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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.
Evolutionary biology owes much to Charles Darwin, whose discussions of common descent and natural selection provide the foundations
of the discipline. But evolutionary biology has expanded well beyond its foundations to encompass many theories and concepts
unknown in the 19th century. The term “Darwinism” is, therefore, ambiguous and misleading. Compounding the problem of “Darwinism”
is the hijacking of the term by creationists to portray evolution as a dangerous ideology—an “ism”—that has no place in the
science classroom. When scientists and teachers use “Darwinism” as synonymous with evolutionary biology, it reinforces such
a misleading portrayal and hinders efforts to present the scientific standing of evolution accurately. Accordingly, the term
“Darwinism” should be abandoned as a synonym for evolutionary biology. 相似文献
3.
During 2009, while we were celebrating Charles Darwin and his The origin of species, sadly, little was said about the critical contribution of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) to the development of the theory
of evolution. Like Darwin, he was a truly remarkable nineteenth century intellect and polymath and, according to a recent
book by Roy Davies (The Darwin conspiracy: origins of a scientific crime), he has a stronger claim to the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection than has Darwin. Here we present a critical comparison
between the contributions of the two scientists. Sometimes referred to as ‘The other beetle-hunter’ and largely neglected
for many decades, Wallace had a far greater experience of collecting and investigating animals and plants from their native
habitats than had Darwin. He was furthermore much more than a pioneer biogeographer and evolutionary theorist, and also made
contributions to anthropology, ethnography, geology, land reform and social issues. However, being a more modest, self-deprecating
man than Darwin, and lacking the latter’s establishment connections, Wallace’s contribution to the theory of evolution was
not given the recognition it deserved and he was undoubtedly shabbily treated at the time. It is time that Wallace’s relationship
with Darwin is reconsidered in preparation for 2013, the centenary of Wallace’s death, and he should be recognized as at least
an equal in the Wallace-Darwin theory of evolution. 相似文献
4.
In responding to three reviews of Evolution in Four Dimensions (Jablonka and Lamb, 2005, MIT Press), we briefly consider the historical background to the present genecentred view of evolution,
especially the way in which Weismann’s theories have influenced it, and discuss the origins of the notion of epigenetic inheritance.
We reaffirm our belief that all types of hereditary information—genetic, epigenetic, behavioural and cultural—have contributed
to evolutionary change, and outline recent evidence, mainly from epigenetic studies, that suggests that non-DNA heritable
variations are not rare and can be quite stable. We describe ways in which such variations may have influenced evolution.
The approach we take leads to broader definitions of terms such as ‘units of heredity’, ‘units of evolution’, and ‘units of
selection’, and we maintain that ‘information’ can be a useful concept if it is defined in terms of its effects on the receiver.
Although we agree that evolutionary theory is not undergoing a Kuhnian revolution, the incorporation of new data and ideas
about hereditary variation, and about the role of development in generating it, is leading to a version of Darwinism that
is very different from the gene-centred one that dominated evolutionary thinking in the second half of the twentieth century. 相似文献
5.
6.
Asquith PJ 《Journal of biosciences》2007,32(4):635-641
Prior to the contribution of genetics or the modern evolutionary synthesis (MES) to natural selection theory, social ecologists
searched for factors in addition to natural selection that could influence species change. The idea that sociality, not just
biology, was important in determining evolutionary outcomes was prevalent in research in social ecology in the 1920s and 1930s.
The influence of ‘tradition’ (or the transmission of learned behaviours between generations) and the view that animals are
active in selecting their own environments, rather than passive organisms acted upon by chance, were given as much attention
as natural selection theory in European ecology, while animal aggregation and cooperation studies were pursued in America.
Imanishi Kinji’s personal library and his scientific notes and papers reveal that he was well aware of this literature and
had been profoundly influenced by these earlier viewpoints prior to writing his view of nature in his first book, Seibutsu no Sekai (The World of Living Things, 1941). Evidence is presented to show that he developed his theories based partly on early western
debates in social ecology while finding inspiration and a way to express his views in the writings of philosopher Nishida
Kitarō and, perhaps, General J C Smuts. One of Imanishi’s lasting contributions is in the demonstrated results of over 40
years of subsequent ecological and ethological research by Imanishi and those trained by him that maintained the broader viewpoints
on evolution that had been dropped from the western corpus of research by the 1950s. The current attempt to again get beyond
natural selection theory is reflected in debates surrounding genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation, the biology of
‘traditions’ and the idea of ‘culture’ in animal societies.
Imanishi Kinji is the Japanese name order, with family name first. Other Japanese names in the text are also written with
family name first.
A modified version of this paper appeared in Japanese in Seibutsu Kagaku, Vol. 57 No. 3, April 2006, pp 142–149. 相似文献
7.
8.
Frank J. Sulloway 《Journal of the history of biology》2009,42(1):3-31
During his historic Galápagos visit in 1835, Darwin spent nine days making scientific observations and collecting specimens
on Santiago (James Island). In the course of this visit, Darwin ascended twice to the Santiago highlands. There, near springs
located close to the island’s summit, he conducted his most detailed observations of Galápagos tortoises. The precise location
of these springs, which has not previously been established, is here identified using Darwin’s own writings, satellite maps,
and GPS technology. Photographic evidence from excursions to the areas where Darwin climbed, including repeat photography
over a period of four decades, offers striking evidence of the deleterious impact of feral mammals introduced after Darwin’s
visit. Exploring the impact that Darwin’s Santiago visit had on his thinking – especially focusing on his activities in the
highlands – raises intriguing questions about the depth of his understanding of the evolutionary evidence he encountered while
in the Galápagos. These questions and related insights provide further evidence concerning the timing of Darwin’s conversion
to the theory of evolution, which, despite recent claims to the contrary, occurred only after his return to England. 相似文献
9.
Extending Darwin’s analogy: Bridging differences in concepts of selection between farmers, biologists, and plant breeders 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
Darwin developed his theory of evolution based on an analogy between artificial selection by breeders of his day and “natural
selection.” For Darwin, selection included what biologists came to see as being composed of (1) phenotypic selection of individuals
based on phenotypic differences, and, when these are based on heritable genotypic differences, (2) genetic response between
generations, which can result in (3) evolution (cumulative directional genetic response over generations). The use of the
term “selection” in biology and plant breeding today reflects Darwin’s assumption—phenotypic selection is only biologically
significant when it results in evolution. In contrast, research shows that small-scale, traditionally-based farmers select
seed as part of an integrated production and consumption system in which selection is often not part of an evolutionary process,
but is still useful to farmers. Extending Darwin’s analogy to farmers can facilitate communication between farmers, biologists,
and plant breeders to improve selection and crop genetic resource conservation. 相似文献
10.
In his Origin of Species (John Murray, London, 1859), Charles Darwin described the theory of descent with modification by means of natural selection and postulated that all
life may have evolved from one or a few simple kinds of organisms. However, Darwin’s concept of evolutionary change is entirely
based on observations of populations of animals and plants. He briefly mentioned ‘lower algae’, but ignored amoebae, bacteria
and other micro-organisms. In 1859, Anton de Bary, the founder of mycology and plant pathology, published a seminal paper
on the biology and taxonomy of the plasmodial slime molds (myxomycetes). These heterotrophic protists are known primarily
as a large composite mass, the plasmodium, in which single nuclei are suspended in a common ‘naked’ cytoplasm that is surrounded
by a plasma membrane. Here we summarize the contents of de Bary’s 1859 publication and highlight the significance of this
scientific classic with respect to the establishment of the kingdom Protoctista (protists such as amoebae), the development
of the protoplasmic theory of the cell, the introduction of the concept of symbiosis and the rejection of the dogma of spontaneous
generation. We describe the life cycle of the myxomycetes, present new observations on the myxamoebae and propose a higher-order
phylogeny based on elongation factor-1 alpha gene sequences. Our results document the congruence between the morphology-based
taxonomy of the myxomycetes and molecular data. In addition, we show that free-living amoebae, common protists in the soil,
are among the closest living relatives of the myxomycetes and conclude that de Bary’s ‘Amoeba-hypothesis’ on the evolutionary
origin of the plasmodial slime molds may have been correct. 相似文献
11.
Motivated by the results of recent laboratory experiments, as well as many earlier field observations, that evolutionary changes
can take place in ecosystems over relatively short ecological time scales, several ‘unified’ mathematical models of evolutionary
ecology have been developed over the last few years with the aim of describing the statistical properties of data related
to the evolution of ecosystems. Moreover, because of the availability of sufficiently fast computers, it has become possible
to carry out detailed computer simulations of these models. For the sake of completeness and to put these recent developments
in perspective, we begin with a brief summary of some older models of ecological phenomena and evolutionary processes. However,
the main aim of this article is to review critically these ‘unified’ models, particularly those published in the physics literature,
in simple language that makes the new theories accessible to a wider audience 相似文献
12.
The empirical study of speciation has brought us closer to unlocking the origins of life’s vast diversity. By examining recently
formed species, a number of general patterns, or rules, become apparent. Among fixed differences between species, sexual genes
and traits are one of the most rapidly evolving and novel functional classes, and premating isolation often develops earlier
than postmating isolation. Among interspecific hybrids, sterility evolves faster than inviability, the X-chromosome has a
greater effect on incompatibilities than autosomes, and hybrid dysfunction affects the heterogametic sex more frequently than
the homogametic sex (Haldane’s rule). Haldane’s rule, in particular, has played a major role in reviving interest in the genetics
of speciation. However, the large genetic and reproductive differences between taxa and the multi-factorial nature of each
rule have made it difficult to ascribe general mechanisms. Here, we review the extensive progress made since Darwin on understanding
the origin of species. We revisit the rules of speciation, regarding them as landmarks as species evolve through time. We
contrast these ‘rules’ of speciation to ‘mechanisms’ of speciation representing primary causal factors ranging across various
levels of organization—from genic to chromosomal to organismal. To explain the rules, we propose a new ‘hierarchical faster-sex’
theory: the rapid evolution of sex and reproduction-related (SRR) genes (faster-SRR evolution), in combination with the preferential
involvement of the X-chromosome (hemizygous X-effects) and sexually selected male traits (faster-male evolution). This unified
theory explains a comprehensive set of speciation rules at both the prezyotic and postzygotic levels and also serves as a
cohesive alternative to dominance, composite, and recent genomic conflict interpretations of Haldane’s rule. 相似文献
13.
A theory for describing evolution as adaptive walks by a finite population with M walkers (M ≥ 1) on an anisotropic Mt. Fuji-type fitness landscape is presented, from a thermodynamical point of view. Introducing the
‘free fitness’ as the sum of a fitness term and an entropy term and ‘evolutionary force’ as the gradient of free fitness on
a fitness coordinate, we demonstrate that the behavior of these theoretical walkers is almost consistent with the thermodynamical
schemes. The major conclusions are as follows: (1) an adaptive walk (=evolution) is driven by an evolutionary force in the
direction in which free fitness increases; (2) the expectation of the climbing rate obeys an equation analogous to the Einstein
relation in Brownian motion; (3) the standard deviation of the climbing rate is a quantity analogous to the mean thermal energy
of a particle, kT (×constant). In addition, on the interpretation that the walkers climb the landscape by absorbing ‘fitness information’ from
the surroundings, we succeeded in quantifying the fitness information and formulating a macroscopic scheme from an informational
point of view. 相似文献
14.
When an indigenous insect becomes a pest, comparisons of performance of pest and non-pest populations on crop plants and of
genetic variation in that performance may provide insight into the evolution of pest populations. To measure such genetic
variation, 8–15 clones of the grape phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae Fitch) were collected from wild grapevines in each of 3 geographically isolated sites (populations) and from commercial vineyards
in northern California. A complete life table was made for clonal replicates from populations collected from wild grapevines
on each of two commercial grape cultivars, the susceptibleVitis vinifera (L.) cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon, and the phylloxera-resistant rootstock ‘AxR # 1’. Variation in mean performance on these
two hosts was partitioned among clones within collection sites and among sites. Performance measures included an individual
analog to the intrinsic rate of increase (r), age at first oviposition, fecundity in the first ten days of reproduction, total fecundity, and longevity. The overall
performance of phylloxera from the wild grapevines on the resistant cultivar AxR # 1 was greater than or equal to that on
the susceptible cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon. There was significant variation among clones within populations from wild grapes
in the rate of increase on ‘AxR # 1’ and marginally significant clonal variation in some of the component paramters. There
was no significant variation among clones within populations on ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ and no significant differences between
populations on either crop in any trait.
In a second experiment we compared the relative performance of 15–17 clones from wild grapevines and from commercial vineyards
when reared on ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ and ‘AxR # 1’. Phylloxera from commercial vineyards had much higher overall performance
on ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ than did phylloxera from the wild grapevines. Phylloxera from the commercial vineyard also had higher
performance on ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ than on ‘AxR′ 1’ but the performance of the phylloxera from wild and commercial grapes
did not differ on ‘AxR # 1’.
Our results show that there is genetic variation in traits related to performance on a resistant rootstock within these indigenous
non-pest populations of phylloxera, but not among them. The pattern of performance of pest and non-pest populations on two
commercial cultivars suggests that current levels of phylloxera performance on crop cultivars are the result of adaptation
to those cultivars which has occurred while phylloxera has been associated with viticulture. Implications of these results
for understanding the recent adaptation of phylloxera to ‘AxR # 1’ in California are also discussed. 相似文献
15.
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
16.
Philosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes
and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms,
and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant
life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s
standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology
– including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation
and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These
insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature
of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further
complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights
into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations. 相似文献
17.
Peter Hammerstein 《Journal of mathematical biology》1996,34(5-6):511-532
This paper investigates the problem of how to conceive a robust theory of phenotypic adaptation in non-trivial models of
evolutionary biology. A particular effort is made to develop a foundation of this theory in the context of n-locus population genetics. Therefore, the evolution of phenotypic traits is considered that are coded for by more than one
gene. The potential for epistatic gene interactions is not a priori excluded. Furthermore, emphasis is laid on the intricacies
of frequency-dependent selection. It is first discussed how strongly the scope for phenotypic adaptation is restricted by
the complex nature of ‘reproduction mechanics’ in sexually reproducing diploid populations. This discussion shows that one
can easily lose the traces of Darwinism in n-locus models of population genetics. In order to retrieve these traces, the outline of a new theory is given that I call
‘streetcar theory of evolution’. This theory is based on the same models that geneticists have used in order to demonstrate
substantial problems with the ‘adaptationist programme’. However, these models are now analyzed differently by including thoughts
about the evolutionary removal of genetic constraints. This requires consideration of a sufficiently wide range of potential
mutant alleles and careful examination of what to consider as a stable state of the evolutionary process. A particular notion
of stability is introduced in order to describe population states that are phenotypically stable against the effects of all
mutant alleles that are to be expected in the long-run. Surprisingly, a long-term stable state can be characterized at the
phenotypic level as a fitness maximum, a Nash equilibrium or an ESS. The paper presents these mathematical results and discusses
– at unusual length for a mathematical journal – their fundamental role in our current understanding of evolution.
Received 22 April 1994; received in revised form 10 July 1995 相似文献
18.
Darwin’s contributions to evolutionary biology are well known, but his contributions to genetics are much less known. His
main contribution was the collection of a tremendous amount of genetic data, and an attempt to provide a theoretical framework
for its interpretation. Darwin clearly described almost all genetic phenomena of fundamental importance, such as prepotency
(Mendelian inheritance), bud variation (mutation), heterosis, reversion (atavism), graft hybridization (Michurinian inheritance),
sex-limited inheritance, the direct action of the male element on the female (xenia and telegony), the effect of use and disuse,
the inheritance of acquired characters (Lamarckian inheritance), and many other observations pertaining to variation, heredity
and development. To explain all these observations, Darwin formulated a developmental theory of heredity — Pangenesis — which
not only greatly influenced many subsequent theories, but also is supported by recent evidence. 相似文献
19.
In our previous report [Aita, T., Morinaga, S., Hosimi, Y., 2004. Thermodynamical interpretation of evolutionary dynamics
on a fitness landscape in an evolution reactor I. Bull. Math. Biol. 66, 1371–1403], an analogy between thermodynamics and
adaptive walks on a Mt. Fuji-type fitness landscape in an artificial selection system was presented. Introducing the ‘free
fitness’ as the sum of a fitness term and an entropy term and ‘evolutionary force’ as the gradient of free fitness on a fitness
coordinate, we demonstrated that the adaptive walk (=evolution) is driven by the evolutionary force in the direction in which
free fitness increases. In this report, we examine the effect of various modifications of the original model on the properties
of the adaptive walk. The modifications were as follows: first, mutation distance d was distributed obeying binomial distribution; second, the selection process obeyed the natural selection protocol; third,
ruggedness was introduced to the landscape according to the NK model; fourth, a noise was included in the fitness measurement. The effect of each modification was described in the same
theoretical framework as the original model by introducing ‘effective’ quantities such as the effective mutation distance
or the effective screening size. 相似文献
20.
We investigate the interaction of learning and evolution in a changing environment. A stable learning capability is regarded
as an emergent adaptive system evolved by natural selection of genetic variants. We consider the evolution of an asexual population.
Each genotype can have ‘fixed’ and ‘flexible’ alleles. The former express themselves as synaptic connections that remain unchanged
during ontogeny and the latter as synapses that can be adjusted through a learning algorithm. Evolution is modelled using
genetic algorithms and the changing environment is represented by two optimal synaptic patterns that alternate a fixed number
of times during the ‘life’ of the individuals. The amplitude of the change is related to the Hamming distance between the
two optimal patterns and the rate of change to the frequency with which both exchange roles. This model is an extension of
that of Hinton and Nowlan in which the fitness is given by a probabilistic measure of the Hamming distance to the optimum.
We find that two types of evolutionary pathways are possible depending upon how difficult (costly) it is to cope with the
changes of the environment. In one case the population loses the learning ability, and the individuals inherit fixed synapses
that are optimal in only one of the environmental states. In the other case a flexible subsystem emerges that allows the individuals
to adapt to the changes of the environment. The model helps us to understand how an adaptive subsystem can emerge as the result
of the tradeoff between the exploitation of a congenital structure and the exploration of the adaptive capabilities practised
by learning. 相似文献