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  1. (1 other version)Units and levels of selection.Elisabeth Lloyd - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The theory of evolution by natural selection is, perhaps, the crowning intellectual achievement of the biological sciences. There is, however, considerable debate about which entity or entities are selected and what it is that fits them for that role. This article aims to clarify what is at issue in these debates by identifying four distinct, though often confused, concerns and then identifying how the debates on what constitute the units of selection depend to a significant degree on which of these (...)
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  • Natural selection.Robert Brandon - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection provided the first, and only, causal-mechanistic account of the existence of adaptations in nature. As such, it provided the first, and only, scientific alternative to the “argument from design”. That alone would account for its philosophical significance. But the theory also raises other philosophical questions not encountered in the study of the theories of physics. Unfortunately the concept of natural selection is intimately intertwined with the other basic concepts of evolutionary theory—such as the (...)
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  • Natural Kinds: The Expendables.François Papale & David Montminy - 2023 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (2):103-120.
    Theoreticians that defend a form of realism regarding natural kinds minimally entertain the belief that the world features divisions into kinds and that the natural kind concept is a useful tool for philosophy of science. The objective of this paper is to challenge these assumptions. First, we challenge realism toward natural kinds by showing that the main arguments for their existence, which rely on the epistemic success of natural kinds, are unsatisfactory. Second, we show that, whether they exist or not, (...)
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  • Darwin Meets Dr. Frankenstein: Using the Drake Equation to Calculate the Probability of Volcanic Lightning’s Impact on Chemical Evolution.Petar Nurkić - 2022 - Belgrade Philosophical Annual 1 (35):49-68.
    Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has been a paramount mechanism of interest in recent literature addressing the origins of biological evolution. However, research on lightning-triggered electroporation represents the innovative and still insufficiently grasped approach to HGT (Kotnik, 2013). On the other hand, prebiotic synthesis is a fundamental process for chemical evolution. Recently, the effects of volcanic lightning on nitrogen fixation and phosphate reduction have also been considered (NavarroGonzález and Segura, 2004). This paper aims to present a top-down approach to the question (...)
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  • Rethinking hereditary relations: the reconstitutor as the evolutionary unit of heredity.Sophie J. Veigl, Javier Suárez & Adrian Stencel - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-42.
    This paper introduces the reconstitutor as a comprehensive unit of heredity within the context of evolutionary research. A reconstitutor is the structure resulting from a set of relationships between different elements or processes that are actively involved in the recreation of a specific phenotypic variant in each generation regardless of the biomolecular basis of the elements or whether they stand in a continuous line of ancestry. Firstly, we justify the necessity of introducing the reconstitutor by showing the limitations of other (...)
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  • When can cultural selection explain adaptation?Azita Chellappoo - 2022 - Biology and Philosophy 37 (1):1-23.
    Cultural selection models aim to explain cultural phenomena as the products of a selective process, often characterising institutions, practices, norms or behaviours as adaptations. I argue that a lack of attention has been paid to the explanatory power of cultural selection frameworks. Arguments for cultural selection frequently depend on demonstrating only that selection models can in principle be applied to culture, rather than explicitly demonstrating the explanatory payoffs that could arise from their application. Understanding when and how cultural selection generates (...)
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  • Replication and reproduction.John Wilkins & Pierrick Bourrat - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • Vindicating Lineage Eliminativism.Javier Suárez & Sophie Veigl - forthcoming - Biological Theory:1-15.
    This article defends a selective eliminativist position with respect to the concept of “biological lineage” as used in certain areas of contemporary evolutionary biology. We argue that its primary epistemic roles in these contexts—explaining social evolution and cumulative selection—clash with empirical evidence, and that enforcing the concept of “lineage” even obstructs fruitful research avenues in several biological research fields, including phylogenetic research. Drawing on this, we suggest that, in many instances, it would be best to get rid of the concept (...)
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  • The arithmetic mean of what? A Cautionary Tale about the Use of the Geometric Mean as a Measure of Fitness.Peter Takacs & Pierrick Bourrat - 2022 - Biology and Philosophy 37 (2):1-22.
    Showing that the arithmetic mean number of offspring for a trait type often fails to be a predictive measure of fitness was a welcome correction to the philosophical literature on fitness. While the higher mathematical moments of a probability-weighted offspring distribution can influence fitness measurement in distinct ways, the geometric mean number of offspring is commonly singled out as the most appropriate measure. For it is well-suited to a compounding process and is sensitive to variance in offspring number. The geometric (...)
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  • Jacob’s Understanding of Reproduction: Challenges from an Organismic Collaborative Framework.Arantza Etxeberria Agiriano - 2023 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 13 (2):535-553.
    François Jacob viewed the living world as interconnected by reproductive links, suggesting that biology should not limit itself to studying individual organisms given their ephemeral nature. He believed that reproduction was the cause and purpose of life, asserting that the genetic program played a crucial role in physiology and evolutionary biology, offering a potential unifying framework for biology. While acknowledging the importance of Jacob’s idea of reproduction as a nexus, there are criticisms regarding his reliance on genetic programs. Various approaches (...)
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