A critical review of the statisticalist debate

Otsuka, Jun

doi:10.1007/s10539-016-9528-0

Cited by 38 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Otherwise, philosophers risk spending effort on small and insignificant problems that are of little interest except to other philosophers. Some such problems might even be purely semantic, such as the odd idea that natural selection is not really an evolutionary process but just a statistical outcome of lower-level phenomena (Walsh et al 2002;Otsuka 2016). Most evolutionary biologists probably consider such questions as rather esoteric and of little interest or relevance to the field.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The structure of evolutionary theory: Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Neo-Lamarckism and biased historical narratives about the Modern Synthesis

Svensson¹

2021

Preprint

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The last decades have seen frequent calls for a more extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) that will supposedly overcome the limitations in the current evolutionary framework with its intellectual roots in the Modern Synthesis (MS). Some radical critics even want to entirely abandon the current evolutionary framework, claiming that the MS (often erroneously labelled “Neo-Darwinism”) is outdated, and will soon be replaced by an entirely new framework, such as the Third Way of Evolution (TWE). Such criticisms are not new, but have repeatedly re-surfaced every decade since the formation of the MS, and were particularly articulated by developmental biologist Conrad Waddington and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Waddington, Gould and later critics argued that the MS was too narrowly focused on genes and natural selection, and that it ignored developmental processes, epigenetics, paleontology and macroevolutionary phenomena. More recent critics partly recycle these old arguments and argue that non-genetic inheritance, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and developmental bias necessitate major revision of evolutionary theory. Here I discuss these supposed challenges, taking a historical perspective and tracing these arguments back to Waddington and Gould. I dissect the old arguments by Waddington, Gould and more recent critics that the MS was excessively gene centric and became increasingly “hardened” over time and narrowly focused on natural selection. Recent critics have consciously or unconsciously exaggerated the long-lasting influence of the MS on contemporary evolutionary biology and have underestimated many post-Synthesis developments, particularly Neutral Theory and evolutionary quantitative genetics. Critics have also painted a biased picture of the MS as a more monolithic research tradition than it ever was, and have downplayed the pluralistic nature of contemporary evolutionary biology, particularly the long-lasting influence of Sewall Wright with his emphasis on gene interactions and stochasticity. Finally, I outline and visualize the conceptually split landscape of contemporary evolutionary biology, with four different stably coexisting analytical frameworks: adaptationism, mutationism, neutralism and selectionism. I suggest that the field can accommodate the challenges raised by critics, although structuralism (“EvoDevo”) and macroevolution remain to be conceptually integrated within mainstream evolutionary theory.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The structure of evolutionary theory: Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Neo-Lamarckism and biased historical narratives about the Modern Synthesis

Svensson¹

2021

Preprint

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“…2 I adopt here a causal view of selection that is becoming increasingly popular among evolutionary theorists in general (e.g. Sober 1984;Shanahan 1990;Waters 2005;Glymour 2006Glymour , 2011Godfrey-Smith 2007;Otsuka 2016), as well as among authors specifically working on multilevel selection (e.g. Arnold and Fristrup 1982;Okasha 2006;Jeler 2017).…”

Section: The Group-level Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Note Against the Use of “Belonging To” Properties in Multilevel Selection Theory

Jeler

2020

Acta Biotheor

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In this short paper, I argue against what I call the "belonging to" interpretation of group selection in scenarios in which a group's fitness is defined as the per capita reproductive output of the individuals of the group. According to this interpretation, group selection acts on "belonging to" properties of individuals, i.e. on relational or contextual properties that all the individuals of a group share simply by belonging to that group; thus, if differences in the individuals' "belonging to" properties cause differences in their fitness, group selection sensu the "belonging to" interpretation is said to be at work. I argue that the main problem with the "belonging to" interpretation is that it confuses evolutionary changes due to differences in environmental quality with evolutionary changes due to selection. In other words, I argue that, in the majority of cases, this interpretation actually takes the "selection" out of the "group selection" notion it aims to interpret: by adopting this perspective, one implicitly commits to explaining the evolutionary change under consideration not by a kind of selection (be it individual or group selection), but by differences in the environmental quality experienced by individual types.

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“…These debates were initiated in the early 2000s by Walsh et al (2002), who argued that evolutionary theory should be interpreted as a statistical theory rather than a dynamical theory. I say 'debates' because this literature has tended to run together a variety of issues that, while not unrelated, can be usefully distinguished (Otsuka, 2016). These include the relationship between selection and drift; the question of whether natural selection should be regarded as a force, a cause, or merely as a statistical trend; the question of whether evolutionary models provide causal or non-causal explanations; and-most relevantly to the arguments of this paper-the question of whether fitness is a causal property of organisms or merely a statistical predictor of change.…”

Section: Fitness and Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusive fitness as a criterion for improvement

Birch

2019

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in

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I distinguish two roles for a fitness concept in the context of explaining cumulative adaptive evolution: fitness as a predictor of gene frequency change, and fitness as a criterion for phenotypic improvement. Critics of inclusive fitness argue, correctly, that it is not an ideal fitness concept for the purpose of predicting genefrequency change, since it relies on assumptions about the causal structure of social interaction that are unlikely to be exactly true in real populations, and that hold as approximations only given a specific type of weak selection. However, Hamilton took this type of weak selection, on independent grounds, to be responsible for cumulative assembly of complex adaptations. In this special context, I argue that inclusive fitness is distinctively valuable as a criterion for improvement and a standard for optimality. Yet to call inclusive fitness a criterion for improvement and a standard for optimality is not to make any claim about the frequency with which inclusive fitness optimization actually occurs in nature. This is an empirical question that cannot be settled by theory alone. I close with some reflections on the place of inclusive fitness in the long running clash between 'causalist' and 'statisticalist' conceptions of fitness.

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A critical review of the statisticalist debate

Cited by 38 publications

References 63 publications

The structure of evolutionary theory: Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Neo-Lamarckism and biased historical narratives about the Modern Synthesis

The structure of evolutionary theory: Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Neo-Lamarckism and biased historical narratives about the Modern Synthesis

A Note Against the Use of “Belonging To” Properties in Multilevel Selection Theory

Inclusive fitness as a criterion for improvement

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