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1.
Debates over adaptationism can be clarified and partially resolved by careful consideration of the ‘grain’ at which evolutionary
processes are described. The framework of ‘adaptive landscapes’ can be used to illustrate and facilitate this investigation.
We argue that natural selection may have special status at an intermediate grain of analysis of evolutionary processes. The
cases of sickle-cell disease and genomic imprinting are used as case studies.
相似文献
Peter Godfrey-SmithEmail: |
2.
T. Ryan Gregory 《Evolution》2009,2(1):5-27
It is clear from his published works that Charles Darwin considered domestication to be very useful in exploring and explaining
mechanisms of evolutionary change. Not only did domestication occupy the introductory chapter of On the Origin of Species, but he revisited the topic in a two-volume treatise less than a decade later. In addition to drawing much of his information
about heredity from studies of domesticated animals and plants, Darwin saw important parallels between the process of artificial
selection by humans and natural selection by the environment. There was resistance to this analogy even among Darwin’s contemporary
supporters when it was proposed, and there also has been disagreement among historians and philosophers regarding the role
that the analogy with artificial selection actually played in the discovery of natural selection. Regardless of these issues,
the analogy between artificial and natural selection remains important in both research and education in evolution. In particular,
the present article reviews ten lessons about evolution that can be drawn from the modern understanding of domestication and
artificial selection. In the process, a basic overview is provided of current approaches and knowledge in this rapidly advancing
field.
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T. Ryan GregoryEmail: |
3.
T. Ryan Gregory 《Evolution》2008,1(2):121-137
Charles Darwin sketched his first evolutionary tree in 1837, and trees have remained a central metaphor in evolutionary biology
up to the present. Today, phylogenetics—the science of constructing and evaluating hypotheses about historical patterns of
descent in the form of evolutionary trees—has become pervasive within and increasingly outside evolutionary biology. Fostering
skills in “tree thinking” is therefore a critical component of biological education. Conversely, misconceptions about evolutionary
trees can be very detrimental to one’s understanding of the patterns and processes that have occurred in the history of life.
This paper provides a basic introduction to evolutionary trees, including some guidelines for how and how not to read them.
Ten of the most common misconceptions about evolutionary trees and their implications for understanding evolution are addressed.
相似文献
T. Ryan GregoryEmail: |
4.
Anya Plutynski 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(5):605-623
The discussion of the adaptive landscape in the philosophical literature appears to be divided along the following lines.
On the one hand, some claim that the adaptive landscape is either “uninterpretable” or incoherent. On the other hand, some
argue that the adaptive landscape has been an important heuristic, or tool in the service of explaining, as well as proposing
and testing hypotheses about evolutionary change. This paper attempts to reconcile these two views.
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Anya PlutynskiEmail: |
5.
Roger Sansom 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(4):441-459
One current version of the internalism/externalism debate in evolutionary theory focuses on the relative importance of developmental
constraints in evolutionary explanation. The received view of developmental constraints sees them as an internalist concept
that tend to be shared across related species as opposed to selective pressures that are not. Thus, to the extent that constraints
can explain anything, they can better explain similarity across species, while natural selection is better able to explain
their differences. I challenge both of these aspects of the received view and propose a hierarchical view of constraints.
相似文献
Roger SansomEmail: |
6.
Patrick Forber 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(2):247-266
Evolutionary biology, indeed any science that attempts to reconstruct prehistory, faces practical limitations on available
data. These limitations create the problem of contrast failure: specific observations may fail to discriminate between rival evolutionary hypotheses. Assessing the risk of contrast failure
provides a way to evaluate testing protocols in evolutionary science. Here I will argue that part of the methodological critique
in the Spandrels paper involves diagnosing contrast failure problems. I then distinguish the problem of contrast failure from the more familiar
philosophical problem of underdetermination, and demonstrate how contrast failure arises in scientific practice with an investigation
into Lewontin and White’s (Evolution 14:116–129, 1960) estimation of an adaptive landscape.
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Patrick ForberEmail: |
7.
Claes Andersson 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(2):229-242
Human knowledge is a phenomenon whose roots extend from the cultural, through the neural and the biological and finally all
the way down into the Precambrian “primordial soup.” The present paper reports an attempt at understanding this Greater System
of Knowledge (GSK) as a hierarchical nested set of selection processes acting concurrently on several different scales of
time and space. To this end, a general selection theory extending mainly from the work of Hull and Campbell is introduced.
The perhaps most drastic change from previous similar theories is that replication is revealed as a composite function consisting
of what is referred to as memory and synthesis. This move is argued to drastically improve the fit between theory and human-related knowledge systems. The introduced theory
is then used to interpret the subsystems of the GSK and their interrelations. This is done to the end of demonstrating some
of the new perspectives offered by this view.
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Claes AnderssonEmail: |
8.
Brett Calcott 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(5):639-657
According to Pigliucci and Kaplan, there is a revolution underway in how we understand fitness landscapes. Recent models suggest
that a perennial problem in these landscapes—how to get from one peak across a fitness valley to another peak—is, in fact,
non-existent. In this paper I assess the structure and the extent of Pigliucci and Kaplan’s proposed revolution and argue
for two points. First, I provide an alternative interpretation of what underwrites this revolution, motivated by some recent
work on model-based science. Second, I show that the implications of this revolution need to carefully assessed depending on question being asked,
for peak-shifting is not central to all evolutionary questions that fitness landscapes have been used to explore.
相似文献
Brett CalcottEmail: |
9.
Abhijeet Bardapurkar 《Evolution》2008,1(3):299-305
This paper critically reviews and characterizes the student's causal-explanatory understanding; this is done as a step toward
explicating the problematic of evolution education as it concerns the cognitive difficulties in understanding Darwin's theory of natural selection. The review concludes that the student's understanding is fundamentally different from Darwin's, for
the student understands evolutionary change as necessary individual transformation caused by the transformative action of
various physical and behavioral factors. This is in complete contrast to Darwin's (and even the Darwinian's, for that matter)
understanding of evolutionary change as a change caused by accumulative selection. Hence, to understand natural selection,
the student has to learn to “see” how the accumulative selection causes evolutionary change.
相似文献
Abhijeet BardapurkarEmail: |
10.
Does Investment in the Sexes Differ When Fathers Are Absent? 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
Mhairi A. Gibson 《Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)》2008,19(3):263-276
This study examines child survival and growth in a patrilineal Ethiopian community as a function of father absence and sex.
In line with evolutionary predictions for sex-biased parental investment, the absence of a father and associated constraints
on household resources is more detrimental for sons’ than daughters’ survival in infancy. Father absence doubles a son’s risk
of dying in infancy but has a positive influence on the well-being of female members of the household, improving daughter
survival, growth, and maternal nutritional status. Lack of paternal investment may be compensated for by other matrilateral
kin through increased reciprocity between mother, daughter, and sister.
相似文献
Mhairi A. GibsonEmail: |
11.
T. Ryan Gregory 《Evolution》2008,1(3):259-273
The occurrence, generality, and causes of large-scale evolutionary trends—directional changes over long periods of time—have
been the subject of intensive study and debate in evolutionary science. Large-scale patterns in the history of life have also
been of considerable interest to nonspecialists, although misinterpretations and misunderstandings of this important issue
are common and can have significant implications for an overall understanding of evolution. This paper provides an overview
of how trends are identified, categorized, and explained in evolutionary biology. Rather than reviewing any particular trend
in detail, the intent is to provide a framework for understanding large-scale evolutionary patterns in general and to highlight
the fact that both the patterns and their underlying causes are usually quite complex.
相似文献
T. Ryan GregoryEmail: |
12.
Gillian Barker 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(1):1-25
Two critiques of simple adaptationism are distinguished: anti-adaptationism and extended adaptationism. Adaptationists and
anti-adaptationists share the presumption that an evolutionary explanation should identify the dominant simple cause of the
evolutionary outcome to be explained. A consideration of extended-adaptationist models such as coevolution, niche construction
and extended phenotypes reveals the inappropriateness of this presumption in explaining the evolution of certain important
kinds of features—those that play particular roles in the regulation of organic processes, especially behavior. These biological
or behavioral ‘levers’ are distinctively available for adaptation and exaptation by their possessors and for co-optation by
other organisms. As a result they are likely to result from a distinctive and complex type of evolutionary process that conforms
neither to simple adaptationist nor to anti-adaptationist styles of explanation. Many of the human features whose evolutionary
explanation is most controversial belong to this category, including the female orgasm.
相似文献
Gillian BarkerEmail: |
13.
Adam M. Goldstein 《Evolution》2009,2(3):548-559
A weblog (“blog”) is an publication on the WorldWideWeb in which brief entries are displayed in date order, much like a diary
or journal. I describe the general characteristics of blogs, contrasting blogs with other of WWW formats for self-publishing.
I describe four categories for blogs about evolutionary biology: “professional,” “amateur,” “apostolic,” and “imaginative.”
I also discuss blog networks. I identify paradigms of each category. Throughout, I aim to illuminate blogs about evolutionary
biology from the point of view of a user looking for information about the topic. I conclude that blogs are not the best type
of source for systematic and authoritative information about evolution, and that they are best used by the information-seeker
as a way of identifying what issues are of interest in the community of evolutionists and for generating research leads or
fresh insights on one’s own work.
相似文献
Adam M. GoldsteinEmail: |
14.
Peter Godfrey-Smith 《Biology & philosophy》2007,22(3):429-437
Jablonka and Lamb's claim that evolutionary biology is undergoing a ‘revolution’ is queried. But the very concept of revolutionary
change has uncertain application to a field organized in the manner of contemporary biology. The explanatory primacy of sequence
properties is also discussed.
相似文献
Peter Godfrey-SmithEmail: |
15.
T. Ryan Gregory 《Evolution》2009,2(2):156-175
Natural selection is one of the central mechanisms of evolutionary change and is the process responsible for the evolution
of adaptive features. Without a working knowledge of natural selection, it is impossible to understand how or why living things
have come to exhibit their diversity and complexity. An understanding of natural selection also is becoming increasingly relevant
in practical contexts, including medicine, agriculture, and resource management. Unfortunately, studies indicate that natural
selection is generally very poorly understood, even among many individuals with postsecondary biological education. This paper
provides an overview of the basic process of natural selection, discusses the extent and possible causes of misunderstandings
of the process, and presents a review of the most common misconceptions that must be corrected before a functional understanding
of natural selection and adaptive evolution can be achieved.
相似文献
T. Ryan GregoryEmail: |
16.
Chris Haufe 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(1):115-128
The importance of mate choice and sexual selection has been emphasized by the majority of evolutionary psychologists. This
paper assesses three cases of work on mate choice and sexual selection in evolutionary psychology: David Buss on cross-cultural
human mate preferences, Randy Thornhill and Steve Gangestad on the link between mate preferences and fluctuating asymmetry,
and Geoffrey Miller on the role of Fisher’s runaway process in human evolution. A mixture of conceptual and empirical problems
in each case highlights the general weakness of work in evolutionary psychology on these issues.
相似文献
Chris HaufeEmail: |
17.
Smallholders and the ‘Household Responsibility System’: Adapting to Institutional Change in Chinese Agriculture 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
During the last quarter century, China’s agricultural sector has undergone a dramatic transformation from collective to private
production under the so-called “Household Responsibility System.” This incentive system, designed to increase yields, reallocated
communal land to peasant households, creating hundreds of millions of smallholders with relative autonomy over land use decisions
and crop selection. Based on recent ethnographic research, this paper discusses the smallholder farming system of a mixed-ethnic
community that intensively cultivates small land plots for subsistence and market exchange in China’s populous southwestern
province of Sichuan. The paper characterizes the smallholder system in terms of biodiversity of plant and animal species,
market distribution of crops, multiple cropping systems, and labor and technology inputs. The paper also describes how smallholders
adapt their agricultural practices and decisions to changing market conditions and agricultural policies. Significantly, these
adaptive strategies focus on shifting to the production of various cash crops, including melons and mangoes. Implications
for the long-term viability of China’s smallholders, particularly in ecologically and economically marginal areas, are also
discussed.
相似文献
Bryan TiltEmail: |
18.
Ingo Brigandt 《Biology & philosophy》2007,22(5):709-725
By linking the concepts of homology and morphological organization to evolvability, this paper attempts to (1) bridge the
gap between developmental and phylogenetic approaches to homology and to (2) show that developmental constraints and natural
selection are compatible and in fact complementary. I conceive of a homologue as a unit of morphological evolvability, i.e.,
as a part of an organism that can exhibit heritable phenotypic variation independently of the organism’s other homologues.
An account of homology therefore consists in explaining how an organism’s developmental constitution results in different
homologues/characters as units that can evolve independently of each other. The explanans of an account of homology is developmental,
yet the very explanandum is an evolutionary phenomenon: evolvability in a character-by-character fashion, which manifests
itself in phylogenetic patterns as recognized by phylogenetic approaches to homology. While developmental constraints and
selection have often been viewed as antagonistic forces, I argue that both are complementary as they concern different parts
of the evolutionary process. Developmental constraints, conceived of as the presence of the same set of homologues across
phenotypic change, pertain to how heritable variation can be generated in the first place (evolvability), while natural selection
operates subsequently on the produced variation.
相似文献
Ingo BrigandtEmail: |
19.
Alejandro Rosas 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(4):555-566
Recent developments in evolutionary game theory argue the superiority of punishment over reciprocity as accounts of large-scale
human cooperation. I introduce a distinction between a behavioral and a psychological perspective on reciprocity and punishment
to question this view. I examine a narrow and a wide version of a psychological mechanism for reciprocity and conclude that a narrow version is clearly distinguishable from punishment, but inadequate for
humans; whereas a wide version is applicable to humans but indistinguishable from punishment. The mechanism for reciprocity
in humans emerges as a meta-norm that governs both retaliation and punishment. I make predictions open to empirical investigation
to confirm or disconfirm this view.
相似文献
Alejandro RosasEmail: |
20.
Toward the end of the 1930s, Bernhard Rensch (1900–1990) turned from Lamarckism and orthogenesis to selectionism and became
one of the key figures in the making of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution (STE). He contributed to the Darwinization of biological
systematics, the criticism of various anti-Darwinian movements in the German lands, but more importantly founded a macroevolutionary
theory based on Darwinian gradualism. In the course of time, Rensch’s version of the STE developed into an all-embracing metaphysical
conception based on a kind of Spinozism. Here we approach Rensch’s “selectionist turn” by outlining its context, and by analyzing
his theoretical transformation. We try to reconstruct the immanent logic of Rensch’s evolution from a “Lamarckian Synthesis”
to a “Darwinian Synthesis”. We will pay close attention to his pre-Darwinian works, because this period has not been treated
in detail in English before. We demonstrate an astonishing continuity in topics, methodology, and empirical generalizations
despite the shift in Rensch’s views on evolutionary mechanisms. We argue that the continuity in Rensch’s theoretical system
can be explained, at last in part, by the guiding role of general methodological principles which underlie the entire system,
explicitly or implicitly. Specifically, we argue that Rensch’s philosophy became an asylum for the concept of orthogenesis
which Rensch banned from evolutionary theory. Unable to explain the directionality of evolution in terms of empirically based
science, he “pre-programmed” the occurrence of human-level intelligence by a sophisticated philosophy combined with a supposedly
naturalistic evolutionary biology.
相似文献
Georgy S. LevitEmail: |