Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 06 september 2010.

Science is a dynamic process in which the assimilation of new phenomena, perspectives, and hypotheses into the scientific corpus takes place slowly. The apparent disunity of the sciences is the unavoidable consequence of this gradual integration process. Some thinkers label this dynamical circumstance a ‘crisis’. However, a retrospective view of the practical results of the scientific enterprise and of science itself, grants us a clear view of the unity of the human knowledge seeking enterprise. This book provides many arguments, case (...) studies and examples in favor of the unity of science. These contributions touch upon various scientific perspectives and disciplines such as: Physics, Computer Science, Biology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, and Economics. (shrink)

The position and role of humanity in the world of life is examined in the light of the ontological structure of life itself. This problem is approached by considering the possible units of life representing various modes of life phenomena. I argue that the only meaningful unit of life without interposing some special external conditions is “global life” framed in a star‐planet system. Any other possible unit of life exhibited by various kinds of individuals is conditional in the sense that (...) it would leave out an essential part as “co‐life.” The relationship between human being and the global life should be understood in this general scheme of individual and global life. It is emphasized, however, that human being occupies a unique position in global life in the sense that humanity can promote either a cancerous situation or a healthy higher‐order enhancement of the global life. (shrink)

Genes are thought to have evolved from long-lived and multiply-interactive molecules in the early stages of the origins of life. However, at that stage there were no replicators, and the distinction between interactors and replicators did not yet apply. Nevertheless, the process of evolution that proceeded from initial autocatalytic hypercycles to full organisms was a Darwinian process of selection of favourable variants. We distinguish therefore between Neo-Darwinian evolution and the related Weismannian and Central Dogma divisions, on the one hand, and (...) the more generic category of Darwinian evolution on the other. We argue that Hull’s and Dawkins’ replicator/interactor distinction of entities is a sufficient, but not necessary, condition for Darwinian evolution to take place. We conceive the origin of genes as a separation between different types of molecules in a thermodynamic state space, and employ a notion of reproducers. (shrink)

In both biology and the human sciences, social groups are sometimes treated as adaptive units whose organization cannot be reduced to individual interactions. This group-level view is opposed by a more individualistic one that treats social organization as a byproduct of self-interest. According to biologists, group-level adaptations can evolve only by a process of natural selection at the group level. Most biologists rejected group selection as an important evolutionary force during the 1960s and 1970s but a positive literature began to (...) grow during the 1970s and is rapidly expanding today. We review this recent literature and its implications for human evolutionary biology. We show that the rejection of group selection was based on a misplaced emphasis on genes as “replicators” which is in fact irrelevant to the question of whether groups can be like individuals in their functional organization. The fundamental question is whether social groups and other higher-level entities can be “vehicles” of selection. When this elementary fact is recognized, group selection emerges as an important force in nature and what seem to be competing theories, such as kin selection and reciprocity, reappear as special cases of group selection. The result is a unified theory of natural selection that operates on a nested hierarchy of units.The vehicle-based theory makes it clear that group selection is an important force to consider in human evolution. Humans can facultatively span the full range from self-interested individuals to “organs” of group-level “organisms.” Human behavior not only reflects the balance between levels of selection but it can also alter the balance through the construction of social structures that have the effect of reducing fitness differences within groups, concentrating natural selection (and functional organization) at the group level. These social structures and the cognitive abilities that produce them allow group selection to be important even among large groups of unrelated individuals. (shrink)

Memes are an idea whose time has come, again, and again, and again, but which has never really made it beyond metaphor. Anthropologist Robert Aunger’s book 'The Electric Meme' is a new attempt to take it to the next stage, setting up a research program with proper models and theoretical entities. He succeeds partially, with some contributions to the logic of replication, but in the end, his proposal for the substrate of memes is a non-solution to a central problem of (...) memetics. (shrink)

In both biology and the human sciences, social groups are sometimes treated as adaptive units whose organization cannot be reduced to individual interactions. This group-level view is opposed by a more individualistic one that treats social organization as a byproduct of self-interest. According to biologists, group-level adaptations can evolve only by a process of natural selection at the group level. Most biologists rejected group selection as an important evolutionary force during the 1960s and 1970s but a positive literature began to (...) grow during the 1970s and is rapidly expanding today. We review this recent literature and its implications for human evolutionary biology. We show that the rejection of group selection was based on a misplaced emphasis on genes as "replicators" which is in fact irrelevant to the question of whether groups can be like individuals in their functional organization. The fundamental question is whether social groups and other higher-level entities can be "vehicles" of selection. When this elementary fact is recognized, group selection emerges as an important force in nature and what seem to be competing theories, such as kin selection and reciprocity, reappear as special cases of group selection. The result is a unified theory of natural selection that operates on a nested hierarchy of units. The vehicle-based theory makes it clear that group selection is an important force to consider in human evolution. Humans can facultatively span the full range from self-interested individuals to "organs" of group-level "organisms." Human behavior not only reflects the balance between levels of selection but it can also alter the balance through the construction of social structures that have the effect of reducing fitness differences within groups, concentrating natural selection (and functional organization) at the group level. These social structures and the cognitive abilities that produce them allow group selection to be important even among large groups of unrelated individuals. (shrink)

What are species? One popular answer is that species are individuals. Here I develop another approach to thinking about species, an approach based on the notion of a lineage. A lineage is a sequence of reproducing entities, individuated in terms of its components. I argue that one can conceive of species as groups of lineages, either organism lineages or population lineages. Conceiving of species as groups of lineages resolves the problems that the individual conception of species is supposed to resolve. (...) It has added the virtue of focusing attention on the characteristic of species that is most relevant to understanding their role in evolutionary processes, namely, the lineage structure of species. (shrink)

The Darwinian concept of natural selection was conceived within a set of Newtonian background assumptions about systems dynamics. Mendelian genetics at first did not sit well with the gradualist assumptions of the Darwinian theory. Eventually, however, Mendelism and Darwinism were fused by reformulating natural selection in statistical terms. This reflected a shift to a more probabilistic set of background assumptions based upon Boltzmannian systems dynamics. Recent developments in molecular genetics and paleontology have put pressure on Darwinism once again. Current work (...) on self-organizing systems may provide a stimulus not only for increased problem solving within the Darwinian tradition, especially with respect to origins of life, developmental genetics, phylogenetic pattern, and energy-flow ecology, but for deeper understanding of the very phenomenon of natural selection itself. Since self-organizational phenomena depend deeply on stochastic processes, self-organizational systems dynamics advance the probability revolution. In our view, natural selection is an emergent phenomenon of physical and chemical selection. These developments suggest that natural selection may be grounded in physical law more deeply than is allowed by advocates of the autonomy of biology, while still making it possible to deny, with autonomists, that evolutionary explanations can be modeled in terms of a deductive relationship between laws and cases. We explore the relationship between, chance, self-organization, and selection as sources of order in biological systems in order to make these points. (shrink)

Enzyme directed genetic mechanisms causing random DNA sequence alterations are ubiquitous in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. A number of molecular geneticist have invoked adaptation through natural selection to account for this fact, however, alternative explanations have also flourished. The population geneticist G.C. Williams has dismissed the possibility of selection for mutator activity on a priori grounds. In this paper, I attempt a refutation of Williams' argument. In addition, I discuss some conceptual problems related to recent claims made by microbiologists on (...) the adaptiveness of molecular variety generators in the evolution of prokaryotes. A distinction is proposed between selection for mutations caused by a mutator activity and selection for the mutator activity proper. The latter requires a concept of fitness different from the one commonly used in microbiology. (shrink)

The Units of Selection debate is a dispute about the causes of population change. I argue that it is generated by a particular `dynamical'' interpretation of natural selection theory, according to which natural selection causes differential survival and reproduction of individuals and natural selection explanations cite these causes. I argue that the dynamical interpretation is mistaken and offer in outline an alternative, `statistical'' interpretation, according to which natural selection theory is a fancy kind of `bookkeeping''. It explains by citing the (...) statistical structure of a population and not by citing the causes of survival and reproduction. From the perspective of the statistical interpretation there is no substantive Units of Selection issue. (shrink)

Crane envisions the speculative conjecture that intelligent civilizations might want and be able to produce black holes in the very far future. He implicitly suggests two main purposes of this enterprise: (i) energy production and (ii) universe production. We discuss those two options. The commentary is obviously highly speculative and should be read accordingly.

This paper surveys recent philosophy of biology. It aims to introduce outsiders to the field to the recent literature (which is reviewed in the footnotes) and the main recent debates. I concentrate on three of these: recent critiques of the replicator/vehicle distinction and its application to the idea of the gene as the unit of section; the recent defences of group selection and the idea that standard alternatives to group selection are in fact no more than a disguised form of (...) group selection; and recent ideas on the role of selection in evolution, especially the role of selection in structuring the large-scale history of life. The paper connects philosophy of biology to some more general problems in the philosophy of science, and concludes with a few suggestions about unfinished business. (shrink)

This paper evaluates and criticises the developmental systems conception of evolution and develops instead an extension of the gene's eye conception of evolution. We argue (i) Dawkin's attempt to segregate developmental and evolutionary issues about genes is unsatisfactory. On plausible views of development it is arbitrary to single out genes as the units of selection. (ii) The genotype does not carry information about the phenotype in any way that distinguishes the role of the genes in development from that other factors. (...) (iii) There is no simple and general causal criterion which distinguishes the role of genes in development and evolution. (iv) There is, however, an important sense in which genes but not every other developmental factor represent the phenotype. (v) The idea that genes represent features of the phenotype forces us to recognise that genes are not the only, or almost the only, replicators. Many mechanisms of replication are involved in both development and evolution. (vi) A conception of evolutionary history which recognises both genetic and non-genetic replicators, lineages of replicators and interactors has advantages over both the radical rejection of the replicator/interactor distinction and the conservative restriction of replication to genetic replication. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to test the contemporary concept of biological species against some of the problems caused by treating species as spatiotemporally extended entities governed by criteria of persistence, identity, etc. After outlining the general problem of symmetric division in natural objects, I set out some useful distinctions (section 1) and confirm that species are not natural kinds (section 2). Section 3 takes up the separate issue of species definition, focusing on the Biological Species Concept (BSC). Sections (...) 4 and 5 examine the matter of species identity over space and time respectively, as determined by the BSC. Both gradualistic and punctuated equilibrium models of speciation are discussed. In section 6 I argue that the BSC fails to determine adequate criteria for dealing with certain kinds of speciation. Section 7 moves speculatively beyond the BSC to a brief examination of alternatives. (shrink)

We review Evolution and the Levels of Selection by Samir Okasha. This important book provides a cohesive philosophical framework for understanding levels-of-selections problems in biology. Concerning evolutionary transitions, Okasha proposes that three stages characterize the shift from a lower level of selection to a higher one. We discuss the application of Okasha’s three-stage concept to the evolutionary transition from unicellularity to multicellularity in the volvocine green algae. Okasha’s concepts are a provocative step towards a more general understanding of the major (...) evolutionary transitions; however, the application of certain ideas to the volvocine model system is not straightforward. (shrink)

The ‘levels of selection’ question is one of the most fundamental in evolutionary biology, for it arises directly from the logic of Darwinism. As is well-known, the principle of natural selection is entirely abstract; it says that any entities satisfying certain conditions will evolve by natural selection, whatever those entities are. (These conditions are: variability, associated fitness differences, and heritability (cf. Lewontin 1970).) This fact, when combined with the fact that the biological world is hierarchically structured, i.e. smaller biological units (...) are nested within larger ones, gives rise to the levels of selection question. For in principle, entities at many different hierarchical levels, above and below that of the ‘individual organism’, (e.g. gene, chromosome, cell, kin group, colony, lineage, species) can satisfy the requirements for Darwinian evolution. This possibility has long been recognised by biologists, from Darwin himself to contemporary proponents of ‘multi-level selection’; and there exist numerous biological phenomena which suggest that it has actually occurred. (shrink)

A number of recent biologists have used multi-level selection theory to help explain the major transitions in evolution. I argue that in doing so, they have shifted from a ‘synchronic’ to a ‘diachronic’ formulation of the levels of selection question. The implications of this shift in perspective are explored, in relation to an ambiguity in the meaning of multi-level selection. Though the ambiguity is well-known, it has never before been discussed in the context of the major transitions.

The levels of selection problem was central to Maynard Smith’s work throughout his career. This paper traces Maynard Smith’s views on the levels of selection, from his objections to group selection in the 1960s to his concern with the major evolutionary transitions in the 1990s. The relations between Maynard Smith’s position and those of Hamilton and G.C. Williams are explored, as is Maynard Smith’s dislike of the Price equation approach to multi-level selection. Maynard Smith’s account of the ‘core Darwinian principles’ (...) is discussed, as is his debate with Sober and Wilson (1998) over the status of trait-group models, and his attitude to the currently fashionable concept of pluralism about the levels of selection. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to outline a typologyof selection processes, and show that differentsub-categories have different explanatorypower. The basis of this typology of selectionprocesses is argued to be the difference ofreplication processes involved in them. Inorder to show this, I argue that: 1.Replication is necessary for selection and 2.Different types of replication lead todifferent types of selection. Finally, it isargued that this typology is philosophicallysignificant, since it contrasts cases ofselection (on the basis of the replicationprocesses involved in them) (...) whereby selectioncauses adaptation – and, therefore, can beused in explanations of the (real or apparent)teleology of Nature – and cases in whichselection lacks such explanatory power. (shrink)

According to a once influential view of selection, it consists of repeated cycles of replication and interaction. It has been argued that this view is wrong: replication is not necessary for evolution by natural selection. I analyze the nine most influential arguments for this claim and defend the replication–interaction conception of selection against these objections. In order to do so, however, the replication–interaction conception of selection needs to be modified significantly. My proposal is that replication is not the copying of (...) an entity, the replicator, but the copying of a property. Thus, we can have a replication process without there being a replicator that is being copied. (shrink)

One of the most influential arguments against the claim that computers can think is that while our intentionality is intrinsic, that of computers is derived: it is parasitic on the intentionality of the programmer who designed the computer-program. Daniel Dennett chose a surprising strategy for arguing against this asymmetry: instead of denying that the intentionality of computers is derived, he endeavours to argue that human intentionality is derived too. I intend to examine that biological plausibility of Dennett’s suggestion and show (...) that Dennett’s argument for the claim that human intentionality is derived because it was designed by natural selection is based on the misunderstanding of how natural selection works. (shrink)

One of the most deeply entrenched ideas in Popper's philosophy is the analogy between the growth of scientific knowledge and the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection. Popper gave his first exposition of these ideas very early on. In a letter to Donald Campbell, 1 Popper says that the idea goes back at least to the early thirties. 2 And he had a fairly detailed account of it in his "What is dialectic?", a talk given in 1937 and published in 1940: (...) 3 If we want to explain why human thought tends to try out every conceivable solution for any problem with which it is faced, then we can appeal to a highly general sort of regularity. The method by which a solution is approached is .. (shrink)

Two strong arguments have been given in favor of the claim that no selection process can play a role in explaining adaptations. According to the first argument, selection is a negative force; it may explain why the eliminated individuals are eliminated, but it does not explain why the ones that survived (or their offspring) have the traits they have. The second argument points out that the explanandum and the explanans are phenomena at different levels: selection is a population-level phenomenon, whereas (...) adaptation occurs on the individual level. Thus, selection can explain why individuals in a certain population have a certain trait, but it cannot explain why a certain indi- vidual has this trait. After pointing out that both arguments ignore the significance of the limitation of environmental resources, I will construe a positive argument for the claim that cumulative selection processes can, indeed, play a role in explaining adaptations. (shrink)

Rom Harré criticizes critical realism for ascribing causal powers to social structures, arguing that it is human individuals, and not social structures, that possess causal powers, and that a false conception of structural causation undermines the emancipatory potential of critical realism. I argue that an interpretation of the category of process as the spatio-temporalization of the category of structure, which underpins much evolutionary theory, provides the conceptual tools to explain how the critical realist transformational model of social activity can escape (...) from Harré’s criticism, leading to a general conception of social development within which various types of evolutionary processes can be identified as particular cases. I then argue that Tony Lawson’s PVRS model provides an evolutionary perspective that enables the conceptualization of coercive power as selective pressure. (shrink)

We divide analytic metaphysics into naturalistic and non-naturalistic metaphysics. The latter we define as any philosophical theory that makes some ontological (as opposed to conceptual) claim, where that ontological claim has no observable consequences. We discuss further features of non-naturalistic metaphysics, including its methodology of appealing to intuition, and we explain the way in which we take it to be discontinuous with science. We outline and criticize Ladyman and Ross's 2007 epistemic argument against non-naturalistic metaphysics. We then present our own (...) argument against it. We set out various ways in which intellectual endeavours can be of value, and we argue that, in so far as it claims to be an ontological enterprise, non-naturalistic metaphysics cannot be justified according to the same standards as science or naturalistic metaphysics. The lack of observable consequences explains why non-naturalistic metaphysics has, in general, failed to make progress, beyond increasing the standards of clarity and precision in expressing its theories. We end with a series of objections and replies. (shrink)

I admire Wilson & Sober's (W & S's) aim, to alert social scientists that group selection has risen from the ashqs, and to explicate its relevance to the behavioral sciences. Group selection has beenwidely misunderstood; furthermore, both authors have been instrumental in illuminating conceptual problems surrounding higher-level selection. Still, I find that this target article muddies the waters, primarily through its shifting and confused definition of a "vehicle" of selection. The fundamental problem is an ambiguity in the definition of "adaptation." (...) On the one hand, any evolutionary change that results from a selection process could be called an adaptation, by definition; I call this the "weak" view of adaptation. A "strong" view of adaptation, on the other hand, includes some notion of design - the evolution of a specific complex trait understood, in an engineering sense, to provide a mechanism favoring its owner's success in contributing to the evolutionary lineage. (shrink)

Many authors, including paleobiologists, cladists and so on, adopt a nested hierarchical viewpoint to examine the relationships among different levels of biological organization. Furthermore, species are often considered to be unique entities in functioning evolutionary processes and one of the individuals forming a nested hierarchy.I have attempted to show that such a hierarchical view is inadequate in evolutionary biology. We should define units depending on what we are trying to explain. Units that play an important role in evolution and ecology (...) do not necessarily form a nested hierarchy. Also the relationships among genealogies at different levels are not simply nested. I have attempted to distinguish the different characteristics of passages when they are used for different purposes of explanation. In my analysis, species and monophyletic taxa cannot be uniquely defined as single units that function in ecological and evolutionary processes. (shrink)

Evolution by natural selection has been extended to several supraorganismic levels, but whether it can apply to ecosystems remains controversial on two main counts. First, local ecosystems are loosely individuated, so that it is unclear how they manifest heredity and fitness. Second, even if they did, the meta-ecosystem formed by this population of local ecosystems will also suffer from a very low degree of cohesion, which will jeopardize any ENS. We suggest a way to overcome both issues, focusing on ecosystem (...) properties rather than on ecosystemic individuals. First, we follow recent theoretical developments which deny the centrality of reproduction in ENS. This leads us to merge heredity and fitness in a single process, in which a local ecosystem causally influences its neighbors, in a way responsible for their phenotypic similarity. Second, we suggest that the resulting meta-ecosystem need not meet the criteria of individuality. Instead, the evolving meta-ecosystem is best understood as a homeostatic property cluster, i.e., a set of phenotypes that together evolve by ENS at the ecosystem level. We illustrate this conceptual framework with a hypothetical example of local ecosystems that vary in terms of stability, productivity, diversity, and complementarity between species. Finally, we stress that our property-based account of ecosystemic ENS can help understand evolution at other biological levels, such as early life evolution and holobionts. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory has been a very popular topic in recent years and it has been claimed that it can make a major contribution to the advance of several sciences such as medicine, psychology, psychopathology and sociology: even providing them with new paradigms. This paper explores the possibility that nursing could benefit similarly by adopting an evolutionary perspective. After sketching the scientific and philosophical background to the recent developments concerning evolution, and briefly mentioning the chief features of evolutionary theory, the paper (...) discusses whether it makes sense to talk of ‘evolutionary nursing’, and whether there are any benefits in doing so. It uses a comparison with Darwinian medicine and evolutionary psychology. Several problems and objections are considered. The modest conclusion is reached that nurses need to adopt an evolutionary perspective to serve as a guide for some of their research and a source for research hypotheses. They also need to be informed about evolutionary ideas so as to be aware of the developments in the disciplines with which they work, and this understanding will assist them in maintaining vigilance against the misuse of science, religion and politics on behalf of their patients. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the debate in evolutionary epistemology about the nature of the evolutionary process at work in the development of science: whether it is Darwinian or Lamarckian. It is claimed that if we are to make progress through the many arguments that have grown up around this issue, we must return to an examination of the concepts of change and evolution, and examine the basic kinds of mechanism capable of bringing evolution about. This examination results in two (...) kinds of processes being identified, dubbed direct and indirect, and these are claimed to exhaust all possibilities. These ideas are then applied to a selection of the debates within evolutionary epistemology. It is shown that while arguments about the pattern and rate of evolutionary change are necessarily inconclusive, those concerning the origin of novel variations and the mode of inheritance can be resolved by means of the distinctions made here. It is claimed that the process of selection in the evolution of science can also be clarified. The conclusion is that the main process producing the evolution of science is a direct or Lamarckian one although, if realism is correct, an indirect or Darwinian process plays a vital role. (shrink)

In recent years two groups of taxonomists have attempted to influence the general goals and methods of biological classification. The first group, which emerged in the late 1950’s, has been called variously neo-Adansonian, numerical, computer and phenetic taxonomy. The founders of this school, Robert R. Sokal and P.H.A. Sneath, termed their unified approach to systematics “neo-Adansonian” because of the affinities which they saw between their views and those of the 18th century botanist, Michel Adanson (1727-1806). Today little mention is made (...) of Adanson. His ideas turned out not to be as prescient as Sokal and Sneath had at first thought. Besides, he had served his purpose as a patron saint ([79], p. 23). Sokal and Sneath also termed their approach “numerical” because they believed that taxonomists should make greater use of available mathematical techniques. Not only should taxonomic characters be coded quantitatively but also estimates of affinity should be made on the basis of explicitly stated clustering procedures. (shrink)