Many have argued that there is no reason why natural selection should cause directional increases in measures such as body size or complexity across evolutionary history as a whole. In this paper I argue that this conclusion does not hold for selection for adaptations to environmental variability, and that, given the inevitability of environmental variability, trends in adaptations to variability are an expected feature of evolution by natural selection. As a concrete instance of this causal structure, I outline how this (...) may be applied to a trend in phenotypic plasticity. (shrink)

As Raymond Williams famously declared, nature is one of the most complex words in the English language – and, we may confidently predict, its Germanic relatives including Dutch. The workshop that took place in June 2007 in the Netherlands, from which this volume is derived, was based on an earlier program exploring connections between our concepts of nature and related concepts of science and religion. Though one may not immediately expect these three realms to be interrelated, countless examples suggest otherwise.

Metagenomics is an emerging microbial systems science that is based on the large-scale analysis of the DNA of microbial communities in their natural environments. Studies of metagenomes are revealing the vast scope of biodiversity in a wide range of environments, as well as new functional capacities of individual cells and communities, and the complex evolutionary relationships between them. Our examination of this science focuses on the ontological implications of these studies of metagenomes and metaorganisms, and what they mean for common (...) sense and philosophical understandings of multicellularity, individuality and organism. We show how metagenomics requires us to think in different ways about what human beings are and what their relation to the microbial world is. Metagenomics could also transform the way in which evolutionary processes are understood, with the most basic relationship between cells from both similar and different organisms being far more cooperative and less antagonistic than is widely assumed. In addition to raising fundamental questions about biological ontology, metagenomics generates possibilities for powerful technologies addressed to issues of climate, health and conservation. We conclude with reflections about process-oriented versus entity-oriented analysis in light of current trends towards systems approaches. (shrink)

La versión estadística del concepto de naturaleza humana sigue siendo un concepto central en muchas ramas de las ciencias humanas. La clave del concepto es que existe un núcleo de fenotipos específicos que caracteriza a las especies biológicas, incluyendo la nuestra. Llamo a esta perspectiva esencialismo estadístico. Voy a sugerir que la tipicidad y la uniformidad fenotípica se consideran supuestos legítimos en muchas ciencias humanas, ya que el desarrollo biológico se interpreta como un proceso inherentemente conservador que utiliza sólo recursos (...) endógenos, mientras que la evolución se interpreta como un proceso de normalización que destruye la variación fenotípica. Llamo a esta visión perspectiva homeostática. Voy a criticar la perspectiva homeostática presentando argumentos apoyados en consideraciones teóricas y empíricas. En particular, voy a destacar dos prejuicios anacrónicos que se encuentran en el corazón de la perspectiva homeostática: en primer lugar, su visión monomórfica de las especies, así como su visión monoorganísmica y monogenómica del organismo; en segundo lugar, su compromiso con una visión causal endógena del desarrollo. Finalmente voy a argumentar que el esencialismo estadístico es problemático porque respalda los mismos prejuicios monistas y endógenos que caracterizan la perspectiva homeostática. Parafraseando a Margulis y Sagan, los científicos pueden engañarse fácilmente al descuidar la investigación sobre la diversidad humana y la plasticidad del desarrollo. A statistical version of the concept of human nature remains a major foundational concept in many branches of the human sciences. The kernel of the concept is that there exists a core of species-specific phenotypes that characterises biological species, including ours. I call this view statistical essentialism. I will suggest that phenotypic typicality and uniformity are considered legitimate assumptions in many human sciences because biological development is interpreted as an inherently conservative process utilising only endogenous developmental resources, while evolution is interpreted as a normalizing process destroying phenotypic variation. I call this view homeostatic perspective. I will criticise the homeostatic perspective by presenting arguments supported by both theoretical considerations and empirical evidence. In particular, I will emphasise two anachronistic biases at the heart of the homeostatic perspective: first, its mono-morphic view of species as well as mono-organismic and mono-genomic view of the organism; secondly, its commitment to an endogenous view of developmental causation. I will finally argue that statistical essentialism is problematic because it endorses the same monistic and endogenous prejudices characterising the homeostatic perspective. Paraphrasing Margulis and Sagan, human scientists can easily fool themselves by neglecting research on human diversity and developmental plasticity. (shrink)

Many natural and biological phenomena can be depicted as networks. Theoretical and empirical analyses of networks have become prevalent. I discuss theoretical biases involved in the delineation of biological networks. The network perspective is shown to dissolve the distinction between regulatory architecture and regulatory state, consistent with the theoretical impossibility of distinguishing a priori between “program” and “data”. The evolutionary significance of the dynamics of trans-generational and inter-organism regulatory networks is explored and implications are presented for understanding the evolution of (...) the biological categories development-heredity; plasticity-evolvability; and epigenetic-genetic. (shrink)