Relative Fitness, Teleology, and the Adaptive Landscape |
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Authors: | John O Reiss |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Biological Sciences, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, USA |
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Abstract: | The metaphor of the adaptive landscape, introduced by Sewall Wright in 1932, has played, and continues to play, a central
role in much evolutionary thought. I argue that the use of this metaphor is tied to a teleological view of the evolutionary
process, in which natural selection directs evolution toward an improved future state. I argue further that the use of “relative
fitnesses” standardized to an arbitrary value, which is closely connected with the metaphor of an adaptive landscape, produces
a disconnect between the mean fitness of a population and any real property of that population. This allows for a vague and
ill-defined improvement to occur under the influence of selection. Instead, I suggest that relative fitnesses should be standardized
by the mean absolute fitness (expected population growth rate), so that they express the expected rate of increase in frequency,
rather than number. Under this definition, the mean relative fitness of all populations is always 1.0, and never changes as
long as the population continues to exist. |
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Keywords: | Fitness landscape Adaptation Fisher Fundamental theorem of natural selection |
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