paper discusses Wasmann’s very public debates
with monism’s prophet, Ernst Haeckel. 相似文献
20.
Frode Kjosavik 《Biology & philosophy》2007,22(3):333-349
‘Information’ and ‘code’ originated as technical terms within linguistics and information theory but are now widely used in
genetics and developmental biology. Against this background, it is examined if coded information distinguishes genes from
other information carriers, i.e., whether there are genetic words or sentences by virtue of the genetic code, and, if so,
whether they have any semantic content. It is concluded that there is no genetic language with semantic content, but that
the genetic code still enables unique language-like modes of transmission and interpretation of causal information. 相似文献