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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.
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.
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Peter Godfrey-SmithEmail: |
3.
4.
Dialectical relations between professionals and volunteers in a biodiversity monitoring organisation
The paper presents a case study of the changes in organisational culture of volunteer biodiversity monitoring organisations
and is based on ethnographic research of Bird Watching and Bird Study Association of Slovenia (DOPPS). In the authors’ opinion,
the dynamics of organisation’s culture is influenced by the emerging opposition between professionalism on one side and voluntarism
on the other. It is explained that professionalism, though being a necessary developmental stage, may have a negative impact
on voluntarism and may result in the reduction of the initial altruistic sentiments among members and hence decrease their
willingness to participate. On the other hand, if an organisation depends entirely on volunteers, it may not survive and flourish
in a changing socio-political environment. The paper is intended to provide a feasible solution for successful development
of similar organisations facing constantly changing settings by erasing boundaries between categories of volunteers and professionals,
which mitigates the dialectic processes.
相似文献
Rajko MuršičEmail: |
5.
Peter Harries-Jones 《Biosemiotics》2009,2(2):193-204
The paper examines the sudden disappearance in the United States of millions of honeybees in managed bee colonies. The major
research undertaken in the U.S. concentrates on finding the pathogens responsible. This paper suggests an alternative avenue
of research a) that as a result of global warming there is a disjunction between bees pollinating cycles and the life cycle
of plants b) that understanding changes in “timing cycles” as a result of global warming is the key to understanding the disappearance
of the bees. It notes that Gregory Bateson argued that any condition of ecosystem collapse would be characterized first by
a collapse in its communicative order rather, than from changed physical states. The collapse of bee colonies and demise of
other pollinators is a seeming confirmation of Gregory Bateson argument. Honeybees are ‘go betweens’ in ecosystemic order.
It also argues that an appropriate topology of timing cycles and their recursions would enable better visual comprehension
of the heterarchical ‘pattern which connects’, in Bateson’s phrase, and prompt awareness of possible catastrophe in human
food supplies.
相似文献
Peter Harries-JonesEmail: |
6.
Tim Lewens 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(2):161-182
Godfrey-Smith (2001) has distinguished three types of adaptationism. This article builds on his analysis, and revises it in places, by distinguishing
seven varieties of adaptationism. This taxonomy allows us to clarify what is at stake in debates over adaptationism, and it
also helps to cement the importance of Gould and Lewontin’s ‘Spandrels’ essay. Some adaptationists have suggested that their
essay does not offer any coherent alternative to the adaptationist programme: it consists only in an exhortation to test adaptationist
hypotheses more thoroughly than was usual in the 1970s. Here it is argued that the ‘Spandrels’ paper points towards a genuinely
non-adaptationist methodology implicit in much evolutionary developmental biology. This conclusion helps to expose the links
between older debates over adaptationism and more recent questions about the property of evolvability.
相似文献
Tim LewensEmail: Email: |
7.
Philip Richard Sullivan 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(1):65-79
This paper demonstrates that the human visual system, the primary sensory conduit for primates, processes ambient energy in
a way that obligatorily constructs the objects that we ineluctably perceive. And since our perceptual apparatus processes
information only in terms of objects (along with the properties and movements of objects), we are limited in our ability to comprehend ‘what
is’ when we move beyond our ordinary world of midsize objects—as, for example, when we address the micro microworld of quantum
physics.
相似文献
Philip Richard SullivanEmail: |
8.
Renuka M. Sharma 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2007,4(3):181-192
This paper discusses the persistent devaluation of the girl child in India and the link between the entrenched perception
of female valuelessness and the actual practice of infanticide of girl babies or foetuses. It seeks to place female infanticide,
or ‘gendercide,’ within the context of Western-derived conceptions of ethics, justice and rights. To date, current ethical
theories and internationally purveyed moral frameworks, as well as legal and political declarations, have fallen short of
an adequate moral appraisal of infanticide. This paper seeks to rethink the issue.
相似文献
Renuka M. SharmaEmail: |
9.
Ewa Puchalska Barbara Czajkowska Magorzata Kiekiewicz 《Acta Physiologiae Plantarum》2008,30(2):225-232
Our investigations suggest that the usually observed avoidance by O. ununguis of current year’s twigs of P. glauca ‘Conica’ as a place for feeding and development may be connected with their morphological and anatomical structure as well
their biochemical composition. Needles of the current year’s twigs were covered with a thicker layer of wax and formed more
extensive epidermis cell walls, in comparison with needles of 1-year-old twigs. Young needles also showed lower concentration
of reducing sugars and soluble proteins, which might additionally reduce their nutritional suitability for mite development.
Differences were also found between the 1-year-old growth and current growth in contribution of essential oils and a range
of other compounds. Further analyses of the effect of these compounds on mite behavior may provide additional explanation
of the feeding preferences of the mite.
相似文献
Barbara CzajkowskaEmail: |
10.
Plantation forests and biodiversity: oxymoron or opportunity? 总被引:3,自引:1,他引:2
Eckehard G. Brockerhoff Hervé Jactel John A. Parrotta Christopher P. Quine Jeffrey Sayer 《Biodiversity and Conservation》2008,17(5):925-951
Losses of natural and semi-natural forests, mostly to agriculture, are a significant concern for biodiversity. Against this
trend, the area of intensively managed plantation forests increases, and there is much debate about the implications for biodiversity.
We provide a comprehensive review of the function of plantation forests as habitat compared with other land cover, examine
the effects on biodiversity at the landscape scale, and synthesise context-specific effects of plantation forestry on biodiversity.
Natural forests are usually more suitable as habitat for a wider range of native forest species than plantation forests but
there is abundant evidence that plantation forests can provide valuable habitat, even for some threatened and endangered species,
and may contribute to the conservation of biodiversity by various mechanisms. In landscapes where forest is the natural land
cover, plantation forests may represent a low-contrast matrix, and afforestation of agricultural land can assist conservation
by providing complementary forest habitat, buffering edge effects, and increasing connectivity. In contrast, conversion of
natural forests and afforestation of natural non-forest land is detrimental. However, regional deforestation pressure for
agricultural development may render plantation forestry a ‘lesser evil’ if forest managers protect indigenous vegetation remnants.
We provide numerous context-specific examples and case studies to assist impact assessments of plantation forestry, and we
offer a range of management recommendations. This paper also serves as an introduction and background paper to this special
issue on the effects of plantation forests on biodiversity.
相似文献
Eckehard G. BrockerhoffEmail: |
11.
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: |
12.
Making Sense in Time: Remote Sensing and the Challenges of Temporal Heterogeneity in Social Analysis of Environmental Change—cases from Malawi 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
This article contributes to the encouraging recent trend toward more critical examination of the linkages between remote sensing
and social analysis of environmental change. Using two case studies from Malawi, we explain the importance of thinking about
temporal scale when using remote sensing data. Specifically, from our on-the-ground research, we came to appreciate three
important issues: (1) multiple causation and multiple temporal scales operating simultaneously—making inference of casual
relations between particular social factors and observed land use changes difficult; (2) ‘visible’ vs. ‘invisible’ processes
and events; and (3) ‘continuous’ vs. ‘punctuated’ social and environmental processes. We observe that in each case, social
differentiation is key to understanding which temporal frames are most relevant in understanding observed land use dynamics.
We conclude that, while these are not entirely new observations, research on the applications of remote sensing in social
analysis of environmental change could be enriched by more rigorous examination of linkages between environmental change,
temporal scale, and the social relations (including social differentiation) that can help to explain how and why particular
temporal frames are most salient.
相似文献
Pauline E. PetersEmail: |
13.
Jennifer Jo Thompson Cheryl Ritenbaugh Mark Nichter 《Culture, medicine and psychiatry》2009,33(1):112-152
This paper considers how the full range of human experience may catalyze a placebo response. The placebo effect has been characterized
as something to control in clinical research, something to cultivate in clinical practice and something present in all healing
encounters. We examine domains in which the term ‘placebo’ is used in discourse: clinical research, clinical practice, media
representations of treatment efficacy and lay interpretations of placebo—an underresearched topic. We briefly review major
theoretical frameworks proposed to explain the placebo effect: classical conditioning, expectancy, the therapeutic relationship
and sociocultural ‘meaning.’ As a corrective to what we see as an overemphasis on conscious cognitive approaches to understanding
placebo, we reorient the discussion to argue that direct embodied experience may take precedence over meaning-making in the
healing encounter. As an example, we examine the neurobiology of rehearsing or visualizing wellness as a mode of directly
(performatively) producing an outcome often dismissed as a ‘placebo response.’ Given body/mind/emotional resonance, we suggest
that the placebo response is an evolutionarily adaptive trait and part of healing mechanisms operating across many levels—from
genetic and cellular to social and cultural.
相似文献
Mark NichterEmail: |
14.
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: |
15.
16.
Point-of-View: Arguments for conventional fisheries management and against no-take marine protected areas: only half of the story? 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
P. J. S. Jones 《Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries》2007,17(1):31-43
Recent arguments for conventional fisheries management approaches (CFMAs) and against no-take marine protected areas (NTMPAs)
are reviewed, i.e. CFMAs are more effective, density-dependent factors will lead to reduced fish stock production in and around
NTMPAs, rights-based approaches in combination with CFMAs will be more effective, and natural refuges from fishing already
exist. It is concluded that these are largely valid but only from a fisheries management perspective. The arguments of proponents
of NTMPAs and those of proponents of CFMAs are considered as contrasting storylines, the divergences between which are based
on two key factors: different objectives and different science. In relation to different objectives, it is concluded that
the arguments against NTMPAs based on their lack of fisheries management benefits must be considered as only applying to the
secondary resource conservation objectives of such designations and not to the primary marine biodiversity conservation objectives.
On this basis it is argued that it is counter-productive for NTMPAs to be ‘sold’ on a win–win basis, including their potential
to deliver fisheries management benefits, as this detracts from their marine biodiversity conservation objectives and leaves
such calls open to arguments that CFMAs are better able to deliver fisheries management objectives. In relation to different
science, it is concluded that criticisms of NTMPAs and support for CFMAs implicitly resist the shift from Mode 1 (reductive,
intra-disciplinary) to Mode 2 (holistic, trans-disciplinary) science that is inherent in calls for NTMPAs as part of an ecosystem
approach. Mode 2 science attempts to accommodate both uncertainty and wider societal values and preferences, and it is argued
that arguments for NTMPAs should be more explicitly focussed on this potential. It is difficult, if not impossible and inappropriate,
to extend the reductive approach inherent in CFMA analyses to encompass the broader ethical and scientific concerns for the
health of marine ecosystems and their component populations and habitats that arguments for NTMPAs reflect. NTMPA proponents
might focus on stressing that arguments against such designations and in favour of CFMAs do not encompass such valid concerns,
therefore they tell only half of the story.
相似文献
P. J. S. JonesEmail: |
17.
Social Learning Processes in Swiss Soil Protection—The ‘From Farmer - To Farmer’ Project 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
Flurina Schneider Patricia Fry Thomas Ledermann Stephan Rist 《Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal》2009,37(4):475-489
Social learning approaches have become a prominent focus in studies related to sustainable agriculture. In order to better
understand the potential of social learning for more sustainable development, the present study assessed the processes, effects
and facilitating elements of interaction related to social learning in the context of Swiss soil protection and the innovative
‘From Farmer - To Farmer’ project. The study reveals that social learning contributes to fundamental transformations of patterns
of interactions. However, the study also demonstrates that a learning-oriented understanding of sustainable development implies
including analysis of the institutional environments in which the organizations of the individual representatives of face-to-face-based
social learning processes are operating. This has shown to be a decisive element when face-to-face-based learning processes
of the organisations’ representatives are translated into organisational learning. Moreover, the study revealed that this
was achieved not directly through formalisation of new lines of institutionalised cooperation but by establishing links in
a ‘boundary space’ trying out new forms of collaboration, aiming at social learning and co-production of knowledge. It is
argued that further research on social learning processes should give greater emphasis to this intermediary level of ‘boundary
spaces’.
相似文献
Stephan RistURL: www.cde.unibe.ch |
18.
Harold Levrel Christian Kerbiriou Denis Couvet Jacques Weber 《Biodiversity and Conservation》2009,18(7):1719-1732
Sustainability is said to be the science of integration, be it integration of scale, discipline or of stakeholders’ interests.
One way to integrate such diverse elements is to develop sustainable development indicators. Numerous national and international
organizations have attempted to develop such indicators, among which interaction indicators are of critical importance because
they enable us to link up human activities, ecological dynamics, and social goals. Among the various ways to develop such
indicators, the most common ones are the pressure–state–response (PSR) indicators, as well as others coming from this framework.
With realistic methodology one shall observe how PSR indicators might appear as an operational tool to face rapid social and
ecological changes within a French biosphere reserve in Brittany. Results suggest that such a framework is insufficient to
describe, understand and manage social and ecological interactions.
相似文献
Harold LevrelEmail: |
19.
20.
Marshall Abrams 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(4):487-504
It’s recently been argued that biological fitness can’t change over the course of an organism’s life as a result of organisms’
behaviors. However, some characterizations of biological function and biological altruism tacitly or explicitly assume that
an effect of a trait can change an organism’s fitness. In the first part of the paper, I explain that the core idea of changing
fitness can be understood in terms of conditional probabilities defined over sequences of events in an organism’s life. The
result is a notion of “conditional fitness” which is static but which captures intuitions about apparent behavioral effects
on fitness. The second part of the paper investigates the possibility of providing a systematic foundation for conditional
fitness in terms of spaces of sequences of states of an organism and its environment. I argue that the resulting “organism–environment
history conception” helps unify diverse biological perspectives, and may provide part of a metaphysics of natural selection.
相似文献
Marshall AbramsEmail: |