共查询到20条相似文献,搜索用时 31 毫秒
1.
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: |
2.
Amazon Forestry Tranformed: Integrating Knowledge for Smallholder Timber Managemet in Eastern Brazil
Robin R. Sears Christine Padoch Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez 《Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal》2007,35(6):697-707
Recent discussions of local knowledge emphasize its dynamic nature invoking local peoples’ ability to effectively integrate
traditional or local with science-based or “modern” knowledges. The smallholder timber industry of the Amazon’s estuarine
floodplain provides an outstanding example of local patterns of resource management and economic activities transformed from
within by smallholder farmers who participated in the industrial timber boom of the 1970s and 1980s. These farmers of eastern
Amazonia have developed a vertically integrated local industry based on expertise reflecting profound locally developed knowledge
of specific forests and management of ecological processes, individual observation and experimentation, as well as concepts
and practices derived from temporary employment by large-scale industrial timber firms. At each stage of the smallholder forestry
process—from managing natural regeneration to running small sawmills and marketing lumber—local managers apply an innovative
set of practices reflecting their diverse experiences. This combination of technical, market, and ecological knowledge results
in forests, timber markets, and economic patterns that do not correspond to many of the widely-held generalizations concerning
either local or industrial tropical timber exploitation. This article uses data from 7 years of research in the Amazon floodplain.
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Christine PadochEmail: |
3.
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.
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Abhijeet BardapurkarEmail: |
4.
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: |
5.
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: |
6.
This paper focuses on evolution as a unifying theme in biology education. Our aim is to argue that the different topics taught
in secondary school biology classes should be enriched with and linked together by means of accounts of the history of life.
We named this approach a “natural history perspective” on biology education. An essential aspect of the natural history perspective
is the claim that evolutionary history forms the context for the development of an understanding of evolutionary processes.
While there are some indications that a natural history perspective can function as a context for understanding micro-evolutionary
processes, more research is called for.
相似文献
Esther M. van DijkEmail: |
7.
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: |
8.
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: |
9.
10.
Niles Eldredge 《Evolution》2008,1(1):10-15
Evolutionary biology presents a bewildering array of phenomena to scientists and students alike—ranging from molecules to
species and ecosystems; and embracing 3.8 billion years of life’s history on earth. Biological systems are arranged hierarchically,
with smaller units forming the components of larger systems. The evolutionary hierarchy, based on replication of genetic information
and reproduction, is a complex of genes/organisms/demes/species and higher taxa. The ecological hierarchy, based on patterns
of matter–energy transfer, is a complex of proteins/organisms/avatars/local ecosystems/regional ecosystems. All organisms
are simultaneously parts of both hierarchical systems. Darwin’s original formulation of natural selection maps smoothly onto
a diagram where the two hierarchical systems are placed side-by-side. The “sloshing bucket” theory of evolution emerges from
empirical cases in biological history mapped onto this dual hierarchy scheme: little phenotypically discernible evolution
occurs with minor ecological disturbance; conversely, greatest concentrations of change in evolutionary history follow mass
extinctions, themselves based on physical perturbations of global extent. Most evolution occurs in intermediate-level regional
“turnovers,” when species extinction leads to rapid evolution of new species. Hierarchy theory provides a way of integrating
all fields of evolutionary biology into an easily understood—and taught—rubric.
相似文献
Niles EldredgeEmail: |
11.
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: |
12.
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: |
13.
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: |
14.
Brian K. Hall 《Theorie in den Biowissenschaften》2009,128(1):7-18
Eighteen seventy-four was a high point in evolutionary embryology. Thanks to Charles Darwin, the theory of evolution by natural
selection provided a revolutionary new way of viewing the relationships and origins of organisms on Earth. Thanks to Ernst
Haeckel, embryos were the way to study evolution (Haeckel in Generelle morphologie der organismen, vols 1, 2. Verlag Georg
Reimer, Berlin, 1866)—it really was embryos in evolution—and recapitulation was in the air. Thanks to Anton Dohrn, a new research facility was
on the ground, designed, located and structured to facilitate the study of embryos in evolution. Anton Dohrn devised, designed,
financed, supervised the construction and then administered the Naples Zoological Station specifically so that researchers
from all nations would have a facility where Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection could be tested. The zoologists
who took advantage of the brand new facility within weeks of its opening late in 1873 established lines of research into evolutionary
embryology, the field we now know as evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), the study of embryos in evolution. I examine
the approach taken by Ambrosius Hubrecht, the first Dutch embryologist to undertake research at the station, and then evaluate
the research of three British zoologists—E. Ray Lankester, Albert Dew-Smith, and Francis Maitland (Frank) Balfour. All four
sought insights into origins, especially vertebrate origins that rested on comparative embryology, homology, germ layers,
and a Darwinian approach to origins.
相似文献
Brian K. HallEmail: |
15.
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.
相似文献
Anya PlutynskiEmail: |
16.
Robert Sparrow 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2009,6(1):13-23
This paper attempts some predictions about the social consequences of nanotechnology and the ethical issues they raise. I
set out four features of nanotechnology that are likely to be important in determining its impact and argue that nanotechnology
will have significant social impacts in—at least—the areas of health and medicine, the balance of power between citizens and
governments, and the balance of power between citizens and corporations. More importantly, responding to the challenge of
nanotechnology will require confronting “philosophical” questions about the sort of society we wish to create and the role
that technology might play in creating it. This in turn will require developing institutions and processes that allow the
public to wield real power in relation to technological trajectories. My ultimate contention is that the immediate task established
by the likely social impacts of nanotechnology is not so much to develop an ethics of nanotechnology as to facilitate an ethical
conversation about nanotechnology.
相似文献
Robert SparrowEmail: |
17.
18.
Roswitha Wiltschko Ursula Munro Hugh Ford Wolfgang Wiltschko 《Journal of Ornithology》2008,149(4):607-614
Experiments with migrating birds on the interaction between magnetic and celestial cues have produced heterogeneous results.
A recent study claimed that the magnetic compass in passerine migrants is calibrated by the pattern of polarized light at
sunset and sunrise and that the area just above the horizon is crucial for this calibration. To test the latter hypothesis,
we performed a similar experiment with Australian Silvereyes. It produced contrary results, however, the birds, in spite of
observing the natural polarization pattern at sunrise and sunset down to the horizon in an altered magnetic field, continued
in their normal southerly magnetic direction when subsequently tested in the local geomagnetic field—the conflict between
magnetic and polarized light cues had not caused them to recalibrate their magnetic compass. This contradicts the assumption
that skylight polarization patterns generally serve as a primary calibration reference for migratory songbirds.
相似文献
Roswitha WiltschkoEmail: |
19.
Risk Management by Communal Decision in Trans-Himalayan Farming: Manang Valley in Central Nepal 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
It is generally assumed that peasants optimize security of food supply rather than maximize profit. One way of securing the
survival of the household is to spread risk in farming by extending the planting and harvesting seasons in order to avoid
all crops being damaged if unfavorable production conditions should occur. It thus seems peculiar that some Himalayan peasant
communities act in the opposite manner by compressing peak agricultural activity into a minimum period, and furthermore that
all cultivators simultaneously start planting and harvesting on dates fixed by the village headman in consultation with a
lama (Buddhist priest). Rather than suggesting that any single explanation for this practice is the right one, however, this
article contends that specific farming system cannot be understood properly unless a combination of subsystems — or facets
— are included in the analyses.
相似文献
Ole R. Vetaas (Corresponding author)Email: |
20.
Peter beim Graben Dimitris Pinotsis Douglas Saddy Roland Potthast 《Cognitive neurodynamics》2008,2(2):79-88
We construct a mapping from complex recursive linguistic data structures to spherical wave functions using Smolensky’s filler/role
bindings and tensor product representations. Syntactic language processing is then described by the transient evolution of
these spherical patterns whose amplitudes are governed by nonlinear order parameter equations. Implications of the model in
terms of brain wave dynamics are indicated.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: ) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
相似文献
Peter beim GrabenEmail: |