Populations and pigeons: Prosaic pluralism about evolutionary causes

Abrams, Marshall

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2013.06.005

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…13 The problem of non-independent interventions, that Walsh (2007) took from Gillespie's work, is not crucial here. However Walsh's argument against causal variables is addressed in Huneman (2013), and Abrams (2013) has an argument similar to what could be derived from the present paper.…”

Section: On Inscrutabilitysupporting

confidence: 66%

“…While the overall conclusion of the statistical interpretation of natural selection (according to which selection is not another process acting upon or within populations) is correct, the consequence that drift and selection are statistical properties whose evaluation can not be done on objective grounds is challengeable on the basis of the conceptual distinction between selection and drift made by the 17 Decomposing the population into subpopulation and checking the action of selection and drift may raise problems, as investigated by Walsh (2007Walsh ( , 2010; the question is addressed in Huneman (2013), and Abrams (2013) indicates also a solution that concurs with consequences of the present paper. 18 Statistical mechanics is full of such kinds of reasoning, that support the principle of entropy: crudely stated we consider the repartitions of states of the sets of molecules that realize a lower entropy as hugely more numerous than others, so that the probability of a change in the direction of increasing entropy is extremely higher than the probability of the opposite.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inscrutability and the Opacity of Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift: Distinguishing the Epistemic and Metaphysical Aspects

Huneman

2014

Erkenn

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Statisticalists' argue that the individual interactions of organisms taken together constitute natural selection. On this view, natural selection is an aggregated effect of interactions rather than some added cause acting on populations. The statisticalists' view entails that natural selection and drift are indistinguishable aggregated effects of interactions, so that it becomes impossible to make a difference between them. The present paper attempts to make sense of the difference between selection and drift, given the main insights of statisticalism; basically, it will disentangle the various kinds of indistinguishability between selection and drift that happen within biology, by examining the epistemological and metaphysical nature of the distinction between selection and drift. It will be based on a 'difference-making account' of selection. The first section will explicate the inscrutability of selection and drift, its various types in the statisticalist writings, and its implications. The second section specifies concepts of natural selection and drift in the difference making account of selection I am using, and shows that one can derive from this the statistical signatures of selection and drift. On this basis I focus on one sort of indistinguishability issue about selection and drift, which I call epistemic opacity, and explain why it mostly affects small populations. The last section explains why epistemic opacity does not raise an genuine epistemic problem for evolutionary biology.

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Section: On Inscrutabilitysupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inscrutability and the Opacity of Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift: Distinguishing the Epistemic and Metaphysical Aspects

Huneman

2014

Erkenn

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“…Coming to Walsh's account, I intentionally leave aside the criticisms that have been moved to Walsh's account so far (e.g., Abrams, 2013;Northcott, 2010), since they do not deal with the issue I wish to focus on here. It is also worth clarifying that my analysis is not intended to be a criticism of Walsh's work in the philosophy of biology, which I appreciate, it just aims to show that more has to be done by the statisticalists in order to adequately address the challenge presented here.…”

Section: Walsh's Account Of Population Genetics Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematical Explanations in Evolutionary Biology or Naturalism? A Challenge for the Statisticalist

Sterpetti

2021

Found Sci

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This article presents a challenge that those philosophers who deny the causal interpretation of explanations provided by population genetics might have to address. Indeed, some philosophers, known as statisticalists, claim that the concept of natural selection is statistical in character and cannot be construed in causal terms. On the contrary, other philosophers, known as causalists, argue against the statistical view and support the causal interpretation of natural selection. The problem I am concerned with here arises for the statisticalists because the debate on the nature of natural selection intersects the debate on whether mathematical explanations of empirical facts are genuine scientific explanations. I argue that if the explanations provided by population genetics are regarded by the statisticalists as non-causal explanations of that kind, then statisticalism risks being incompatible with a naturalist stance. The statisticalist faces a dilemma: either she maintains statisticalism but has to renounce naturalism; or she maintains naturalism but has to content herself with an account of the explanations provided by population genetics that she deems unsatisfactory. This challenge is relevant to the statisticalists because many of them see themselves as naturalists.

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“…Some causalists have resisted this realist take on population size, pointing to that scientists reserve the right to choose (the size of) a population to be studied (Abrams, 2013;Ramsey, 2013). It is true, or even truism, that scientists can and must decide on which population they are going to investigate, and their decision surely reflect varieties of epistemic or pragmatic factors such as research interests, available resource, considerations on statistical power, etc.…”

Section: Walsh's Description Independence Thesismentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical review of the statisticalist debate

Otsuka

2016

Biol Philos

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Populations and pigeons: Prosaic pluralism about evolutionary causes

Cited by 7 publications

References 48 publications

Inscrutability and the Opacity of Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift: Distinguishing the Epistemic and Metaphysical Aspects

Inscrutability and the Opacity of Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift: Distinguishing the Epistemic and Metaphysical Aspects

Mathematical Explanations in Evolutionary Biology or Naturalism? A Challenge for the Statisticalist

A critical review of the statisticalist debate

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