A central reason that undergirds the significance of evo-devo is the claim that development was left out of the Modern synthesis. This claim turns out to be quite complicated, both in terms of whether development was genuinely excluded and how to understand the different kinds of embryological research that might have contributed. The present paper reevaluates this central claim by focusing on the practice of model organism choice. Through a survey of examples utilized in the literature of the Modern synthesis, (...) I identify a previously overlooked feature: exclusion of research on marine invertebrates. Understanding the import of this pattern requires interpreting it in terms of two epistemic values operating in biological research: theoretical generality and explanatory completeness. In tandem, these values clarify and enhance the significance of this exclusion. The absence of marine invertebrates implied both a lack of generality in the resulting theory and a lack of completeness with respect to particular evolutionary problems, such as evolvability and the origin of novelty. These problems were salient to embryological researchers aware of the variation and diversity of larval forms in marine invertebrates. In closing, I apply this analysis to model organism choice in evo-devo and discuss its relevance for an extended evolutionary synthesis. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the question whether objective criteria could be provided for judging something to be a mental illness. I consider the two most prominent objectivist or naturalistic accounts of mental illness, evolutionary and bio-statistical account, which offer such a criterion by relying on the notion of biological function. According to such suggestions, illness is a condition in which there is dysfunciton in some feature of an organism. In this context, I consider different accounts for ascribing functions in (...) biologyand their relationship with the suggested accounts of illnesses. Special focus is placed on the objections according to which the ascription of functions, as envisaged in naturalistic accounts of illness, is incompatible with actual medical and psychiatric practice. I conclude that these objections are legitimate insofar we want to an account of illness that preserves the current practice of ascribing illness. However, the question remains, could a theory that tries to capture the actual medical practice be value-neutral, since our ordinary conception of illness is permeated with value judgments that indirectly enter into medical practice. In that respect, it seems that the requirement for pure objectivity is too strong and thus, it is not reasonable to expect that naturalistic accounts can satisfy it. (shrink)

Ovaj je zbornik nastao kao rezultat istraživanja provedenog unutar istoimenoga znanstveno-istraživačkoga projekta na kojemu su urednici istovremeno bili i glavni istraživači, a ostali autori članovi istraživačke skupine. Kao svjedoci različitih vrsta otklona od prevladavajućeg, uobičajenoga, normalnoga, pozitivnog ili ponašanja koje se karakterizira kao asocijalno, zapitali smo se – što postojeće čini normom, treba li odstupanje od norme nužno smatrati devijacijom i kakvi su poželjni društveni odgovori na odstupanja od normi. Često se smatra ispravnim upravo ono što je prevladavajuće, a ono (...) što predstavlja otklon označava se kao devijacija u negativnome značenju onoga što nije ispravno, nije posve ispravno, ili čak onoga što treba sankcionirati. Naš je početni stav bio da ono što prevladava ne smije biti neupitna norma, kao što ni ono što je otklon nije po automatizmu devijacija. Međutim, ne smatramo ni da prevladavajuću normu, samom tom činjenicom što je prevladavajuća, nužno treba kritizirati te da je svaki otklon po sebi poželjan. Cilj našeg istraživanja bio je istražiti različite oblike deficita i devijacijau u domeni formiranja vjerovanja individualnih, grupnih, kolektivnih i institucijskih epistemičkih aktera (socijalna epistemologija) i u domeni društvenog i institucijskoga djelovanja (filozofija politike i filozofija psihijatrije). Nastavno na to, pokušali smo identificirati vrijednosti postojećih normi, koliko odgovaraju poželjnim vrijednostima te koji su poželjni društveni odgovori na otklone od normi. (shrink)

According to the species-as-individuals thesis(hereafter S-A-I), species are cohesive entities. Barker and Wilson recently pointed out that the type of cohesion exhibited by species is fundamentally different from that of organisms (paradigmatic individuals), suggesting that species are homeostatic property cluster kinds. In this article, I propose a shift in how to approach cohesion in the context of S-A-I: instead of analyzing the different types of cohesion and questioning whether species have them, I focus on the role played by cohesion in (...) the identity of individuals. This shift allows us to recognize why cohesion matters to S-A-I, as well as to reconceive the analogy between species and organisms (paradigmatic individuals), and also allows us to highlight the context sensitivity of both ‘‘cohesion’’ and ‘‘individuals.’’ From this perspective, I identify two problems in Barker and Wilson’s argumentation. Firstly, the authors fail to recognize that species are individuals even if they do not have the same type of cohesion that organisms have. Secondly, their argument relies on a misinterpretation of S-A-I. I conclude that species cohesion is still best framed as a feature of species individuality rather than a feature of species as homeostatic property cluster kinds. The arguments presented here contribute to the re-articulation and reevaluation of S-A-I in the face of contemporary discussions. (shrink)

Consciousness attracts the attention of researchers representing various disciplines. Hence, there is a demand for a theoretical tool that could integrate data and theoretical concepts originating from distinct fields. The paper proposes to use the framework of the theory of integrative levels. The development and the definitions of the concept of levels are briefly discussed. The final part of the paper presents a proposal for incorporating the levels of consciousness into the framework of the integrative levels theory.

Elimination controversies are ubiquitous in philosophy and the human sciences. For example, it has been suggested that human races, hysteria, intelligence, mental disorder, propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires, the self, and the super-ego should be eliminated from the list of respectable entities in the human sciences. I argue that eliminativist proposals are often presented in the framework of an oversimplified “phlogiston model” and suggest an alternative account that describes ontological elimination on a gradual scale between criticism of empirical (...) assumptions and conceptual choices. (shrink)

William Bateson has long occupied a controversial role in the history of biology at the turn of the twentieth century. For the most part, Bateson has been situated as the British translator of Mendel or as the outspoken antagonist of W. F. R. Weldon and Karl Pearson's biometrics program. Less has been made of Bateson's transition from embryologist to advocate for discontinuous variation, and the precise role of British and American influences in that transition, in the years leading up to (...) the publication of his massive Materials for the Study of Variation. In this paper, I first attempt to trace Bateson's development in his early career before turning to search for the development of the moniker "anti-Darwinist" that has been attached to Bateson in well-known histories of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis. (shrink)

For more than fifty years, taxonomists have proposed numerous alternative definitions of species while they searched for a unique, comprehensive, and persuasive definition. This monograph shows that these efforts have been unnecessary, and indeed have provably been a pursuit of a will o’ the wisp because they have failed to recognize the theoretical impossibility of what they seek to accomplish. A clear and rigorous understanding of the logic underlying species definition leads both to a recognition of the inescapable ambiguity that (...) affects the definition of species, and to a framework-relative approach to species definition that is logically compelling, i.e., cannot not be accepted without inconsistency. An appendix reflects upon the conclusions reached, applying them in an intellectually whimsical taxonomic thought experiment that conjectures the possibility of an emerging new human species. (shrink)

According to a classical narrative, early geneticists, failing to see how Mendelism provides the missing pieces of Darwin’s theory, rejected gradual changes and advocated an implausible yet briefly popular view of evolution-by-mutation; after decades of delay (in which synthesis was prevented by personal conflicts, disciplinary rivalries, and anti-Darwinian animus), Darwinism emerged on a new Mendelian basis. Based on the works of four influential early geneticists – Bateson, de Vries, Morgan and Punnett –, and drawing on recent scholarship, we offer an (...) alternative that turns the classical view on its head. For early geneticists, embracing discrete inheritance and the mutation theory (for the origin of hereditary variation) did not entail rejection of selection, but rejection of Darwin’s non-Mendelian views of heredity and variation, his doctrine of natura non facit saltum, and his conception of “natural selection” as a creative force that shapes features out of masses of infinitesimal differences. We find no evidence of a delay in synthesizing mutation, rules of discrete inheritance, and selection in a Mendelian-Mutationist Synthesis. Instead, before 1918, early geneticists had conceptualized allelic selection, the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, the evolution of a quantitative trait under selection, the probability of fixation of a new mutation, and other key innovations. Contemporary evolutionary thinking seems closer to their more ecumenical view than to the restrictive mid-twentieth-century consensus known as the Modern Synthesis. (shrink)

During the decades following World War II diverse groups of American biologists established a variety of distinctive approaches to organismal biology. Rhetorically, organismal biology could be used defensively to distinguish established research traditions from perceived threats from newly emerging fields such as molecular biology. But, organismal biologists were also interested in integrating biological disciplines and using a focus on organisms to synthesize levels of organization from molecules and cells to populations and communities. Part of this broad movement was the development (...) of an area of research variously referred to as physiological ecology, environmental physiology, or ecophysiology. This area of research was distinctive in its self-conscious blend of field and laboratory practices and its explicit integration with other areas of biology such as ecology, animal behavior, and evolution in order to study adaptation. Comparing the intersecting careers of Knut Schmidt-Nielsen and George Bartholomew highlights two strikingly different approaches to physiological ecology. These alternative approaches to studying the interactions of organisms and environments also differed in important ways from the organismal biology championed by leading figures in the modern synthesis. (shrink)

To properly understand behavior, we must obtain both ultimate and proximate explanations. Put briefly, ultimate explanations are concerned with why a behavior exists, and proximate explanations are concerned with how it works. These two types of explanation are complementary and the distinction is critical to evolutionary explanation. We are concerned that they have become conflated in some areas of the evolutionary literature on human behavior. This article brings attention to these issues. We focus on three specific areas: the evolution of (...) cooperation, transmitted culture, and epigenetics. We do this to avoid confusion and wasted effort—dangers that are particularly acute in interdisciplinary research. Throughout this article, we suggest ways in which misunderstanding may be avoided in the future. (shrink)

In a very general sense, hybrid can be understood to be any organism that is the product of two (or more) organisms where each parent belongs to a different kind. For example; the offspring from two or more parent organisms, each belonging to a separate species (or genera), is called a “hybrid”. “Hybridity” refers to the phenomenal character of being a hybrid. And “hybridization ” refers to both natural and artificial processes of generating hybrids. These processes include mechanisms of selective (...) cross-breeding and cross-fertilization of parents of different species for the purpose of producing hybrid offspring. In addition to these processes, “hybridization ” also refers to natural and artificial processes of whole genome duplication that result in the doubling or trebling of the sets of chromosomes of the organism. This entry provides an overview of the impact of hybridity on agriculture. It begins with an historical sketch that traces the early horticulturalists’ and naturalists’ investigations of hybrids. This starts with the observations of Thomas Fairchild and Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon; and leads to the explanation of its mechanism by Gregor Mendel, James Watson and Francis Crick, and Ernst Mayr; and the eventual manipulation of hybrids and hybridization by Barbara McClintock. Following this, the reader is introduced to a number of key terms and concepts in use within current research as well as highlighting diverse ethical concerns that center on hybridization. Recent research that attempts to ascertain the role of hybridization in adaptive change will be introduced. This will include research on the evolution of crop species, increased biodiversity, and the use of hybrids to manipulate phenotypically desirable traits in agricultural crops. The focus of the discussion is on a particularly significant type of naturally occurring hybridization, polyploidy hybridization. Polyploids are organisms which have more than two complete genomes in each cell. This kind of hybridization is ubiquitous among crop plants. The role of polyploidy in plant evolution and the affects of polyploidy on plants and animals will be reviewed. A critical discussion of its agricultural value in the production of fertile polyploid hybrids highlights key epistemological, ontological, and ethical issues. These are illuminated with reference to the distinct processes of artificial and natural hybridization. A survey of these different kinds of hybridization includes the ethical and economic impacts of hybridity on global nutrition, the environment, and considerations of some practical implications for the agricultural industry. Tracking the role of hybrids, the process of hybridization, and the current impacts of it for agriculture requires knowledge of the history of its early conceptualization, understanding, and use. This is the topic of the following section. (shrink)

This paper clarifies the historical nature of species by showing that species are path-dependent entities. A species’ identity is not determined by its intrinsic properties or its origin, but by its unique evolutionary path. Seeing that species are path-dependent entities has three implications: it shows that origin essentialism is mistaken, it rebuts two challenges to the species-are-historical-entities thesis, and it demonstrates that the identity of a species during speciation depends on future events.

The essay considers two sets of interrelated difficulties that follow from our kinship to animals: those that arise chronically from our individual psychologically complex and often ambivalent relations to animals, and those that reflect the intellectually and ideologically criss-crossed connections among the various discourses currently concerned with those relations, including the movement for animal rights, ecological ethics, posthumanist theory, and such fields as primatology and evolutionary psychology. I begin with some general observations on classification and then turn to the increasingly (...) complex play of claims and counter-claims regarding the so-called species barrier. (shrink)

At least 22 concepts of species are in use today and many of these are notably incompatible in their accounts of biological diversity. Much of the traditional turmoil embodied in the species problem ultimately derives from the packaging of inappropriate criteria for species into a single concept. This results from a traditional conflation of function of concepts with their applications, definitions with concepts, taxonomic categories with groups, and the ontological status of real species with teleological approaches to recover them. Analogous (...) to classifications of supraspecific taxa, our forging inappropriate and ambiguous information relating to theoretical and operational discussions of species ultimately results in a trade-off between convenience, accuracy, precision, and the successful recovery of natural biological diversity. Hence, none of these expectations or intentions of species or classifications is attainable through composite, and possibly discordant, concepts of biological diversity or its descent. Reviewing and evaluating the concepts of species for their theoretical and operational qualities illustrates that a monistic, primary concept of species, applicable to the various entities believed to be species, is essential. This evaluation reveals only one theoretical concept as appropriate for species, the Evolutionary Species Concept. This conceptualization functions as a primary concept and is essential in structuring our ideas and perceptions of real species in the natural world. The remaining concepts are secondary, forming a hierarchy of definitional guidelines subordinate to the primary concept, and are essential to the study of species in practice. Secondary concepts should be used as operational tools, where appropriate, across the variance in natural diversity to discover entities in accord with the primary concept. Without this theoretical and empirical structuring of concepts of species our mission to achieve reconciliation and understanding of pattern and process of the natural world will fail. (shrink)

The concept of adaptation is employed in many fields such as biology, psychology, cognitive sciences, robotics, social sciences, even literacy and art,1 and its meaning varies quite evidently according to the particular research context in which it is applied. We expect to find a particularly rich catalogue of meanings within evolutionary biology, where adaptation has held a particularly central role since Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) throughout important epistemological shifts and scientific findings that enriched and diversified the concept. Accordingly, (...) a conceptual taxonomy of adaptation in evolutionary biology may help to disambiguate it. Interdisciplinary researches focused on adaptation would benefit from such a result. In the present work we recognize and define seven different meanings of adaptation: (1) individual fitness; (2) adaptation of a population; (3) adaptation as the process of natural selection; (4) adaptive traits; (5) molecular adaptation; (6) adaptation as structural tinkering; (7) plasticity. For convenience here, we refer to them as W-, P-, NS-, T-, M-, S- and PL-ADAPTATION. We present the seven meanings in some detail, hinting at their respective origins and conceptual developments in the history of evolutionary thought (references are offered for further deepening). However, it is important to point out that evolution researchers seldom if ever refer to a single meaning purified from the others. This applies also to the authors we cite as representatives of one of the seven meanings. In Discussion and Conclusion draw from our work some future perspectives for adaptation within evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on the concept of human nature disagrees on how to respond to the Darwinian challenge, according to which biological species do not have traditional essences. Three broad kinds of reactions can be distinguished: conservative intrinsic essentialism, which defends essences in the traditional sense, eliminativism, which suggests dropping the concept of human nature altogether, and constructive approaches, which argue that revisions can generate sensible concepts of human nature beyond traditional essences. The different constructive approaches pick out one or (...) two of the three epistemic roles that are fused in traditional essentialist conceptions of human nature: descriptive, explanatory, definitional, or explanatory and definitional. These turns towards diverging epistemic roles are best interpreted pluralistically: there is a plurality of concepts of human nature that have to be clearly distinguished, each with a legitimate role in respective scientific contexts. (shrink)

Since the late 1990s, the characterization of complete DNA sequences for a large and taxonomically diverse set of species has continued to gain in speed and accuracy. Sequence analyses have indicated a strikingly baroque structure for most eukaryotic genomes, with multiple repeats of DNA sequences and with very little of the DNA specifying proteins. Much of the DNA in these genomes has no known function. These results have generated strong interest in the factors that govern the evolution of genome architecture. (...) While adaptationist ‘just so’ stories have been offered, recent theoretical analyses based on mathematical population genetics strongly suggest that non-adaptive processes dominate genome architecture evolution. This article critically synthesizes and develops these arguments, explicating a core argument along with several variants. It provides a critical assessment of the evidence that supports these arguments’ premises. It also analyses adaptationist responses to these arguments and notes potential problems with the core argument. These theoretical analyses continue the molecular reinterpretation of evolution initiated by the neutral theory in 1968. The article ends by noting that some of these arguments can also be extended to evolution at higher levels of organization which raises questions about adaptationism in general. This remains a puzzle because there is probably little reason to doubt that many organismic features are genuine adaptations. 1 Introduction2 Preliminaries: Senses of Adaptationism3 Genome Architecture3.1 Surprises of early eukaryotic genetics3.2 Genome structure, post-20014 The Case against Adaptationism4.1 Just so stories versus population genetics4.2 The core argument4.3 Three variants of the core argument4.4 Examples: Non-adaptive features of the genome5 Adaptationist Responses6 Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.

Complexity is pleased to announce the installment of Prof Hiroki Sayama as its new Chief Editor. In this Editorial, Prof Sayama describes his feelings about his recent appointment, discusses some of the journal’s journey and relevance to current issues, and shares his vision and aspirations for its future.

A comment on Paul Schoemaker's target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14 (1991), p. 205-215, "The Quest for Optimality: A Positive Heuristic of Science?" (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00066140). This comment argues that the optimizing model of decision leads to an infinite regress, once internal costs of decision (i.e., information and computation costs) are duly taken into account.

This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of one of science's most pervasive and flexible metaprinciples;optimalityis used to explain utility maximization in economics, least effort principles in physics, entropy in chemistry, and survival of the fittest in biology. Fermat's principle of least time involves both teleological and causal considerations, two distinct modes of explanation resting on poorly understood psychological primitives. The rationality heuristic in economics provides an example from social science of the potential biases arising from the extreme flexibility of (...) optimality considerations, including selective search for confirming vidence, ex post rationalization, and the confusion of prediction with explanation. Commentators are asked to reflect on the extent to which optimality is an organizing principle of nature, a set of relatively unconnected techniques of science, a normative principle for rational choice and social organization, a metaphysical way of looking at the world, or something else still. (shrink)