On How Epistemology and Ontology Converge Through Evolution: The Applied Evolutionary Epistemological Approach

Gontier, Nathalie

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-72478-2_30

Cited by 14 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Additionally, we draw attention to the existence of reticulate causal processes (Gontier et al, 2018,) that occur within communities and that underlie bioreality formation (Table 2). During holobiont formation, for example, different organisms cooperate synergistically to form a community that simultaneously functions as a new habitable zone of life.…”

Section: The Role Of Top-down and Reticulate Causation In Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During holobiont formation, for example, different organisms cooperate synergistically to form a community that simultaneously functions as a new habitable zone of life. Research on reticulate evolution (Gontier, 2015(Gontier, , 2018 demonstrates how the evolution of holobionts requires us to understand evolutionary hierarchies as multiple and interacting. Such accounts presuppose a shift of focus from mechanical explanations to process accounts (Sukhoverkhov, 2015;Stotz, Griffiths et al, 2017;Gontier et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Role Of Top-down and Reticulate Causation In Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

Sukhoverkhov

Gontier

2021

Biosystems

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The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the individual members can belong to the same or to different species. Examples of communities include biofilms, ant colonies, symbiotic associations resulting in holobiont formation, and human societies. The proposed model of evolution at the level of communities revises classic theorizing on the major transitions in evolution by analyzing the interplay between community/social traits and individual traits, and how this brings forth ideas of top-down regulations of bottom-up evolutionary processes (collaboration of downward and upward causation). The work demonstrates that such interplay also includes reticulate interactions and reticulate causation. In this regard, we exemplify how community systems provide various nongenetic 'scaffoldings', 'constraints', and 'affordances' for individual and sociocultural evolutionary development. Such research complements prevailing models that focus on the vertical transmission of heritable information, from parent to offspring, with research that instead focusses on horizontal, oblique and even reverse information transmission, going from offspring to parent. We call this reversed information transfer the 'offspring effect' to contrast it from the 'parental effect'. We argue that the proposed approach to inheritance is effective for modelling cumulative and distributed developmental process and for explaining the biological origins and evolution of language.

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Section: The Role Of Top-down and Reticulate Causation In Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Top-down and Reticulate Causation In Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

Sukhoverkhov

Gontier

2021

Biosystems

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“…We must work hard not to make the same mistakes identified in others, ourselves." Gontier (2021) strikes off in yet another direction of thought, in which she pleads for us to recognize "evolution as the outcome of a myriad of mechanisms and processes that go beyond reductionist and "one-way" causal views and require a "nested view of organization", which is a view that links to hierarchy theory (Gontier, 2018;Pattee, 1973;Simon, 1962;Tëmkin & Eldredge, 2015) and with which I most certainly and wholeheartedly agree." I strongly endorse her placing of the principle of biological relativity within this plurality.…”

Section: Agency and Semioticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Future for Evolutionary Biology? Response to Commentaries on “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis”

Noble

2021

Biosemiotics

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The extensive range and depth of the twenty commentaries on my target article (Noble, 2021) confirms that something has gone deeply wrong in biology. A wide range of biologists has more than met my invitation for “others to pitch in and develop or counter my arguments.” The commentaries greatly develop those arguments. Also remarkably, none raise issues I would seriously disagree with. I will focus first on the more critical comments, summarise the other comments, and then point the way forward on what I view as a necessary and long-overdue transition in the foundations of biology.

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“…Applying an evolutionary epistemological jargon [162][163][164][165], it is safe to say that human beings today come with a biologically-evolved expectation to live in an oxygen-rich environment, and their gastro-intestinal tract as well as entire bodies expect to become populated with microbial communities, some of which will enable the digestion of food provided by the environments, others will be harmful for which the human body is or will be able to develop immunity. Equally, Hawaiian bobtail squids [117] come with a biochemically programmed expectation to find luminescent bacteria that will colonize their light organs, as well as induce post-translational epigenetic and morphological changes to it.…”

Section: Symbiosis and Symbiogenesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a similar context, Bapteste and Huneman [20] discussed co-constructed traits; Vigliotti et al [223] introduced the notion of an externalized gut metagenome; and Borges [224] understood host-symbiont relations to result in co-niche construction. Gontier [165] understood symbiosis and niche construction to be foundational for spatiotemporally-bounded bioreality formation. Adaptation assumes the existence of an unchanging external environment.…”

Section: Successful Survival and Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the “(Neo-)Darwinian” Principles against Reticulate Evolution: How Variation, Adaptation, Heredity and Fitness, Constraints and Affordances, Speciation, and Extinction Surpass Organisms and Species

Gontier

2020

Information

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Variation, adaptation, heredity and fitness, constraints and affordances, speciation, and extinction form the building blocks of the (Neo-)Darwinian research program, and several of these have been called “Darwinian principles.” Here, we suggest that caution should be taken in calling these principles Darwinian because of the important role played by reticulate evolutionary mechanisms and processes in also bringing about these phenomena. Reticulate mechanisms and processes include symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, infective heredity mediated by genetic and organismal mobility, and hybridization. Because the “Darwinian principles” are brought about by both vertical and reticulate evolutionary mechanisms and processes, they should be understood as foundational for a more pluralistic theory of evolution, one that surpasses the classic scope of the Modern and the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis. Reticulate evolution moreover demonstrates that what conventional (Neo-)Darwinian theories treat as intra-species features of evolution frequently involve reticulate interactions between organisms from very different taxonomic categories. Variation, adaptation, heredity and fitness, constraints and affordances, speciation, and extinction therefore cannot be understood as “traits” or “properties” of genes, organisms, species, or ecosystems because the phenomena are irreducible to specific units and levels of an evolutionary hierarchy. Instead, these general principles of evolution need to be understood as common goods that come about through interactions between different units and levels of evolutionary hierarchies, and they are exherent rather than inherent properties of individuals.

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On How Epistemology and Ontology Converge Through Evolution: The Applied Evolutionary Epistemological Approach

Cited by 14 publications

References 45 publications

Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

What Future for Evolutionary Biology? Response to Commentaries on “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis”

Testing the “(Neo-)Darwinian” Principles against Reticulate Evolution: How Variation, Adaptation, Heredity and Fitness, Constraints and Affordances, Speciation, and Extinction Surpass Organisms and Species

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