Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:02:21.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Pure R-Selection Really Selection?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Bruce Glymour
Bruce Glymour*
Affiliation:
Kansas State University
*
†Department of Philosophy, 204 Kedzie Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, 66506.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Lennox and Wilson (1994) critique dispositional accounts of selection on the grounds that such accounts will class evolutionary events as cases of selection whether or not the environment constrains population growth. Lennox and Wilson claim that pure r-selection involves no environmental checks on growth, and that accounts of natural selection ought to distinguish between the two sorts of cases. I argue that Lennox and Wilson are mistaken in claiming that pure r-selection involves no environmental checks, but suggest that two related cases support their substantive complaint, namely that dispositional accounts of selection have resources insufficient for making important distinctions in causal structure.

Type
Philosophy of Biology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S185 - S195
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks are owed to Jim Lennox and Brad Wilson for helpful discussions, and to Lindley Darden and Richard Burian for pointing out a difficulty in an earlier version of this paper.

References

Beatty, John (1984), “Chance and Natural Selection”, Philosophy of Science 51: 183–211.10.1086/289177CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandon, Robert (1990), Adaptation and Environment, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Glymour, Bruce (1998), “Contrastive, Non-Probabilistic Statistical Explanations”, Philosophy of Science 65: 448–471.10.1086/392656CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lennox, James and Wilson, Bradley (1994), “Natural Selection and the Struggle for Existence”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 25: 65–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed