Evolutionary ethics from Darwin to Moore

Evolutionary ethics has a long history, dating all the way back to Charles Darwin. Almost immediately after the publication of the Origin, an immense interest arose in the moral implications of Darwinism and whether the truth of Darwinism would undermine traditional ethics. Though the biological thesis was certainly exciting, nobody suspected that the impact of the Origin would be confined to the scientific arena. As one historian wrote, 'whether or not ancient populations of armadillos were transformed into the species that currently inhabit the new world was certainly a topic about which zoologists could disagree. But it was in discussing the broader implications of the theory...that tempers flared and statements were made which could transform what otherwise would have been a quiet scholarly meeting into a social scandal' (Farber 1994, 22). Some resistance to the biological thesis of Darwinism sprung from the thought that it was incompatible with traditional morality and, since one of them had to go, many thought that Darwinism should be rejected. However, some people did realize that a secular ethics was possible so, even if Darwinism did undermine traditional religious beliefs, it need not have any effects on moral thought. Before I begin my discussion of evolutionary ethics from Darwin to Moore, I would like to make some more general remarks about its development. There are three key events during this history of evolutionary ethics. First, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species (Darwin 1859). Since one did not have a fully developed theory of evolution until 1859, there exists little work on evolutionary ethics until then. Shortly thereafter, Herbert Spencer (1898) penned the first systematic theory of evolutionary ethics, which was promptly attacked by T.H. Huxley (Huxley 1894). Second, at about the turn of the century, moral philosophers entered the fray and attempted to demonstrate logical errors in Spencer's work; such errors were alluded to but never fully brought to the fore by Huxley. These philosophers were the well known moralists from Cambridge: Henry Sidgwick (Sidgwick 1902, 1907) and G.E. Moore (Moore 1903), though their ideas hearkened back to David Hume (Hume 1960). These criticisms were so strong that the industry of evolutionary ethics was largely abandoned (though with some exceptions) for many years. Third, E.O. Wilson, a Harvard entomologist, published Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975 (Wilson E.O. 1975), which sparked renewed interest in evolutionary ethics and offered new directions of investigation. These events suggest the following stages for the history of evolutionary ethics: development, criticism and abandonment, revival. In this paper, I shall focus on the first two stages, since those are the ones on which the philosophical merits have already been largely decided. The revival stage is still in progress and we shall eventually find out whether it was a success.     

The 24-hour society between myth and reality

The 24-hour society appears to be an ineluctable process towards a social organisation where time constraints are no more "restricting" the human life. But, what kind of 24-hour society do we need? At what costs? Are they acceptable/sustainable? Shift work, night work, irregular and flexible working hours, together with new technologies, are the milestone of this epochal passage, of which shift workers are builders and victims at the same time. The borders between working and social times are no more fixed and rigidly determined: not only the link between work place and working hours is broken, but also the value of working time changes according to the different economic/productive/social effects it can make. What are the advantages and disadvantages for the individual, the companies, and the society? What is the cost/benefit ratio in terms of physical health; psychological well-being, family and social life? The research on irregular working hours and health shows us what can be the negative consequences of non-human-centered working times organisations. Coping properly with this process means avoiding a passive acceptance of it with consequent maladjustments at both individual and social level, but adopting effective preventive and compensative strategies aimed at building a more sustainable society, at acceptable costs and with the highest possible benefits.     

Utopianism in the British evolutionary synthesis

In this paper I propose a new interpretation of the British evolutionary synthesis. The synthetic work of J. B. S. Haldane, R. A. Fisher and J. S. Huxley was characterized by both an integration of Mendelism and Darwinism and the unification of different biological subdisciplines within a coherent framework. But it must also be seen as a bold and synthetic Darwinian program in which the biosciences served as a utopian blueprint for the progress of civilization. Describing the futuristic visions of these three scientists in their synthetic heydays, I show that, despite a number of important divergences, their biopolitical ideals could be biased toward a controlled and regimented utopian society. Their common ideals entailed a social order where liberal and democratic principles were partially or totally suspended in favor of bioscientific control and planning for the future. Finally, I will argue that the original redefinition of Darwinism that modern synthesizers proposed is a significant historical example of how Darwinism has been used and adapted in different contexts. The lesson I draw from this account is a venerable one: that, whenever we wish to define Darwinism, we need to recognize not only its scientific content and achievements but expose the other traditions and ideologies it may have supported.     

Representation in life sciences (6). Cultural images of the body: Organism and flesh

In the social and historical plan, the ??body?? is not still a datum of evidence. This formulation with a dualist connotation does not appear in all the human societies, certain do not distinguish the man from his flesh. The body is rather a question than an answer, a misleading evidence which reveals a multitude of different representations which assign to it a position determined within the general symbolism of the society, dependent on a social status, on a vision of the world, and inside this last one on a definition of the person. The body is a changeable reality from a society to an other one?: the images which define it, the systems of knowledge which clarify its nature, the accomplished performances are strickingly diverse, contradictory. The body is a symbolic construction. It seems to be obvious, but nothing is more imperceptible.     

Anecdotal,Historical and Critical Commentaries on Genetics: Darwin and Darwinism: The (Alleged) Social Implications of The Origin of Species

Most scientific theories, even revolutionary ones, change the practice of a particular science but have few consequences for culture or society at large. But Darwinism, it has often been said, is different in this respect. Since the publication of The Origin of Species, many have claimed that Darwinism has a number of profound social implications. Here, I briefly consider three of these: the economic, the political, and the religious. I suggest that, for the most part, these supposed implications have been misconstrued or exaggerated. Indeed, it is reasonably clear that the chain of implication sometimes primarily ran in the opposite direction—from, for instance, economics and political theory to Darwinism.THE appearance of The Origin of Species launched one of the greatest, and most justly celebrated, revolutions in the history of science. But in the 150 years since the appearance of Darwin''s book, many scholars, scientists, and pundits have claimed that Darwinism did more than revolutionize biology. Darwinism, they claim, also had a number of social and cultural consequences: economic and political, medical, eugenic, educational, and religious. Some of these consequences are to be applauded and others regretted, but all, it is said, can be traced to important strands of thought in The Origin of Species. One of the ironies of modern history would thus seem to be that the close scientific study of pigeons, mockingbirds, and barnacles could have such consequences.But while the case for the scientific importance of Darwinism is incontestable, the case for its presumed social and cultural consequences is far more complex and, in places, dubious. Here I consider three of these supposed consequences: the economic, the political, and the religious. Because the economic and religious cases have been widely discussed, I focus on the political one. I should note that I am not an expert on economics, political theory, or religion, but a biologist. Perhaps fortunately, then, little that I have to say is new but reflects the efforts of many social scientists and historians. Because their ideas seem little known among biologists, they may be worth recounting here.     

Levels of selection and the formal Darwinism project

Understanding good design requires addressing the question of what units undergo natural selection, thereby becoming adapted. There is, therefore, a natural connection between the formal Darwinism project (which aims to connect population genetics with the evolution of design and fitness maximization) and levels of selection issues. We argue that the formal Darwinism project offers contradictory and confusing lines of thinking concerning level(s) of selection. The project favors multicellular organisms over both the lower (cell) and higher (social group) levels as the level of adaptation. Grafen offers four reasons for giving such special status to multicellular organisms: (1) they lack appreciable within-organism cell selection, (2) they have multiple features that appear contrived for the same purpose, (3) they possess a set of phenotypes, and (4) they leave offspring according to their phenotypes. We discuss why these rationales are not compelling and suggest that a more even-handed approach, in which multicellular organisms are not assumed to have special status, would be desirable for a project that aims to make progress on the foundations of evolutionary theory.     

The Lamarckian Cradle of Scientific Ecology

Historians of science generally consider that Darwinism has played an important part in the birth of scientific ecology. Now most 19th century seminal works of the new discipline have been elaborated within a Lamarckian framework. The source of this paradox lies in the double-content of the adaptation concept, considered as a static phenomenon by the ecologists and as a dynamic process by the evolutionists. Although closely related nowadays, as shown by modern evolutionary ecology, the problematics of the fields of research at issue were initially separated. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Pro- versus anti-inflammatory cytokines: myth or reality.

Inflammation is characterized by an interplay between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Cytokines are commonly classified in one or the other category: interleukin-1 (IL-1), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), gamma-interferon (IFN-gamma), IL-12, IL-18 and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor are well characterized as pro-inflammatory cytokines whereas IL4, IL-10, IL-13, IFN-alpha and transforming growth factor-beta are recognized as anti-inflammatory cytokines. In this review, we point out that this classification is far too simplistic and we provide numerous examples illustrating that a given cytokine may behave as a pro- as well as an anti-inflammatory cytokine. Indeed, the cytokine amount, the nature of the target cell, the nature of the activating signal, the nature of produced cytokines, the timing, the sequence of cytokine action and even the experimental model are parameters which greatly influence cytokine properties.     

Group adaptation, formal darwinism and contextual analysis

We consider the question: under what circumstances can the concept of adaptation be applied to groups, rather than individuals? Gardner and Grafen (2009, J. Evol. Biol. 22 : 659–671) develop a novel approach to this question, building on Grafen's ‘formal Darwinism’ project, which defines adaptation in terms of links between evolutionary dynamics and optimization. They conclude that only clonal groups, and to a lesser extent groups in which reproductive competition is repressed, can be considered as adaptive units. We re‐examine the conditions under which the selection–optimization links hold at the group level. We focus on an important distinction between two ways of understanding the links, which have different implications regarding group adaptationism. We show how the formal Darwinism approach can be reconciled with G.C. Williams’ famous analysis of group adaptation, and we consider the relationships between group adaptation, the Price equation approach to multi‐level selection, and the alternative approach based on contextual analysis.     

A Man of His Time: Thorstein Veblen and the University of Chicago Darwinists

The Darwinian economic theory that Thorstein Veblen proposed and refined while he served as a professor of Political Economy at the University of Chicago from 1891 to 1906 should be assessed in the context of the community of Darwinian scientists and social scientists with whom Veblen worked and lived at Chicago. It is important to identify Veblen as a member of this broad community of Darwinian-inclined philosophers, physiologists, geologists, astronomers, and biologists at Chicago because Veblen’s involvement with this circle suggests that the possible sources of his engagement with Darwinism extend beyond the pragmatists and Continental socialists to whom scholars have typically ascribed Veblen’s Darwinian roots. Additionally, that an extensive community continued to use Darwinian evolutionary theory to construct new models of scientific and social scientific analysis at the turn of the twentieth century, a period during which Darwinism was purportedly in decline, suggests that the “eclipse of Darwinism” narrative has been overstated in literature about Darwinism’s intellectual arc.     

Mexican Americans as a paradigm for contemporary intra-group heterogeneity

Abstract

Racialization and assimilation offer alternative perspectives on the position of immigrant-origin populations in American society. We question the adequacy of either perspective alone in the early twenty-first century, taking Mexican Americans as our case in point. Re-analysing the child sample of the Mexican American Study Project, we uncover substantial heterogeneity marked by vulnerability to racialization at one end but proximity to the mainstream at the other. This heterogeneity reflects important variations in how education, intermarriage, mixed ancestry and geographic mobility have intersected for Mexican immigrants and their descendants over the twentieth century, and in turn shaped their ethnic identity. Finally, based on US census findings, we give reason to think that internal heterogeneity is increasing in the twenty-first century. Together, these findings suggest that future studies of immigrant adaptation in America must do a better job of accounting for heterogeneity, not just between but also within immigrant-origin populations.     

Mort ou persistance du darwinisme ? Regard d’un épistémologue

The article examines why evolutionary biologists have been haunted by the question whether they are “Darwinian” or “non-Darwinian” ever since Darwin's Origin of species. Modern criticisms addressed to Darwinism are classified into two categories: those concerning Darwin's hypothesis of “descent with modification” and those addressed to the hypothesis of natural selection. In both cases, although the particular models that Darwin proposed for these two hypotheses have been significantly revised and expanded, Darwin's general framework has constrained and canalized evolutionary research, in the sense that it has settled an array of possible theoretical choices. Gould's changing attitudes regarding Darwinism is taken as a striking illustration of this interpretation.     

The myth of dorsal ribs in gnathostome vertebrates

Traditionally, two types of rib are distinguished in gnathostomes: dorsal (upper) and ventral (lower, pleural) ribs. They are defined according to their position in the connective tissue system of the body: dorsal ribs develop at the intersection of the serially arranged myosepta with the horizontal septum that separates epaxial from hypaxial musculature, whereas ventral ribs develop at the intersection of myosepta with the peritoneum and usually encircle the body cavity. Distribution of rib types among gnathostomes has traditionally been reported as follows: elasmobranchs have dorsal ribs; all Actinopterygii have only ventral ribs with the exception of polypterids, and two subgroups of teleosts, which supposedly also have dorsal ribs; within Sarcopterygii tetrapods have dorsal ribs, whereas dipnoans have ventral ribs. Here, we report the development of ribs in polypterids, a taxon playing a crucial role in discussions on rib homology. We demonstrate that putative dorsal ribs of polypterids have a unique ontogeny and represent an autapomorphy of this taxon. We discuss previous hypotheses of rib homology and offer a more plausible (i.e. more parsimonious) alternative to the conventional interpretation. We conclude that dorsal ribs do not exist and that ribs of gnathostomes are ventral ribs.     

What makes us human? Answers from evolutionary anthropology

Today, scholars from numerous and highly diverse fields are not only addressing the question of what makes us human, but also seeking input from other disciplines to inform their answers to this fundamental issue. However, for the most part, evolutionary anthropologists are not particularly prominent in this discussion, or at least not acknowledged to be. Why is this the case? One reason may be that although evolutionary anthropologists are uniquely positioned to provide valuable insight on this subject, the responses from any one of us are likely to be as different as the research specializations and intellectual experiences that we bring to the table. Indeed, one would anticipate that a paleoanthropologist would not only have different views than a primatologist, geneticist, or behavioral ecologist, but from other paleoanthropologists as well. Yet if asked by a theologian, psychologist, or political scientist, and perhaps most importantly, by any curious person outside the walls of academia, do we have a response that most evolutionary anthropologists could agree on as reflecting our contributions to the understanding of being and becoming human? Our introductory textbooks usually begin with this fundamental question, yet seldom produce a concise answer. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Soil biodiversity: myth,reality or conning?

The study of soil microarthropod biodiversity is illustrative of problems that are related to other soil organisms (fungi, for instance) or that can be found in other environments (canopy, oceanic sediments, hosts accommodating parasites, etc.). Indeed, the contribution of the soil fauna to global biodiversity remains an enigma even though, in recent years, it has received considerable attention. Our contention is that the debate on soil biodiversity will remain open – and even sterile – as long as adequate sampling methodologies are not set up, critically evaluated and largely used.
First, a critical review of the sampling strategies used for soil microarthropods is presented. In addition to an extensive compilation of publications on extraction method efficiency, articles from two journals devoted to soil biology are compared for two five-year periods (before and after Erwin's papers and before and after Rio). The most frequently used extraction methods (over 90% of studies) have a poor numerical efficiency (e.g. 7–26% for the Berlese-Tullgren funnels) and also are selective with respect to their efficiency for certain taxa (variable taxonomic and functional efficiency), 75% of studies are restricted to the upper 10 cm of soil and therefore overlook largely the microarthropod populations, some groups are often neglected, however diversified they are, and the taxonomic resolution tends to become impoverished in recent years.
In the second part of our study, the importance of bias induced by inadequate or restricted sampling strategies on biodiversity estimates is evaluated: densities are dramatically underestimated (down to 14 times less); conversely species aggregation, a factor advocated to explain the existence of numerous soil species, is overestimated; some functional groups may be quite overlooked; the species distribution along a gradient deduced from the sampling may be rather different from that really existing in the soil and interfere with the evaluation of β-diversity; species richness is often crudely underestimated (down to 50%).
Overall, at most 10% of soil microarthropod populations have been explored and 10% of species described. Obviously, much has still to be done to evaluate soil microarthropod biodiversity and afortiori understand the mechanisms underlying it. Improving and renewing the soil sampling strategy is thus a prerequisite to any real advance in our knowledge of this fascinating and obscure domain.     

Darwin,Veblen and the problem of causality in economics

This article discusses some of the ways in which Darwinism has influenced a small minority of economists. It is argued that Darwinism involves a philosophical as well as a theoretical doctrine. Despite claims to the contrary, the uses of analogies to Darwinian natural selection theory are highly limited in economics. Exceptions include Thorstein Veblen, Richard Nelson, and Sidney Winter. At the philosophical level, one of the key features of Darwinism is its notion of detailed understanding in terms of chains of cause and effect. This issue is discussed in the context of the problem of causality in social theory. At least in Darwinian terms, the prevailing causal dualism--of intentional and mechanical causality--in the social sciences is found wanting. Once again, Veblen was the first economist to understand the implications for economics of Darwinism at this philosophical level. For Veblen, it was related to his notion of 'cumulative causation'. The article concludes with a discussion of the problems and potential of this Veblenian position.     

Ethology, Natural History, the Life Sciences, and the Problem of Place

Investigators of animal behavior since the eighteenth century have sought to make their work integral to the enterprises of natural history and/or the life sciences. In their efforts to do so, they have frequently based their claims of authority on the advantages offered by the special places where they have conducted their research. The zoo, the laboratory, and the field have been major settings for animal behavior studies. The issue of the relative advantages of these different sites has been a persistent one in the history of animal behavior studies up to and including the work of the ethologists of the twentieth century. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Les débuts du placement familial des aliénés en france et la visite du docteur paetz. parcours croisés dvns la psychiatrie du xixéme siècle

During the second hall oi the nineteenth century hardly any other issue in European psychiatry has been discussed as controversially and aggressively as the question of the asylum. In these debates over mote than hall a century, a central topic which had been discussed again and again, was the placing of “mad people”, psychiatric patients, into ordinary families For both, German and Trench psychiatrists, a little Belgian town served as the model of the so-called “family care”. Gheel, the Flemish “colony of the mad”, existed because oi a pilgrimage dating back to the medieval ages. In the last decade of the 19th century family care has been introduced m Central France Psychiatrist Albrecht Pactz of Alt-scherbitz, Saxony, was one of the German experts on the issue, although he dedicated himself more to what was called “colonie agricole”, the integration of panents into agricultural work. This article portrays Paetz’ visit to Central France in 1899; and contextuailizes his travel report published in Germanin the following. by highlighting some ol the differences and similarities in the history of family care in France and Germany.     

The sight of the peacock’s tail makes me sick: The early arguments on sexual selection

Why does a peacock have a beautiful train, while a peahen is sober without such flamboyance? Darwin proposed the theory of sexual selection to explain the differences between the sexes of the same species. Recently the study of sexual selection has been one of the most flourishing areas in evolutionary biology. However, the theory met with great resistance from biologists since the publication of the idea and the history of the theory included a lot of misunderstanding and confusion. There are several reasons for this. First, classical Darwinism failed to recognize social competition as an important selective force. Second, the good-for-the-species argument, which persisted in the days after Darwin, made the sexual selection argument more difficult to understand. Compared to the discussions on animals, Darwin’s argument on human sex differences is not satisfactory. The reason probably lies in the debate over human racial differences which prevailed in the 19th century.     

Epistemology, necessity, and evolution: a critical review of Michael Ruse��s Philosophy After Darwin

Michael Ruse??s new anthology Philosophy After Darwin provides great history and background in the major impacts Darwinism has had on philosophy, especially in ethics and epistemology. This review focuses on epistemology understood through the lens of evolution by natural selection. I focus on one of Ruse??s own articles in the collection, which responds to two classic articles by Konrad Lorenz and David Hull on the two major forms of evolutionary epistemology. I side with Ruse against Lorenz??s account of the necessity we think our principles of reasoning have, though I disagree with Ruse??s particular example. I also argue that Ruse??s alternative explanation is lacking. Against Hull, I side with Ruse in his doubts that a sociobiological approach to science will prove fruitful, though I point out that it has certain advantages other approaches do not have. Although I side with Ruse on the issue, I conclude that the two views do not really come into direct conflict and so one needs not reject either. Finally, I discuss Ruse??s positive view and raise questions for his conception of evolutionary epistemology. I conclude that his arguments are insufficient to overcome opposing views and his view has at least as many unintuitive conclusions as the alternatives.