Conceptualizing Evolutionary Novelty: Moving Beyond Definitional Debates

Abstract

According to many biologists, explaining the evolution of morphological novelty and behavioral innovation are central endeavors in contemporary evolutionary biology. These endeavors are inherently multidisciplinary but also have involved a high degree of controversy. One key source of controversy is the definitional diversity associated with the concept of evolutionary novelty, which can lead to contradictory claims (a novel trait according to one definition is not a novel trait according to another). We argue that this diversity should be interpreted in light of a different epistemic role played by the concept of evolutionary novelty-the structuring of a problem space or setting of an explanatory agenda-rather than the concept's capacity to categorize traits as novel. This distinctive role is consistent with the definitional diversity and shows that the concept of novelty benefits ongoing investigation by focusing attention on answering different questions related to comprehending the origins of novelty. A review of recent theoretical and empirical work on evolutionary novelty confirms this interpretation.

Systems biology and the integration of mechanistic explanation and mathematical explanation

“…Furthermore, while Carl Craver (2007) assumes that the explanandum phenomenon determines what the mechanism's components are and (given his ontic conception of explanation) that this fully yields what features are of explanatory relevance, I view explanations tied to various epistemic criteria of explanatory adequacy, which are explicitly or often tacitly used by scientists. There can be substantial disagreement among biologists about research agendas and the appropriateness of explanatory frameworks, reflecting epistemic assumptions that not only rule some accounts as incomplete explanations, but as failing to provide the explanatory relevant considerations altogether (Brigandt & Love, 2010, 2012a. But 2 Craver views mathematical models of limited explanatory capacity on the grounds that "Nothing in the equations … captures the difference between mere temporal sequences and causal relationships … mathematical dependencies cannot be equated with causal or explanatory dependency relations.…”

“…In actual science explanatory contributions are continuously added to the overall account, which can often be deemed to be complete only relative to criteria of explanatory adequacy that have been chosen in a certain context so as to address only some aspects of a complex phenomenon (Brigandt & Love, 2012a). Furthermore, an overall explanation can consist of a plethora of explanatorily relevant items of knowledge.…”

Evolutionary Developmental Biology and the Limits of Philosophical Accounts of Mechanistic Explanation

“…In any case, one can capture evo-devo's integrative nature by highlighting that it is an interdisciplinary approach (Love 2013). The complex explanatory problems it addresses require the use of ideas from many different biological disciplines (Brigandt 2010;Brigandt and Love 2012a;Love 2008aLove , 2008b. In addition to evolutionary genetics and developmental biology-which are explicitly noted by the notion of a synthesis of evolution and development-accounting for evolutionary novelty involves intellectual contributions from paleontology (fossil data on ancestral morphological change), phylogeny (trees of species to determine character polarity and phylogenetic junctures relevant to a character change), and morphology (composition of structures and performance of anatomical functions), among other fields.…”

“…The idea championed by many of its practitioners that evo-devo is a mechanistic approach obscures that beyond explaining morphological evolution in terms of changes to developmental mechanisms, explanatory contributions from several other disciplines than developmental biology are needed, requiring scientists to take a balanced approach that does not neglect considerations about historical patterns for questions about causal processes, and that addresses both empirical and theoretical issues (Brigandt and Love 2012a). While some evo-devo biologists contrast explanation in terms of developmental mechanisms with traditional evolutionary theory's explanation in terms of the dynamics of allele frequencies within populations, there are possible connections between developmental and population processes (Rice 2008(Rice , 2012Wagner 2007).…”

Conceptual Change and Evolutionary Developmental Biology

“…This noble goal has certainly continued to be a hallmark of Evo-devo (Hall 1999;Raff 2000), but biologists are not so easily forced into contact with other disciplines-the desirability of multidisciplinarity is not shared by all. But the participants put their finger on something that continues to be important in present research endeavors: complex scientific problems demand multidisciplinary contributions to generate adequate explanations (Love 2008a;Brigandt and Love 2012a). …”