Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:58:16.359Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Adaptations Were Not Positive Causal Factors for Reproductive Success

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Wes Anderson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sober develops an account of adaptations on which they must have been positive causal factors for reproductive success. Glymour defends an account of a proper subset of adaptations—adaptations to particular environmental conditions—on which traits must interact in a special way with adapting conditions to cause reproductive success. These theories render conflicting judgments about which traits count as adaptations in some interesting cases. In this article I explore one such case and argue that we ought to replace the notion of adaptation qua positive causal factor with a novel notion of adaptation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © 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

†

I wish to thank Valerie Racine, Bruce Glymour, Brad Armendt, Manfred Laubichler (and his lab), Beckett Sterner, J. J. LaTourelle, and the anonymous referees; their comments have much improved the article.

References

Brandon, Robert. 1990. Adaptation and Environment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Endler, John. 1983. “Natural Selection on Color Patterns in Poecilia reticulata.” Evolution 34:76–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, H. Lisle, and Grant, Peter R.. 1987. “Oscillating Selection on Darwin’s Finches.” Nature 327:511–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, John H. 1974. “Natural Selection for Within-Generation Variance in Offspring Number.” Genetics 76:601–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glymour, Bruce. 2011. “Modeling Environments: Interactive Causation and Adaptations to Environmental Conditions.” Philosophy of Science 78:448–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heywood, James. 2010. “Explaining Patterns in Modern Ruminant Diversity: Contingency or Constraint?” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 99:657–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, G. Evelyn. 1957. “Concluding Remarks.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 22:415–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kettlewell, Bernard. 1973. The Evolution of Melanism. Oxford: Clarendon.Google 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
Millstein, Roberta. 2002. “Are Random Drift and Natural Selection Conceptually Distinct?” Biology and Philosophy 17:33–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, Judea. 2000. Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Price, Trevor D., Grant, Peter R., Gibbs, H. Lisle, and Boag, P. T.. 1984. “Recurrent Patterns of Natural Selection in a Population of Darwin’s Finches.” Nature 309:787–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 1984. The Nature of Selection. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Spirtes, Peter, Glymour, Clark, and Schienes, Richard. 2000. Causation, Prediction, and Search. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, Kim, and Kitcher, Philip. 1988. “The Return of the Gene.” Journal of Philosophy 85:339–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar