Cause and Effect in Biology Revisited: Is Mayr’s Proximate-Ultimate Dichotomy Still Useful?

Laland, Kevin N.; Sterelny, Kim; Odling‐Smee, John; Hoppitt, William; Uller, Tobias

doi:10.1126/science.1210879

Cited by 502 publications

(345 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…For many evolutionary biologists, the research described above is not viewed as a challenge to the traditional explanatory framework, but rather developmental bias, plasticity, nongenetic inheritance, and niche construction are considered proximate, but not evolutionary, causes [88][89][90]. Thus, while these phenomena demand evolutionary explanations, they do not themselves constitute valid, even partial, evolutionary explanations for organismal diversity and adaptation.…”

Section: A Traditional Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From this standpoint, too much causal significance is afforded to genes and selection, and not enough to the developmental processes that create novel variants, contribute to heredity, generate adaptive fit, and thereby direct the course of evolution. Under this perspective, the sharp distinction between the proximate and the ultimate is undermined by the fact that proximate causes are themselves often also evolutionary causes [90]. Hence, the EES entails not only new research directions but also new ways to think about, and interpret, new and familiar problems in evolutionary biology.…”

Section: The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

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The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions

et al. 2015

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Scientific activities take place within the structured sets of ideas and assumptions that define a field and its practices. The conceptual framework of evolutionary biology emerged with the Modern Synthesis in the early twentieth century and has since expanded into a highly successful research program to explore the processes of diversification and adaptation. Nonetheless, the ability of that framework satisfactorily to accommodate the rapid advances in developmental biology, genomics and ecology has been questioned. We review some of these arguments, focusing on literatures (evo-devo, developmental plasticity, inclusive inheritance and niche construction) whose implications for evolution can be interpreted in two ways-one that preserves the internal structure of contemporary evolutionary theory and one that points towards an alternative conceptual framework. The latter, which we label the 'extended evolutionary synthesis' (EES), retains the fundaments of evolutionary theory, but differs in its emphasis on the role of constructive processes in development and evolution, and reciprocal portrayals of causation. In the EES, developmental processes, operating through developmental bias, inclusive inheritance and niche construction, share responsibility for the direction and rate of evolution, the origin of character variation and organism-environment complementarity. We spell out the structure, core assumptions and novel predictions of the EES, and show how it can be deployed to stimulate and advance research in those fields that study or use evolutionary biology.

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Section: A Traditional Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions

et al. 2015

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“…Moreover, many of the cognitive biases discussed above have putative inclusive fitness benefits, such as keeping track of social relationships (Mesoudi et al 2006) and learning about disease-carrying substances (Eriksson and Coultas 2014). Others (myself included) have argued that non-genetic forms of inheritance such as cultural evolution can additionally constitute ultimate causes of behaviour and thus require a rethinking of the original proximate-ultimate scheme (Danchin et al 2011;Laland et al 2011;Mesoudi et al 2013). For a non-cultural species, the original scheme is fairly straightforward: ultimate historical causes involve genetic lineages connected via genetic descent, and ultimate selective causes involve the natural selection of genetic variation.…”

Section: Is Culture Proximate or Ultimate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Evolution: A Review of Theory, Findings and Controversies

2015

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The last two decades have seen an explosion in research analysing cultural change as a Darwinian evolutionary process. Here I provide an overview of the theory of cultural evolution, including its intellectual history, major theoretical tenets and methods, key findings, and prominent criticisms and controversies. 'Culture' is defined as socially transmitted information. Cultural evolution is the theory that this socially transmitted information evolves in the manner laid out by Darwin in The Origin of Species, i.e. it comprises a system of variation, differential fitness and inheritance. Cultural evolution is not, however, neo-Darwinian, in that many of the details of genetic evolution may not apply, such as particulate inheritance and random mutation. Following a brief history of this idea, I review theoretical and empirical studies of cultural microevolution, which entails both selection-like processes wherein some cultural variants are more likely to be acquired and transmitted than others, plus transformative processes that alter cultural information during transmission. I also review how phylogenetic methods have been used to reconstruct cultural macroevolution, including the evolution of languages, technology and social organisation. Finally, I discuss recent controversies and debates, including the extent to which culture is proximate or ultimate, the relative role of selective and transformative processes in cultural evolution, the basis of cumulative cultural evolution, the evolution of large-scale human cooperation, and whether social learning is learned or innate. I conclude by highlighting the value of using evolutionary methods to study culture for both the social and biological sciences.

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“…2). A cause can be classified as proximate or ultimate (Laland et al 2011). Political, economic, cultural, technological, or ecological change can produce new dynamics in the telecoupled system and all of these changes are intertwined.…”

Section: Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World

Liu¹,

Hull²,

Batistella³

et al. 2013

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ABSTRACT. Interactions between distant places are increasingly widespread and influential, often leading to unexpected outcomes with profound implications for sustainability. Numerous sustainability studies have been conducted within a particular place with little attention to the impacts of distant interactions on sustainability in multiple places. Although distant forces have been studied, they are usually treated as exogenous variables and feedbacks have rarely been considered. To understand and integrate various distant interactions better, we propose an integrated framework based on telecoupling, an umbrella concept that refers to socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. The concept of telecoupling is a logical extension of research on coupled human and natural systems, in which interactions occur within particular geographic locations. The telecoupling framework contains five major interrelated components, i.e., coupled human and natural systems, flows, agents, causes, and effects. We illustrate the framework using two examples of distant interactions associated with trade of agricultural commodities and invasive species, highlight the implications of the framework, and discuss research needs and approaches to move research on telecouplings forward. The framework can help to analyze system components and their interrelationships, identify research gaps, detect hidden costs and untapped benefits, provide a useful means to incorporate feedbacks as well as trade-offs and synergies across multiple systems (sending, receiving, and spillover systems), and improve the understanding of distant interactions and the effectiveness of policies for socioeconomic and environmental sustainability from local to global levels.

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Cause and Effect in Biology Revisited: Is Mayr’s Proximate-Ultimate Dichotomy Still Useful?

Cited by 502 publications

References 53 publications

The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions

The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions

Cultural Evolution: A Review of Theory, Findings and Controversies

Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World

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