Mirror imagery and biological selection

Biology and Philosophy 17 (3):409-422 (2002)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Lake Tanganiyka has lefty and righty cichlid fish that show there can be natural selection for a trait over its mirror image counterpart.This raises the question Can there be biological selection of a whole organism over its mirror image counterpart? That is, could the fitness of a fish be altered by simply changing it into its own enantaniomorph? My answer is no. I present Flatlander thought experiment to demonstrate that mirror imagecounterparts are duplicates because they only differ in how they happen to be oriented in space. The counterparts have the same intrinsic properties and are in the same environment,so there can be no difference in fitness.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,440

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
41 (#381,426)

6 months
5 (#633,186)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Roy Sorensen
University of Texas at Austin

Citations of this work

Causality, Teleology, and Thought Experiments in Biology.Marco Buzzoni - 2015 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 46 (2):279-299.
A note on the aesthetics of mirror reversal.Rafael Clercq - 2007 - Philosophical Studies 132 (3):553 - 563.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Defining 'intrinsic'.Rae Langton & David Lewis - 1998 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (2):333-345.
The Nature of the Physical World.A. Eddington - 1928 - Humana Mente 4 (14):252-255.
God and the soul.Peter Thomas Geach - 2000 - London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
God and the Soul.Antony Flew & Peter Geach - 1970 - Philosophical Quarterly 20 (79):189.
Spaces and Times.Anthony Quinton - 1962 - Philosophy 37 (140):130 - 147.

View all 8 references / Add more references