Bucket thinking:the future framework for evolutionary explanation

Pievani, Telmo; Serrelli, E

doi:10.24310/contrastescontrastes.v0i0.1180

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Hierarchy Theory is also the historical accomplishment of a ''taxic'' tradition in the history of biological thought since the beginnings of Darwinian revolution (Eldredge 2015). Natural evolution is seen as guided by recurrent patterns that are the result of interactions between multiple levels of change, from the genetic micro-levels to the geological macro-levels (we called it ''bucket thinking'': Pievani and Serrelli 2013).…”

Section: An Example Of Unification In Evolutionary Biology: Hierarchymentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Rethink Evolutionary Theory: A Plurality of Evolutionary Patterns

Pievani

2015

Evol Biol

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Nature has recently depicted the empirical advancements of the theory of evolution as a confrontation between ''reformists'', that claim for an urgent rethinking of the standard neo-Darwinian approach including so far neglected factors and processes, and ''conservatives'' who reply ''all is well'' about the current evolutionary research programme based on genetic variation and natural selection. The fight is mainly around genetic reductionism, but it seems inconclusive. Reformists stress very important factors, but they are still missing a coherent proposal about the architecture of the future extended evolutionary theory. Conservative react defensively, relying just on non-essential add-ons to the old and stable neo-Darwinian core. We analyze the debate and we propose an interpretation. Evolutionary biology is a rapidly expanding field. The bone of contention is how to update and extend the central core of the Darwinian legacy. We propose here the idea that what is happening in the field today is a development of the evolutionary research programme, whose structure is composed of a set of compatible and integrated evolutionary patterns. Evolutionary biology has been extended over its history by the inclusion of more and more patterns, rather than by revision to core theory. Niles Eldredge's ''Hierarchy Theory'' is an example of global structure (meta-theory) aiming at incorporating and unifying the currently observed evolutionary patterns.

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Section: An Example Of Unification In Evolutionary Biology: Hierarchymentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Rethink Evolutionary Theory: A Plurality of Evolutionary Patterns

Pievani

2015

Evol Biol

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“…Built by compiling evidence from geology, paleoecology and paleontology, his model of stability and change recognizes and exalts environmental change as the overarching control of the evolutionary process. According to this model, in the history of life we see clear connections between the severity and scope of environmental perturbations and ecological disturbances, and the magnitudes of resultant evolutionary changes and effects (Lieberman et al 2007;Pievani and Serrelli 2013). An example of those connections is the abiotic control of the evolutionary dynamics of stasis (see Eldredge et al 2005).…”

Section: Contrasting Stances On the 'Externalism-internalism Debate'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, the Hierarchy Theory of Evolution has been depicted as a promising candidate to achieve that goal: Eldredge (2008) claimed that the meta-pattern of relationships between the ecological and the genealogical hierarchies is a putative framework for the theoretical ''unification'' of evolutionary biology. Pievani and Serrelli (2013) argued that the HTE allows re-thinking and re-framing protracted concepts of evolutionary theory (e.g. natural selection; species; speciation), and that the hierarchical interplay between ecology and genealogy (i.e.…”

Section: Extended Ontologies In the Contemporary Landscape Of Evolutimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The EES acknowledges causal co-determination (reciprocity) in the pairing of "developing organism-environment" and also the causal flow "both upwards from lower levels of biological organization, such as DNA, and from higher levels downwards, such as through tissue-and environment-specific gene regulation" (Laland et al 2015). The HTE grants the existence of topward and downward reciprocal flow of causation as well (see Pievani and Serrelli 2013;Pievani 2016a). This is the first epistemic bridge we have detected between these frameworks: compatible views of causation.…”

Section: Epistemic Bridges Between the Hte And The Ees: Reciprocal/mumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Hierarchy Theory of Evolution consents and encourages the incorporation of the now well-studied phenomenon of multilevel selection (Pievani and Serrelli 2013;Pievani and Parravicini 2016;see Okasha 2006 for an overview). In the same sense, the study of macroevolutionary processes and patterns is a major concern for HTE research (Lieberman et al 2007;Eldredge 2008), and one of the main reasons it was proposed in the first place: to attempt a successful explanation of macroevolutionary patterns, something the MS failed to do (Eldredge 1985; see also Lieberman 2016).…”

Section: Conceptual Rifts and Tensions Between The Hte And The Ees: Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts

Fábregas‐Tejeda

Vergara‐Silva

2017

Evol Biol

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"(…) the problem with contemporary evolutionary theory is not that its essential neo-Darwinian paradigm is incorrect. The problem is that the consistency argument of the synthesis (…) is itself troubled. That argument says that the core neo-Darwinian paradigm (the theory that deals with the origin, maintenance, and modification of within-population genetic structure) is consistent with all other known evolutionary phenomena. This credo, innocuous and undeniable as it is, has been expanded to mean that the neo-Darwinian paradigm of selection plus drift, are both necessary and sufficient to explain all other known evolutionary phenomena. My position here, and the position of all other doubters of the completeness of the synthesis that I know of, is simply that the neo-Darwinian paradigm is indeed necessary-but is not sufficient-to handle the totality of known evolutionary phenomena. And it may not even be necessary to explain certain particular phenomena. It is thus not a matter of either/or" Niles Eldredge (1985, p. 119) Unfinished Ontologies of the Modern Synthesis: The Hierarchical Structure of Nature and the Neglected Processes in Evolutionary Thought Written almost 35 years ago, the words of Niles Eldredge that we chose as our epigraph still resonate in the contemporary landscape of evolutionary biology (see Laland et al. 2014; Love 2017). As has been claimed many times (e.g. in Wagner 2014), the ontology and language of population genetics, the explanatory heart of the Modern Synthesis (MS), are far too limited and abbreviated to capture Abstract Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge's Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (with its proposal of an extended ontology of evolutionary processes), in an attempt to map some epistemic bridges (e.g. compatible views of causation; niche construction) and some conceptual rifts (e.g. extra-genetic inheritance; different perspectives on macroevolution; contrasting standpoints held in the "externalism-internalism" debate) that exist between them. This paper seeks to encourage theoretical, philosophical and historiographical discussions about pluralism or the possible unification of contemporary evolutionary biology.

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Homo anxius, or How Fear and Anxiety Conquered the Social World

Ambasciano¹

2022

JCH

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The article offers an extended review, counterpointed by a critical commentary, of two recent and outstanding volumes, Turner et al.’s The Emergence and Evolution of Religion (2018) and Sanderson’s Religious Evolution and the Axial Age (2018). Both books are eminently interdisciplinary in their scope: the first displays a distinctive deep-historical and neurosociological attention to the evolution of negative emotions and inter-group competition, while the latter focuses on the contribution of world transcendent religions to help human beings cope with new and challenging biosocial conditions derived from ultrasociality. While the two volumes gain unprecedented multidisciplinary width, they also tend to lose intra-disciplinary depth. However, and for all their differences, they both represent the vanguard of a renewed qualitative, scientific, and interdisciplinary study of the history of religion(s) through cognitive historiography. This contribution presents the main theses of both books, highlights their strengths, and provides a comprehensive discussion of their epistemological and methodological shortcomings.

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Bucket thinking:the future framework for evolutionary explanation

Cited by 4 publications

References 47 publications

How to Rethink Evolutionary Theory: A Plurality of Evolutionary Patterns

How to Rethink Evolutionary Theory: A Plurality of Evolutionary Patterns

Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts

Homo anxius, or How Fear and Anxiety Conquered the Social World

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