Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:27:35.398Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Proper Function and Recent Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Peter H. Schwartz
Peter H. Schwartz*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
*
†Philosophy Department, University of Pennsylvania, Logan Hall 433, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

“Modern History” versions of the etiological theory claim that in order for a trait X to have the proper function F, individuals with X must have been recently favored by natural selection for doing F (Godfrey-Smith 1994; Griffiths 1992, 1993). For many traits with prototypical proper functions, however, such recent selection may not have occurred: traits may have been maintained due to lack of variation or due to selection for other effects. I examine this flaw in Modern History accounts and offer an alternative etiological theory, the Continuing Usefulness account, which appears to avoid such problems.

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. S210 - S222
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

‡

Gary Hatfield spurred my interest in the function debate and advised me throughout my investigation, and Gary Ebbs has been an invaluable interlocutor and guide; I am deeply indebted to both of them. I also thank Zoltan Domotor, David Magnus, Ruth Millikan, Karen Neander, Gary Purpura, Neil Shubin, and an audience at the Sixteenth Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association for providing helpful questions, advice, and encouragement.

References

Amundson, Ron and Lauder, George V. (1994), “Function Without Purpose: The Uses of Causal Role Function in Evolutionary Biology”, Biology and Philosophy 9: 443–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Alec M., Rowley, Bruce, Pao, William, Hayday, Adrian, Bolen, Joseph B., and Pawson, Tony (1995), “Syk Tyrosine Kinase Required for Mouse Viability and B-cell Development”, Nature 378: 303–306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cummins, Robert (1975), “Functional Analysis”, Journal of Philosophy 72: 741–765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, Richard (1986), The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Emlen, Stephen T., Reeve, Hudson K, Sherman, Paul W., Wrege, Peter H., Ranieks, Francis L. W., and Shellman-Reeve, Janet (1991), “Adaptive versus Nonadaptive Explanations of Behavior: the Case of Alloparental Helping”, American Naturalist 138: 259–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endler, John (1986), Natural Selection in the Wild. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Feduccia, Alan (1996), The Origin and Evolution of Birds. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1994), “A Modern History Theory of Functions”, Noûs 28: 344–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay and Vrba, Elisabeth S. (1982), “Exaptation—a Missing Term in the Science of Form”, Paleobiology 8: 4–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, Paul E. (1992), “Adaptive Explanation and the Concept of a Vestige”, in Griffiths, Paul E. (ed.), Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 111–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, Paul E. (1993), “Functional Analysis and Proper Functions”, British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 44: 409–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamieson, Ian (1991), “The Unselected Hypothesis for the Evolution of Helping Behavior: Too Much or Too Little Emphasis on Natural Selection”, American Naturalist 138: 271–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewontin, Richard (1970), “The Units of Selection”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1: 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, Ernst (1961), “Cause and Effect in Biology”, Science 134: 1501–1506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Millikan, Ruth G. (1984), Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth G. (1989a), “An Ambiguity in the Notion of ‘Function’ “, Biology and Philosophy 4: 172–176.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth G. (1989b), “In Defense of Proper Functions”, Philosophy of Science 56: 288–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, Ruth G. (1993), “Propensities, Exaptations, and the Brain”, in White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 31–50.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen (1991), “Functions as Selected Effects: The Conceptual Analyst's Defense”, Philosophy of Science 58: 168–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norberg, U. M. (1990), Vertebrate Flight: Mechanics, Physiology, Morphology, Ecology and Evolution. Berlin: Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, John H. (1979), “Bird Flight: How Did It Begin?”, American Scientist 67: 46–56.Google ScholarPubMed
Sherman, Paul (1988), “The Levels of Analysis”, Animal Behaviour 36: 616–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott (1993), Philosophy of Biology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Stearns, Stephen C. and Kawecki, Tadeusz J. (1994), “Fitness Sensitivity and the Canalization of Life-History Traits”, Evolution 48: 1438–1450.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tinbergen, Niko (1963), “On the Aims and Methods of Ethology”, Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie 20: 410–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Martin, Mee, P. Joseph, Costello, Patrick S., Williams, Owen, Price, Abigail A., Duddy, Linda P., Furlong, Michael T., Geahlen, Robert L., and Tybulewicz, Victor L. J. (1995), “Perinatal Lethality and Blocked B-cell Development in Mice Lacking the Tyrosine Kinase Syk”, Nature 378: 298–302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waddington, C. H. (1959), “Canalisation of Development and the Inheritance of Acquired Characters”, Nature 183: 1654–1655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Andreas (1996), “Does Evolutionary Plasticity Evolve?”, Evolution 50: 1008–1023.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, George C. (1966), Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, Larry (1973), “Functions”, Philosophical Review 82: 139–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Larry. (1976), Teleological Explanations: An Etiological Analysis of Goals and Functions. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar