Abstract |
Niche construction refers to the activities of organisms that bring about changes in their environments, many of which are evolutionarily and ecologically consequential. Advocates of niche construction theory (NCT) believe that standard evolutionary theory fails to recognize the full importance of niche construction, and consequently propose a novel view of evolution, in which niche construction and its legacy over time (ecological inheritance) are described as evolutionary processes, equivalent in importance to natural selection. Here, we subject NCT to critical evaluation, in the form of a collaboration between one prominent advocate of NCT, and a team of skeptics. We discuss whether niche construction is an evolutionary process, whether NCT obscures or clarifies how natural selection leads to organismal adaptation, and whether niche construction and natural selection are of equivalent explanatory importance. We also consider whether the literature that promotes NCT overstates the significance of niche construction, whether it is internally coherent, and whether it accurately portrays standard evolutionary theory. Our disagreements reflect a wider dispute within evolutionary theory over whether the neo-Darwinian synthesis is in need of reformulation, as well as different usages of some key terms (e.g., evolutionary process)
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References found in this work BETA
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Citations of this work BETA
The Birth of the Holobiont: Multi-Species Birthing Through Mutual Scaffolding and Niche Construction.Lynn Chiu & Scott F. Gilbert - 2015 - Biosemiotics 8 (2):191-210.
Niche Construction and Conceptual Change in Evolutionary Biology.Tobias Uller & Heikki Helanterä - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (2):351-375.
Does the extended evolutionary synthesis entail extended explanatory power?Jan Baedke, Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda & Francisco Vergara-Silva - 2020 - Biology and Philosophy 35 (1):1-22.
The evolutionary role of affordances: ecological psychology, niche construction, and natural selection.Manuel Heras-Escribano - 2020 - Biology and Philosophy 35 (2):1-27.
Three Kinds of Niche Construction.Bendik Hellem Aaby & Grant Ramsey - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (2):351-372.
View all 27 citations / Add more citations
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