Population Genetics

Using the two cases of the Icelandic Health Sector Database and Russian initiatives in biobanking, the article criticizes the view of narratives and imaginaries as a sufficient and unproblematic means of shaping public understanding of genetics and justifying population-wide projects. Narrative representations of national biobanking engage particular imaginaries that are not bound by the universal normative framework of human rights, promote affective thinking, distract the public from recognizing and discussing tangible ethical and socioeconomic issues, and harm trust in science and (...) technology. In the Icelandic case, the presentation of the project in association with national imaginaries concealed its market identity and could lead to the commodification of biodata. In the Russian case, framing in terms of "genetic sovereignty" and "civilizational code" offers pretexts for state securitization. Adherence to normative framework of human rights and public discussion of genetics in an argumentative and factual mode can counter these trends. (shrink)

Researchers often pursue proof of concept research, but criteria for evaluating such research remain poorly specified. This article proposes a general framework for proof of concept research that k...

这是一个对行为上基因/环境相互作用的极好的回顾,尽管有点过时,但却是一个简单而值得阅读的。他们从双胞胎研究开始,这些研究显示了遗传学对行为的压倒性影响。他们注意到朱迪思·哈里斯越来越广为人知的研究,这 些研究扩展并总结了共享家庭环境对行为几乎没有影响的事实,领养的孩子长大后与选择的继兄弟姐妹一样不同。随机。一个基本点,他们(和几乎所有谁讨论行为遗传学)没有注意到的是,数百(取决于你的观点)人类行为普 遍性,包括我们个性的所有基本,是由我们的基因100%决定,与法线没有变化。每个人都把树看成一棵树,而不是一块石头,寻找和吃食物,生气和嫉妒等等。因此,他们主要讨论的是,环境(文化)能在多大程度上影响各 种特征的显示程度,而不是它们的外观。 最后,他们以通常的政治正确方式讨论优生学,没有注意到我们和所有生物体是自然优生学的产物,并且试图用医学、农业和整个文明来击败自然选择,灾难性的任何社会,坚持这样做。多达50%的所有受孕,或大约1亿/年 ,以早期自然流产结束,几乎所有的母亲都没有意识到。这种对缺陷基因的自然剔除推动了进化,使我们相对地保持遗传健康,并使社会成为可能。基因足以破坏文明,但人口过剩会先破坏文明。 那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、Min d和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的二等奖(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-2017 年'3rd ed(2019)。.

Dies ist eine ausgezeichnete Überprüfung der Gen-/Umgebungsinteraktionen auf das Verhalten und ist, obwohl sie etwas veraltet ist, eine einfache und lohnende Lektüre. Sie beginnen mit Zwillingsstudien, die den überwältigenden Einfluss der Genetik auf das Verhalten zeigen. Sie stellen die immer bekannter werdenden Studien von Judith Harris fest, die die Fakten erweitern und zusammenfassen, dass die gemeinsame häusliche Umgebung fast keinen Einfluss auf das Verhalten hat und dass adoptierte Kinder so anders wachsen als ihre Stiefbrüder und -schwestern wie zufällig ausgewählte Menschen. (...) Ein grundlegender Punkt, den sie (und fast alle, die über Verhaltensgenetik diskutieren) nicht zur Kenntnis nehmen, ist, dass die Hunderte (Tausende je nach Standpunkt) menschlicher Verhaltensuniversalen, einschließlich aller Grundlagen unserer Persönlichkeiten, zu 100% von unseren Genen bestimmt werden, ohne Variation in normalen Werten. Jeder sieht einen Baum als Baum und nicht als Stein, sucht und isst Nahrung, wird wütend und eifersüchtig usw. Worüber sie hier also meistens sprechen, ist, wie viel Umwelt (Kultur) das Ausmaß beeinflussen kann, in dem verschiedene Merkmale gezeigt werden, und nicht ihr Aussehen. Schließlich diskutieren sie die Eugenik in der üblichen politisch korrekten Weise, ohne festzustellen, dass wir und alle Organismen die Produkte der Eugenik der Natur sind und dass Versuche, die natürliche Selektion mit Medizin, Landwirtschaft und Zivilisation als Ganzes zu besiegen, für jede Gesellschaft, die dies weiterhin tut,katastrophalsind. Bis zu 50 % aller Empfängnisse oder etwa 100 Millionen pro Jahr enden in einer frühen spontanen Abtreibung, fast alle ohne Dassmund die Mutter. Diese natürliche Keulung defekter Gene treibt die Evolution an, hält uns relativ genetisch gesund und macht die Gesellschaft möglich. Dysgenös ist ausreichend, um die Zivilisation zu zerstören, aber Überbevölkerung wirdd o eszuerst. Wer aus der modernen zweisystems-Sichteinen umfassenden, aktuellen Rahmen für menschliches Verhalten wünscht, kann mein Buch "The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mindand Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' 2nd ed (2019) konsultieren. Diejenigen,die sich für mehr meiner Schriften interessieren, können 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophie, Psychologie, Wissenschaft, Religion und Politik auf einem verdammten Planeten --Artikel und Rezensionen 2006-2017' 3rd ed (2019) und andere sehen. (shrink)

Это отличный обзор генов / окружающей среды взаимодействия на поведение и, несмотря на то, немного от, это легко и стоит читать. Они начинаются с двойных исследований, которые показывают подавляющее влияние генетики на поведение. Они отмечают все более известные исследования Джудит Харрис, которые расширяют и обобщают факты, которые разделяют домашнюю среду, почти не влияет на поведение и что приемные дети вырастают такими же разными от своих сводных братьев и сестер, как люди, выбранные случайным образом. Один из основных моментов, что они (и (...) почти все, кто обсуждает поведенческой генетики) не отметить, что сотни (тысячи в зависимости от вашей точки зрения) человеческих поведенческих универсалий, в том числе все основы нашей личности, на 100% определяется нашими генами, без каких-либо изменений в нормах. Каждый видит дерево как дерево, а не камень, ищет и ест пищу, сердится и ревнует и т.д. Таким образом, то, что они в основном говорят о том, сколько окружающей среды (культура) может повлиять на степень, в которой различные черты показаны, а не их внешний вид. Наконец, они обсуждают евгеники в обычной политически корректной моды, не заметив, что мы и все организмы являются продуктами евгеники природы и что попытки победить естественный отбор с медициной, сельского хозяйства и цивилизации в целом, являются катастрофическими для любого общества, которое сохраняется в этом. До 50% всех зачатий, или около 100 миллионов/год, заканчиваются ранним спонтанным абортом, почти все без того, чтобы мать знала об этом. Это естественное выбраковка дефектных генов стимулирует эволюцию, сохраняет нас относительно генетически здоровыми и делает возможным общество. Дисгении достаточно, чтобы уничтожить цивилизацию, но перенаселенность будет do его впервую очередь. Те, кто желает всеобъемлющего до современных рамок для человеческого поведения из современных двух systEms зрения могут проконсультироваться с моей книгой"Логическая структура философии, психологии, Минd иязык в Людвиг Витгенштейн и Джон Сирл"2-й ред (2019). Те, кто заинтересован в более моих работ могут увидеть "Говоря обезьян - -Философия, Психология, Наука, Религия и Политика на обреченной планете - Статьи и обзоры 2006-2017' 3rd ed (2019) и другие. (shrink)

Famous ant-man E.O. Wilson has always been one of my heroes --not only an outstanding biologist, but one of the tiny and vanishing minority of intellectuals who at least dares to hint at the truth about our nature that others fail to grasp, or insofar as they do grasp, studiously avoid for political expedience. Sadly, he is ending his long career in a most sordid fashion as a party to an ignorant and arrogant attack on science motivated at least in (...) part by the religious fervor of his Harvard colleagues. It shows the vile consequences when universities accept money from religious groups, science journals are so awed by big names that they avoid proper peer review, and when egos are permitted to get out of control. It takes us into the nature of evolution, the basics of scientific methodology, how math relates to science, what constitutes a theory, and even what attitudes to religion and generosity are appropriate as we inexorably approach the collapse of industrial civilization. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

Esta é uma revisão excelente de interações do gene/ambiente no comportamento e, apesar de ser um bocado datado, é uma leitura fácil e de valor. Eles começam com estudos gêmeos que mostram o impacto esmagador da genética sobre o comportamento. Eles observam os estudos cada vez mais conhecidos de Judith Harris que estendem e resumem os fatos que o ambiente doméstico compartilhado quase não tem efeito sobre o comportamento e que as crianças adotadas crescem para ser tão diferente de seus (...) meio-irmão e irmãs como as pessoas escolhidas aleatoriamente. Um ponto básico que eles (e quase todos os que discutem a genética comportamental) não conseguem notar é que as centenas (milhares dependendo do seu ponto de vista) de universais comportamentais humanos, incluindo todos os fundamentos de nossas personalidades, são 100% determinados por nossos genes, com nenhuma variação em normals. Todo mundo vê uma árvore como uma árvore e não uma pedra, procura e come comida, fica irritado e ciumento, etc. Assim, o que estão falando na maior parte sobre aqui é quanto ambiente (cultura) pode afetar o grau a que as várias características são mostradas, um pouco do que sua aparência. Finalmente, eles discutem a eugenia da forma usual politicamente correta, deixando de notar que nós e todos os organismos são os produtos da eugenia da natureza e que as tentativas de derrotar a seleção natural com a medicina, a agricultura e a civilização como um todo, são desastroso para qualquer sociedade que persiste em fazer isso. Tanto quanto 50% de todas as concepções, ou cerca de 100 milhões/ano, terminam em aborto espontâneo precoce, quase todos sem que a mãe esteja consciente. Este abate natural de genes defeituosos impulsiona a evolução, mantém-nos relativamente geneticamente som e torna a sociedade possível. Disgenia é suficiente para destruir a civilização, mas superpopulação vai do primeiro. Aqueles que desejam um quadro até à data detalhado para o comportamento humano da opinião moderna dos dois sistemas consultar meu livros Falando Macacos 3ª Ed (2019), A Estrutura Lógica da Filosofia, Psicologia, Mente e Linguagem em Ludwig Wittgenstein e John Searle 2a Ed (2019), Suicídio Pela Democracia,4aEd(2019), Entendendo as Conexões entre Ciência, Filosofia, Psicologia, Religião, Política e Economia Artigos e Análises 2006-2019 (2019), Ilusões Utópicas Suicidas no 21St século 5a Ed (2019), A Estrutura Lógica do Comportamento Humano (2019), e A Estrutura Lógica da Consciência (2019) y otras. (shrink)

-/- Esta es una excelente revisión de las interacciones gen/ambiente en el comportamiento y, a pesar de ser un poco anticuado, es una lectura fácil y valiosa. Empiezan con estudios gemelos que muestran el impacto abrumador de la genética en el comportamiento. Señalan los estudios cada vez más conocidos de Judith Harris, que amplían y resumen los hechos de que el ambiente doméstico compartido casi no tiene efecto sobre el comportamiento y que los niños adoptados crecen para ser tan diferentes (...) de sus hermanastros y hermanas como las personas elegidas al azar. Un punto básico que ellos (y casi todos los que discuten sobre la genética conductual) no se dan cuenta es que los cientos (miles dependiendo de su punto de vista) de los universales de comportamiento humano, incluyendo todos los fundamentos de nuestras personalidades, son 100% determinado por nuestros genes, con no hay variación en las normales. Todo el mundo ve un árbol como un árbol y no una piedra, busca y come comida, se enfada y celosa, etc. Por lo tanto, lo que están hablando sobre todo aquí es cuánto ambiente (cultura) puede afectar al grado en que se muestran varios rasgos, en lugar de su apariencia. -/- Por último, discuten la eugenesia en la costumbre políticamente correcta, al no notar que nosotros y todos los organismos somos los productos de la eugenesia de la naturaleza y que los intentos de derrotar la selección natural con la medicina, la agricultura y la civilización en su conjunto, son desastroso para cualquier sociedad que persiste en hacer esto. Tanto como el 50% de todas las concepciones, o unos 100 millones/año, terminan en abortos espontáneos tempranos, casi todos sin que la madre sea consciente. Este sacrificio natural de genes defectuosos impulsa la evolución, nos mantiene relativamente genéticamente sólidas y hace posible la sociedad. La disgenesia es suficiente para destruir la civilización pero sobrepoblación se do primero. -/- Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna Dos Sistemas Punto de Vista puede consultar mi libro 'La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y lenguaje En Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle ' 2Nd Ed (2019). Los interesados en más de mis escritos pueden ver 'Monos parlantes--filosofía, psicología, ciencia, religión y política en un planeta condenado--artículos y reseñas 2006-2017' 3Rd Ed (2019) y otras. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new framework supporting the claim that some elements in science play a constitutive function, with the aim of overcoming some limitations of Friedman's (2001) account. More precisely, I focus on what I consider to be the gradualism implicit in Friedman's interpretation of the constitutive a priori, that is, the fact that it seems to allow for degrees of 'constitutivity'. I tease out such gradualism by showing that the constitutive character Friedman aims to track can (...) be captured by three features - namely, quasi-axiomaticity (QA), generative potential (GP), and empirical shielding (ES) - which are exhibited to a maximal degree by the examples Friedman deploys, particularly in his analysis of Newtonian mechanics. I argue that not all varieties of 'constitutivity' can be captured by the kind of gradualism implicit in Friedman's view, although developing the gradualism itself might provide useful insights. To show this, I analyse the function of the Hardy-Weinberg principle (HWP) in population genetics in terms of its QA, GP, and ES. Whereas the HWP does not count as constitutive in classical philosophical interpretations (Sober 1984), nor does it within Friedman's framework, it does nonetheless perform a minimally constitutive function. By means of historical details and considerations on the prospects of replacing the HWP, I show that the HWP is minimally constitutive by being a counterfactual instantiation of a paradigmatically constitutive stability principle, where the latter might itself be regarded as an enabling condition for a variety of modelling practices across the sciences. (shrink)

Noah Rosenberg et al.'s 2002 article “Genetic Structure of Human Populations” reported that multivariate genomic analysis of a large cell line panel yielded reproducible groupings (clusters) suggestive of individuals' geographical origins. The paper has been repeatedly cited as evidence that traditional notions of race have a biological basis, a claim its authors do not make. Critics of this misinterpretation have often suggested that it follows from interpreters' personal biases skewing the reception of an objective piece of scientific writing. I contend, (...) however, that the article itself to some degree facilitates this misrepresentation. I analyze in detail several verbal and visual features of the original article that may predispose aspects of its racial interpretation; and, tracing the arguments of one philosopher and one popular science writer, I show how these features are absorbed, transformed into arguments for a biological basis of race, and re-attributed to the original. The essay demonstrates how even slight ambiguities can enable the misappropriation of scientific writing, unintentionally undermining the authors' stated circumspection on the relationship between cluster and race. (shrink)

Neven Sesardic has recently defended his arguments in favour of racial naturalism—the view that race is a valid biological category—in response to my criticism of his work. While Sesardic claims that a strong version of racial naturalism can survive critique, he has in fact weakened his position considerably. He concedes that conventional racial taxonomy is arbitrary and he no longer identifies ‘races’ as human subspecies. Sesardic now relies almost entirely on Theodosius Dobzhansky’s notion of race-as-population. This weak approach to ‘race’—according (...) to which all genetic difference between populations is ‘racial’ and ‘the races’ are simply the populations we choose to call races—survived its early critiques. As it is being mobilised to support racial naturalism once more, we need to continue the debate about whether we should weaken the concept of race to mean ‘population’, or abandon it as a failed biological category. I argue that Sesardic’s case for racial naturalism is only supported by his continued mischaracterisation of anti-realism about biological race and his appeal to Dobzhansky’s authority. Rather than deflating the meaning of ‘race’, it should be eliminated from our biological ontology. (shrink)

The notion that natural selection is a process of fitness maximization gets a bad press in population genetics, yet in other areas of biology the view that organisms behave as if attempting to maximize their fitness remains widespread. Here I critically appraise the prospects for reconciliation. I first distinguish four varieties of fitness maximization. I then examine two recent developments that may appear to vindicate at least one of these varieties. The first is the ‘new’ interpretation of Fisher's fundamental theorem (...) of natural selection, on which the theorem is exactly true for any evolving population that satisfies some minimal assumptions. The second is the Formal Darwinism project, which forges links between gene frequency change and optimal strategy choice. In both cases, I argue that the results fail to establish a biologically significant maximization principle. I conclude that it may be a mistake to look for universal maximization principles justified by theory alone. A more promising approach may be to find maximization principles that apply conditionally and to show that the conditions were satisfied in the evolution of particular traits. (shrink)

Lewis et al. (2011) attempted to restore the reputation of Samuel George Morton, a 19th century physician who reported on the skull sizes of different folk-races. Whereas Gould (1978) claimed that Morton's conclusions were invalid because they reflected unconscious bias, Lewis et al. alleged that Morton's findings were, in fact, supported, and Gould's analysis biased. We take strong exception to Lewis et al.’s thesis that Morton was “right.” We maintain that Gould was right to reject Morton's analysis as inappropriate and (...) misleading, but wrong to believe that a more appropriate analysis was available. Lewis et al. fail to recognize that there is, given the dataset available, no appropriate way to answer any of the plausibly interesting questions about the “populations” in question (which in many cases are not populations in any biologically meaningful sense). We challenge the premise shared by both Gould and Lewis et al. that Morton's confused data can be used to draw any meaningful conclusions. This, we argue, reveals the importance of properly focusing on the questions asked, rather than more narrowly on the data gathered. (shrink)

This year’s topic is “Genomics and Philosophy of Race.” Different researchers might work on distinct subsets of the six thematic clusters below, which are neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive: (1) Concepts of ‘Race’; (2) Mathematical Modeling of Human History and Population Structure; (3) Data and Technologies of Human Genomics; (4) Biological Reality of Race; (5) Racialized Selves in a Global Context; (6) Pragmatic Consequences of ‘Race Talk’ among Biologists.

Cooperation is rife in the microbial world, yet our best current theories of the evolution of cooperation were developed with multicellular animals in mind. Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness is an important case in point: applying the theory in a microbial setting is far from straightforward, as social evolution in microbes has a number of distinctive features that the theory was never intended to capture. In this article, I focus on the conceptual challenges posed by the project of extending Hamilton’s (...) theory to accommodate the effects of gene mobility. I begin by outlining the basics of the theory of inclusive fitness, emphasizing the role that the concept of relatedness is intended to play. I then provide a brief history of this concept, showing how, over the past fifty years, it has departed from the intuitive notion of genealogical kinship to encompass a range of generalized measures of genetic similarity. I proceed to argue that gene mobility forces a further revision of the concept. The reason in short is that, when the genes implicated in producing social behaviour are mobile, we cannot talk of an organism’s genotype simpliciter; we can talk only of an organism’s genotype at a particular stage in its life cycle. We must therefore ask: with respect to which stage(s) in the life cycle should relatedness be evaluated? For instance: is it genetic similarity at the time of social interaction that matters to the evolution of social behaviour, or is it genetic similarity at the time of reproduction? I argue that, strictly speaking, it is neither of these: what really matters to the evolution of social behaviour is diachronic genetic similarity between the producers of fitness benefits at the time they produce them and the recipients of those benefits at the end of their life-cycle. I close by discussing the implications of this result. The main payoff is that it makes room for a possible new mechanism for the evolution of altruism in microbes that does not require correlated interaction among bearers of the genes for altruism. The importance of this mechanism in nature remains an open empirical question. (shrink)

Although there once was a general consensus among race scholars that applying race categories to humans is biologically illegitimate, this consensus has been erased over the past decade. This is largely due to advances in population genetics that allow biologists to pick out genetic population clusters that approximate some of our common sense racial categories. In this paper, I argue that this new ability really ought not undermine our confidence in the biological illegitimacy of the human races. Unfortunately, the claim (...) that races are biologically legitimate is ambiguous—the sense I will be concerned with here holds that the human species can be divided into biological subspecies. Sesardic and Andreasen have both argued that the cluster results are evidence for subspecies within the human population. I show the cluster results are in fact evidentially inert relative to each author’s preferred subspecies concept. I then sketch the kinds of biological facts that could be used to adjudicate whether human subspecies have existed in the past. (shrink)

This research was carried out in order to verify by simulation Mendel’s laws and seek for the clarification, from the author’s point of view, the Mendel-Fisher controversy. It was demonstrated from: the experimental procedure and the first two steps of the Hardy-Weinberg law, that the null hypothesis in such experiments is absolutely and undeniably true. Consequently, repeating hybridizing experiments as those showed by Mendel, it makes sense to expect a highly coincidence between the observed and the expected cell frequencies. By (...) simulation, 30 random samples were generated with size equal to the number of observations reported by Mendel for his single trait trial, in this case, seed shape; assuming complete dominance, with genes A and a; likewise, it was simulated the results for the experiment with two traits, segregating in separate chromosomes, in this case seed shape, as before, and albumen color, with genes B and b, both loci with complete dominance. In the case of a single trait, the data only showed evidence for rejecting the null hypothesis (Ho ) in 1/30 samples, with (P<0.05). In the case of the 30 samples of the two traits experiment, (Ho ) was rejected only on 3/30 times, when it was set a = 0.05. In both simulations there was a high correspondence between the observed and expected cell frequencies, which is simply due to the fact that (Ho ) is true, and under these conditions, that is what would to expect. It was concluded, that Mendel had no reason to manipulate his data in order to make them to coincide with his beliefs. Therefore, in experiment with a single trait, and in experiments with two traits assuming complete dominance, segregation ratios are 3:1; and 9:3:3:1, respectively. Consequently, Mendel’s laws, under the conditions as were described are absolutely valid and universal. (shrink)

Two families of mathematical methods lie at the heart of investigating the hierarchical structure of genetic variation in Homo sapiens: /diversity partitioning/, which assesses genetic variation within and among pre-determined groups, and /clustering analysis/, which simultaneously produces clusters and assigns individuals to these “unsupervised” cluster classifications. While mathematically consistent, these two methodologies are understood by many to ground diametrically opposed claims about the reality of human races. Moreover, modeling results are sensitive to assumptions such as preexisting theoretical commitments to certain (...) linguistic, anthropological, and geographic human groups. Thus, models can be perniciously reified. That is, they can be conflated and confused with the world. This fact belies standard realist and antirealist interpretations of “race,” and supports a pluralist conventionalist interpretation. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Brandon and Nijhout argue against genic selectionism—the thesis, roughly, that evolutionary processes are best understood from the gene’s-eye point of view—by presenting a case in which genic models of selection allegedly make predictions that conflict with the (correct) predictions of higher-level genotypic selection models. Their argument, if successful, would refute the widely held belief that genic models and higher-level models are predictively equivalent. Here, I argue that Brandon and Nijhout fail to demonstrate that the models make (...) incompatible predictions. (shrink)

Para algunos la selección natural se identifica con las diferencias de éxito de distintos organismos en la reproducción diferencial. Si esto fuese así, el principio de Hardy-Weinberg, por permitir determinar con bastante precisión bajo ciertos supuestos que la frecuencia génica en una población no es la esperada, podría ser visto como una versión cuantitativa de la selección natural cualitativa propuesta por Darwin. Es mi intención mostrar, a través del análisis de explicaciones dadas por Darwin, que la selección natural es más (...) que la mera diferencia en el éxito en la reproducción diferencial e investigar algunas relaciones entre la teoría de la selección natural y la genética de poblaciones. (shrink)

A hitherto neglected form of explanation is explored, especially its role in population genetics. “Statistically abstractive explanation” (SA explanation) mandates the suppression of factors probabilistically relevant to an explanandum when these factors are extraneous to the theoretical project being pursued. When these factors are suppressed, the explanandum is rendered uncertain. But this uncertainty traces to the theoretically constrained character of SA explanation, not to any real indeterminacy. Random genetic drift is an artifact of such uncertainty, and it is therefore wrong (...) to reify it as a cause of evolution or as a process in its own right. *Received July 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, 170 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5R 2M8, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In this BA dissertation, I deploy examples of non-causal explanations of physical phenomena as evidence against the view that causal models of explanation can fully account for explanatory practices in science. I begin by discussing the problems faced by Hempel’s models and the causal models built to replace them. I then offer three everyday examples of non-causal explanation, citing sticks, pilots and apples. I suggest a general form for such explanations, under which they can be phrased as inductive-statistical arguments incorporating (...) plausible assumptions. I then show the applicability of this form to explanatory practices in thermal physics. I explore the possibility that population genetics provides a similar form of explanation, and offer a novel defence of the statistical interpretation of population genetics proposed by Matthen and Ariew (2002). I close with remarks concerning how, when faced with competing causal and non-causal explanations of the same phenomenon, we can perform an Inference to the Best Explanation. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology is a field currently animated by much discussion concerning its conceptual foundations. On the one hand, we have supporters of a classical view of evolutionary theory, whose backbone is provided by population genetics and the so-called Modern Synthesis (MS). On the other hand, a number of researchers are calling for an Extended Synthe- sis (ES) that takes seriously both the limitations of the MS (such as its inability to incorporate developmental biology) and recent empirical and theoretical research on (...) issues such as evolvability, modularity, and self-organization. In this article, I engage in an in-depth commentary of an influential paper by population geneticist Michael Lynch, which I take to be the best defense of the MS-population genetics position published so far. I show why I think that Lynch’s arguments are wanting and propose a modification of evolutionary theory that retains but greatly expands on population genetics. (shrink)

Although epistasis is at the center of the Fisher-Wright debate, biologists not involved in the controversy are often unaware that there are actually two different formal definitions of epistasis. We compare concepts of genetic independence in the two theoretical traditions of evolutionary genetics, population genetics and quantitative genetics, and show how independence of gene action (represented by the multiplicative model of population genetics) can be different from the absence of gene interaction (represented by the linear additive model of quantitative genetics). (...) The two formulations converge with weak selection but not with strong selection or, for multiple loci, when the aggregated interaction terms are not negligible. As a result of the different formulations of gene interaction, the presence or absence of linkage disequilibrium,/D/, does not necessarily indicate the presence or absence of fitness epistasis. Indeed, linkage disequilibrium is generated in ‘additive’ models in quantitative genetics whenever two (or more) loci experience simultaneous selection. As a research strategy, it is often practical, for theoretical or experimental reasons, to minimize gene interaction by assuming independence of gene action in regard to fitness, or by assuming linear additive effects of multiple loci on a phenotype. However, minimizing the role of epistasis in theoretical investigations hinders our understanding of the origins of diversity and the evolution of complex phenotypes. (shrink)

This Ph.D. thesis provides a pilosophical account of the structure of the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 40s. The first, more historical part analyses how classical genetics came to be integrated into evolutionary thinking, highlighting in particular the importance of chromosomal mapping of Drosophila strains collected in the wild by Dobzansky, but also the work of Goldschmidt, Sumners, Timofeeff-Ressovsky and others. The second, more philosophical part attempts to answer the question wherein the unity of the synthesis consisted. I argue (...) that it exemplifies a weak of form of explanatory unification. (shrink)

A precise formulation of the structure of modern evolutionary theory has proved elusive. In this paper, I introduce and develop a formal approach to the structure of population genetics, evolutionary theory's most developed sub-theory. Under the semantic approach, used as a framework in this paper, presenting a theory consists in presenting a related family of models. I offer general guidelines and examples for the classification of population genetics models; the defining features of the models are taken to be their state (...) spaces, parameters, and laws. The suggestions regarding the various aspects of the characterization of population genetics models provide an outline for further detailed research. (shrink)