Two Ways of Thinking About Fitness and Natural Selection

Matthen, Mohan; Ariew, André

doi:10.2307/3655552

Cited by 244 publications

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“…Consider two possible scenarios under which this could occur: 1) There is a heritable physical characteristic of the tree in question that caused it to be killed; this characteristic is shared by most of the other trees that were killed (and it caused their deaths as well). 2) There is no heritable physical characteristic shared by the tree in question and most of the other trees that 20 It might seem odd that I would find reason to disagree with Matthen and Ariew ([2002]) in this section of the paper, given that, as I noted above, we agree that natural selection is a populationlevel affair. But their characterization of sampling-a causal process-as individual-level rather were killed that is causally relevant to their death by forest fire.…”

Section: Millstein P Of 25 Of 41mentioning

confidence: 82%

“…8 For other arguments supporting the claim that natural selection is a causal process, see Sober ([1984]), Hodge ([1987]), Millstein ([2002]), Stephens ([2004]), and Shapiro and Sober ([forthcoming]). 9 Towards the end of Matthen and Ariew's essay, there seems to be a relaxation of their claim that there is a dichotomy between statistical trends and forces; Matthen and Ariew ([2002], p. 82) 'concede that stochastic causation occurs at the [population] level.' However, I do not know how to reconcile this claim with their earlier remarks, and so throughout this essay I will assume that their position does deny population-level causality.…”

Section: The Montane Willow Leaf Beetle: a Causal Storymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But if I am mistaken in this, our positions may in fact be closer than it appears initially. Nonetheless, in 'denying that process causation occurs at this level' (Matthen and Ariew [2002], p. 82), Matthen and Ariew seem to be embracing a concept of process causation that is 'strictly law governed,' and admits of no 'discontinuities' or 'reversals' ([2002], p. 79). (See Stephens [2004] for a critique of this Similarly, Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew ([2002], p. 453) assert, 'Selection and drift are not forces acting on populations; they are statistical properties of an assemblage of "trial" events: births, deaths and reproduction.'…”

Section: The Montane Willow Leaf Beetle: a Causal Storymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Matthen and Ariew seem to imply that sampling processes are at the individual-level; Matthen and Ariew ([2002], p. 62) state: 'And so one might think that one can fix the exact role of vernacular fitness and of drift by looking more minutely at individual events and determining when discriminate sampling has been at work, and when indiscriminate.' But this view is mistaken; 'sampling' implies a causal process that acts on a population.…”

Section: Millstein P Of 25 Of 41mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some authors argue that natural selection is nothing but a population-level, statistical consequence of lowerlevel events (Matthen and Ariew [2002]; Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew [2002]). On this view, natural selection itself does not involve forces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Natural Selection as a Population-Level Causal Process

Millstein¹

2006

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

120

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Recent discussions in the philosophy of biology have brought into question some fundamental assumptions regarding evolutionary processes, natural selection in particular. Some authors argue that natural selection is nothing but a population-level, statistical consequence of lowerlevel events (Matthen and Ariew [2002]; Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew [2002]). On this view, natural selection itself does not involve forces. Other authors reject this purely statistical, population-level account for an individual-level, causal account of natural selection (Bouchard and Rosenberg [2004]). I argue that each of these positions is right in one way, but wrong in another; natural selection indeed takes place at the level of populations, but it is a causal process nonetheless. argue for a third logical possibility: natural selection is indeed a causal process, but it operates at the population level.The issues at stake in this debate will be fleshed out in more detail in the discussion below. However, at the outset it is important to distinguish this debate from the more well known debates over the units (or levels) of selection; unfortunately, similar terminology makes this distinction difficult. One obvious difference between the debates is that the units of selection debates assume a causal basis for natural selection, whereas the existence of selection's causal basis is one of the points of contention in the debate at hand. With regard to the issue of levels, however, the difference between the two debates can best be seen by the following example.Suppose that a person believes, in terms of the levels of selection debate, that selection (either sometimes or always) acts on organisms. Such a person still might ask whether that selection Millstein, p. of 3 of 41process was acting on individual organisms or populations of organisms. 1 It is the latter question that concerns us here, and indeed, throughout this paper I have, for the sake of simplicity, assumed organismic selection, although I believe that similar arguments can be made for other units of selection. Now, it may turn out that the present debate has interesting consequences for the debates over the units of selection, but I will not explore such consequences here.Further terminological confusion arises because of the distinction being made between an individual and a population. Indeed, one might wish to speak of an 'individual' population rather than a class or type of population. However, the reader should understand that, in what follows, 'individual' refers to an individual organism, whereas a population refers to a particular spatiotemporal collection of organisms.Some philosophers might object to the very idea of population-level causality. In response to this concern, I will argue in section 2.1 that anyone who accepts the reality of frequency-dependent selection is already committed to population-level causality. Moreover, in section 2.2 I will argue that population-level causality is consistent with three commonly accepted accounts of causality; thus,...

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Section: Millstein P Of 25 Of 41mentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: The Montane Willow Leaf Beetle: a Causal Storymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Montane Willow Leaf Beetle: a Causal Storymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Millstein P Of 25 Of 41mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Natural Selection as a Population-Level Causal Process

Millstein¹

2006

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

120

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Fitness: Philosophical Problems

Ramsey

Pence

2013

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences

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[120-150 words] Fitness plays many roles throughout evolutionary theory, from a measure of populations in the wild to a central element in abstract theoretical presentations of natural selection.It has thus been the subject of an extensive philosophical literature, which has primarily centered on the way to understand the relationship between fitness values and reproductive outcomes. If fitness is a probabilistic or statistical quantity, how is it to be defined in general theoretical contexts? How can it be measured? Can a single conceptual model for fitness be offered that applies in all biological cases, or must fitness measures be case-specific? Philosophers have explored these questions over the last several decades, largely in the context of an influential definition of fitness proposed in the late 1970s: the propensity interpretation. This interpretation as first described undeniably suffers from significant difficulties, and debate regarding the tenability of amendments and alternatives to it remains unsettled.

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Philosophies of the Sciences

Allhoff

2010

Philosophies of the Sciences

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Two Ways of Thinking About Fitness and Natural Selection

Cited by 244 publications

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Natural Selection as a Population-Level Causal Process

Natural Selection as a Population-Level Causal Process

Fitness: Philosophical Problems

Philosophies of the Sciences

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