Natural Selection and Drift as Individual-Level Causes of Evolution

Acta Biotheoretica
Pierrick Bourrat

Abstract

In this paper I critically evaluate Reisman and Forber's (Philos Sci 72(5):1113-1123, 2005) arguments that drift and natural selection are population-level causes of evolution based on what they call the manipulation condition. Although I agree that this condition is an important step for identifying causes for evolutionary change, it is insufficient. Following Woodward, I argue that the invariance of a relationship is another crucial parameter to take into consideration for causal explanations. Starting from Reisman and Forber's example on drift and after having briefly presented the criterion of invariance, I show that once both the manipulation condition and the criterion of invariance are taken into account, drift, in this example, should better be understood as an individual-level rather than a population-level cause. Later, I concede that it is legitimate to interpret natural selection and drift as population-level causes when they rely on genuinely indeterministic events and some cases of frequency-dependent selection.

References

Jul 12, 2002·Nature·Benjamin KerrBrendan J M Bohannan
Feb 1, 1962·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·T DOBZHANSKY, N P SPASSKY
Apr 12, 2005·Reproductive Biomedicine Online·D J Galton
Aug 18, 2009·The Nursing Clinics of North America·Rebekah Hamilton
Jan 1, 1970·TAG. Theoretical and applied genetics. Theoretische und angewandte Genetik·T N Khoshoo, I Mukherjee

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Citations

Nov 26, 2020·BioEssays : News and Reviews in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology·Guilhem DoulcierPierrick Bourrat
Jan 15, 2021·Acta Biotheoretica·Erik Weber, Roxan Degeyter
May 10, 2020·Studies in History and Philosophy of Science·Pierrick Bourrat

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