Gould’s Laws

Haufe, Chris

doi:10.1086/678979

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Nevertheless, the RCT is not in tension with the existence of biological laws tout court. As we just saw, the RCT is itself premised on universal biological properties, and perhaps laws [14], that underwrite the stochastic, path-dependent nature of macroevolution-and it is consistent with many other biological Figure 1. (a) A radically contingent system in which outcomes (morphological, functional or relational) depend on improbable events occurring during the evolutionary path under consideration.…”

Section: Biological Contingency Predictability Chance and Lawssupporting

confidence: 53%

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Convergent evolution as natural experiment: the tape of life reconsidered

Powell

Mariscal

2015

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Stephen Jay Gould argued that replaying the ‘tape of life’ would result in radically different evolutionary outcomes. Recently, biologists and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the theoretical importance of convergent evolution—the independent origination of similar biological forms and functions—which many interpret as evidence against Gould's thesis. In this paper, we examine the evidentiary relevance of convergent evolution for the radical contingency debate. We show that under the right conditions, episodes of convergent evolution can constitute valid natural experiments that support inferences regarding the deep counterfactual stability of macroevolutionary outcomes. However, we argue that proponents of convergence have problematically lumped causally heterogeneous phenomena into a single evidentiary basket, in effect treating all convergent events as if they are of equivalent theoretical import. As a result, the ‘critique from convergent evolution’ fails to engage with key claims of the radical contingency thesis. To remedy this, we develop ways to break down the heterogeneous set of convergent events based on the nature of the generalizations they support. Adopting this more nuanced approach to convergent evolution allows us to differentiate iterated evolutionary outcomes that are probably common among alternative evolutionary histories and subject to law-like generalizations, from those that do little to undermine and may even support, the Gouldian view of life.

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Section: Biological Contingency Predictability Chance and Lawssupporting

confidence: 53%

“…One such refutation is 'the view that the evolutionary process is nonrepeating is demonstrably false' [24, p. 271]. Indeed, much of the philosophical attention to Gould's thesis has likewise focused on its implications for the nonrepeatability and unpredictability of evolutionary outcomes [5,6,9,14,27].…”

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confidence: 99%

Convergent evolution as natural experiment: the tape of life reconsidered

Powell

Mariscal

2015

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“…In the context of physics and chemistry, the observation of various trajectories of individual molecules is perfectly compatible with the possibility of identifying common organizational patterns and laws if we treat these entities as ensembles of particles and pursue a higher-level analysis of their projected long-term states. Similarly, biological systems can be observationally and experimentally studied for purposes of identifying causal operations in specific systems or be treated as particles with common relational or dynamic properties that enable a categorization of biological possibilities and stable types (see also Haufe 2015). I have argued that the quest for general principles is compatible with the view that specific endpoints of evolution are highly contingent.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gould was just as fascinated by the common morphological patterns across phyla as by the diversity of species (Haufe 2015;Sterelny 2007). In this own words ''[H]owever much we celebrate diversity and revel in the peculiarities of animals, we must also acknowledge a striking 'lawfulness' in the basic design of organisms'' (Gould 1977(Gould /2006.…”

Section: Constraint-based Generality In Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whereas Gould initially believed that laws of evolution could be based on regular adaptive processes, he came to realize that generality in evolution was most likely to be found in evolutionary processes that are insensitive to specific adaptations and variations(Haufe 2015).11 Huang (2004) refers to these different focal points as Type I and Type II explanations in evolutionary biology (the latter investigating what I call constraint-based generality).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Revisiting generality in biology: systems biology and the quest for design principles

Green

2015

Biol Philos

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Due to the variation, contingency and complexity of living systems, biology is often taken to be a science without fundamental theories, laws or general principles. I revisit this question in light of the quest for design principles in systems biology and show that different views can be reconciled if we distinguish between different types of generality. The philosophical literature has primarily focused on (the lack of) generality of specific models or explanations, or on the heuristic role of abstraction. This paper takes a different approach in emphasizing a theory-constituting role of general principles. Design principles signify general dependencyrelations between structures and functions, given a set of formally defined constraints. I contend that design principles increase our understanding of living systems by relating specific models to general types. The categorization of types is based on a delineation of the scope of biological possibilities, which serves to identify and define the generic features of classes of systems. To characterize the basis for general principles through generic abstraction and reasoning about possibility spaces, I coin the term constraint-based generality. I show that constraintbased generality is distinct from other types of generality in biology, and argue that general principles play a unifying role that does not entail theory reduction.

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Gould’s laws: a second perspective

Dresow

2019

Biol Philos

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Gould’s Laws

Cited by 11 publications

References 28 publications

Convergent evolution as natural experiment: the tape of life reconsidered

Convergent evolution as natural experiment: the tape of life reconsidered

Revisiting generality in biology: systems biology and the quest for design principles

Gould’s laws: a second perspective

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