Essays On The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
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Essays On The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
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Author : Rodrick Wallace
language : en
Publisher: Springer Nature
Release Date : 2023-05-18
Essays On The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis written by Rodrick Wallace and has been published by Springer Nature this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2023-05-18 with Science categories.
From the ‘punctuated equilibrium' of Eldrege and Gould, through Lewontin's ‘triple helix' and the various visions and revisions of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) of Laland and others, both data and theory have demanded an opening-up of the 1950's Evolutionary Synthesis that so firmly wedded evolutionary theory to the mathematics of gene frequency analysis. It can, however, be argued that a single deep and comprehensive mathematical theory may simply not be possible for the almost infinite varieties of evolutionary process active at and across the full range of scales of biological, social, institutional, and cultural phenomena. Indeed, the case history of 'meme theory' should have raised a red flag that narrow gene-centered models of evolutionary process may indeed have serious limitations. What is attempted here is less grand, but still broader than a gene-centered analysis. Following the instruction of Maturana and Varela that all living systems are cognitive, in a certainsense, and that living as a process is a process of cognition, the asymptotic limit theorems of information and control theories that bound all cognition provide a basis for constructing an only modestly deep but wider-ranging series of probability models that might be converted into useful statistical tools for the analysis of observational and experimental data related to evolutionary process. The line of argument in this series of interrelated essays proves to be surprisingly direct.
Evolutionary Causation
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Author : Tobias Uller
language : en
Publisher: MIT Press
Release Date : 2019-09-03
Evolutionary Causation written by Tobias Uller and has been published by MIT Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-09-03 with Science categories.
A comprehensive treatment of the concept of causation in evolutionary biology that makes clear its central role in both historical and contemporary debates. Most scientific explanations are causal. This is certainly the case in evolutionary biology, which seeks to explain the diversity of life and the adaptive fit between organisms and their surroundings. The nature of causation in evolutionary biology, however, is contentious. How causation is understood shapes the structure of evolutionary theory, and historical and contemporary debates in evolutionary biology have revolved around the nature of causation. Despite its centrality, and differing views on the subject, the major conceptual issues regarding the nature of causation in evolutionary biology are rarely addressed. This volume fills the gap, bringing together biologists and philosophers to offer a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of evolutionary causation. Contributors first address biological motivations for rethinking evolutionary causation, considering the ways in which development, extra-genetic inheritance, and niche construction challenge notions of cause and process in evolution, and describing how alternative representations of evolutionary causation can shed light on a range of evolutionary problems. Contributors then analyze evolutionary causation from a philosophical perspective, considering such topics as causal entanglement, the commingling of organism and environment, and the relationship between causation and information. Contributors John A. Baker, Lynn Chiu, David I. Dayan, Renée A. Duckworth, Marcus W Feldman, Susan A. Foster, Melissa A. Graham, Heikki Helanterä, Kevin N. Lala, Armin P. Moczek, John Odling-Smee, Jun Otsuka, Massimo Pigliucci, Arnaud Pocheville, Arlin Stoltzfus, Karola Stotz, Sonia E. Sultan, Christoph Thies, Tobias Uller, Denis M. Walsh, Richard A. Watson
Challenging The Modern Synthesis
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Author : Philippe Huneman
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2017
Challenging The Modern Synthesis written by Philippe Huneman and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017 with Philosophy categories.
Since its origin in the early 20th century, the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution has grown to become the orthodox view on the process of organic evolution. Its central defining feature is the prominence it accords to genes in the explanation of evolutionary dynamics. Since the advent of the 21st century, however, the Modern Synthesis has been subject to repeated and sustained challenges. These are largely empirically driven. In the last two decades, evolutionary biology has witnessed unprecedented growth in the understanding of those processes that underwrite the development of organisms and the inheritance of characters. The empirical advances usher in challenges to the conceptual foundations of evolutionary theory. The extent to which the new biology challenges the Modern Synthesis has been the subject of lively debate. Many current commentators charge that the new biology of the 21st century calls for a revision, extension, or wholesale rejection of the Modern Synthesis Theory of evolution. Defenders of the Modern Synthesis maintain that the theory can accommodate the exciting new advances in biology. The original essays collected in this volume survey the various challenges to the Modern Synthesis arising from the new biology of the 21st century. The authors are evolutionary biologists, philosophers of science, and historians of biology from Europe and North America. Each of the essays discusses a particular challenge to the Modern Synthesis treatment of inheritance, development, or adaptation. Taken together, the essays cover a spectrum of views, from those that contend that the Modern Synthesis can rise to the challenges of the new biology, with little or no revision required, to those that call for the abandonment of the Modern Synthesis. The collection will be of interest to researchers and students in evolutionary biology, and the philosophy and history of the biological sciences.
A Useful Inheritance
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Author : Nicholas Rescher
language : en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Release Date : 1990
A Useful Inheritance written by Nicholas Rescher and has been published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1990 with Philosophy categories.
The book formulates an evolutionary approach to the theory of knowledge, based on the parallelism between the natural selection of our cognitive capacities and the rational selection of the methodological processes by which we put them to work. The former reflects the biological evolution of homo sapiens, the latter the cultural evolution of homo quaerens through the development of a scientific community of inquirers with its characteristic practices. This dual aspect of cognitive evolution indicates that our human cognitive accomplishments are limited by our particular evolutionary attunement to the world's scheme of things and are bound to reflect the character of our particular evolutionary niche. The resulting doctrinal position is one of a realistic relativism.
Origination Of Organismal Form
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Author : Gerd B. Muller
language : en
Publisher: MIT Press
Release Date : 2003-01-03
Origination Of Organismal Form written by Gerd B. Muller and has been published by MIT Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2003-01-03 with Science categories.
A more comprehensive version of evolutionary theory that focuses as much on the origin of biological form as on its diversification. The field of evolutionary biology arose from the desire to understand the origin and diversity of biological forms. In recent years, however, evolutionary genetics, with its focus on the modification and inheritance of presumed genetic programs, has all but overwhelmed other aspects of evolutionary biology. This has led to the neglect of the study of the generative origins of biological form. Drawing on work from developmental biology, paleontology, developmental and population genetics, cancer research, physics, and theoretical biology, this book explores the multiple factors responsible for the origination of biological form. It examines the essential problems of morphological evolution—why, for example, the basic body plans of nearly all metazoans arose within a relatively short time span, why similar morphological design motifs appear in phylogenetically independent lineages, and how new structural elements are added to the body plan of a given phylogenetic lineage. It also examines discordances between genetic and phenotypic change, the physical determinants of morphogenesis, and the role of epigenetic processes in evolution. The book discusses these and other topics within the framework of evolutionary developmental biology, a new research agenda that concerns the interaction of development and evolution in the generation of biological form. By placing epigenetic processes, rather than gene sequence and gene expression changes, at the center of morphological origination, this book points the way to a more comprehensive theory of evolution.
The Modern Synthesis
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Author : Thomas E. Dickins
language : en
Publisher: Springer Nature
Release Date : 2021-11-12
The Modern Synthesis written by Thomas E. Dickins and has been published by Springer Nature this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-11-12 with Science categories.
This book is about evolutionary theory. It deals with aspects of its history to focus upon explanatory structures at work in the various forms of evolutionary theory - as such this is also a work of philosophy. Its focus lies on recent debates about the Modern Synthesis and what might be lacking in that synthesis. These claims have been most clearly made by those calling for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. The author argues that the difference between these two positions is the consequence of two things. First, whether evolution is a considered as solely a population level phenomenon or also a theory of form. Second, the use of information concepts. In this book Darwinian evolution is positioned as a general theory of evolution, a theory that gave evolution a technical meaning as the statistical outcome of variation, competition, and inheritance. The Modern Synthesis (MS) within biology, has a particular focus, a particular architecture to its explanations that renders it a special theory of evolution. After providing a history of Darwinian theory and the MS, recent claims and exhortations for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) are examined that see the need for the inclusion of non-genetic modes of inheritance and also developmental processes. Much of this argument is based around claims that the MS adopts a particular view of information that has privileged the gene as an instructional unit in the emergence of form. The author analyses the uses of information and claims that neither side of the debate explicitly and formally deals with this concept. A more formal view of information is provided which challenges the EES claims about the role of genes in MS explanations of form whilst being consilient with their own interests in developmental biology. It is concluded that the MS implicitly assumed this formal view of information whilst using information terms in a colloquial manner. In the final chapter the idea that the MS is an informational theory that acts to corral more specific phenomenal accounts, is mooted. As such the book argues for a constrained pluralism within biology, where the MS describes those constraints.
Cultural Evolution
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Author : Tim Lewens
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2015
Cultural Evolution written by Tim Lewens and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015 with Philosophy categories.
Tim Lewens explores what it means to take an evolutionary approach to cultural change, and why this approach is often treated with suspicion. He makes an original case for the value of evolutionary thinking for students of culture, and shows why the concerns of sceptics should not dismissed as mere prejudice, confusion, or ignorance.
The Third Law Of Evolution And The Future Of Life
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Author : Gerard A. J. M. Jagers op Akkerhuis
language : en
Publisher: Springer Nature
Release Date : 2024-11-25
The Third Law Of Evolution And The Future Of Life written by Gerard A. J. M. Jagers op Akkerhuis and has been published by Springer Nature this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2024-11-25 with Science categories.
This book offers a step-by-step introduction to an integrated theory of physical and biological evolution, from the early universe to the world we know today. To this end, the well-known laws of variation and selection are supplemented by a third law. This law describes the increase in complexity based on the transitions from quarks to hadrons, to atoms, to molecules, to bacteria, to eukaryotic cells, and so on. These insights revolutionize existing theoretical frameworks for analyzing organization in nature, accelerating developments in natural philosophy. In this way, the author develops a basic framework for thinking about evolution, which can be applied to current debates in various research fields. For example, the new approach finally helps to find the systems-based definitions of organism and life that have been sought for so long. By extrapolating the framework one can even hypothesize about future evolution and our place as humans in it. An exciting read for both philosophers and scientists.
Evolutionary Biology Contemporary And Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory
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Author : Thomas E. Dickins
language : en
Publisher: Springer Nature
Release Date : 2023-03-08
Evolutionary Biology Contemporary And Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory written by Thomas E. Dickins and has been published by Springer Nature this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2023-03-08 with Science categories.
This book is reflecting upon core theories in evolutionary biology – in a historical as well as contemporary context. It exposes the main areas of interest for discussion, but more importantly draws together hypotheses and future research directions. The Modern Synthesis (MS), sometimes referred to as Standard Evolutionary Theory (SET), in evolutionary biology has been well documented and discussed, but was also critically scrutinized over the last decade. Researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds have claimed that there is a need for an extension to that theory, and have called for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). The book starts with an introductory chapter that summarizes the main points of the EES claim and indicates where those points receive treatment later in the book. This introduction to the subjects can either serve as an initiation for readers new to the debate, or as a guide for those looking to pursue particular lines of enquiry. The following chapters are organized around historical perspectives, theoretical and philosophical approaches and the use of specific biological models to inspect core ideas. Both empirical and theoretical contributions have been included. The majority of chapters are addressing various aspects of the EES position, and reflecting upon the MS. Some of the chapters take historical perspectives, analyzing various details of the MS and EES claims. Others offer theoretical and philosophical analyses of the debate, or take contemporary findings in biology and discuss those findings and their possible theoretical interpretations. All of the chapters draw upon actual biology to make their points. This book is written by practicing biologists and behavioral biologists, historians and philosophers - many of them working in interdisciplinary fields. It is a valuable resource for historians and philosophers of biology as well as for biologists. Chapters 8, 20, 22 and 33 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Extended Heredity
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Author : Russell Bonduriansky
language : en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date : 2018-04-10
Extended Heredity written by Russell Bonduriansky and has been published by Princeton University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018-04-10 with Science categories.
How genes are not the only basis of heredity—and what this means for evolution, human life, and disease For much of the twentieth century it was assumed that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations and provide the raw material for natural selection. In Extended Heredity, leading evolutionary biologists Russell Bonduriansky and Troy Day challenge this premise. Drawing on the latest research, they demonstrate that what happens during our lifetimes--and even our grandparents' and great-grandparents' lifetimes—can influence the features of our descendants. On the basis of these discoveries, Bonduriansky and Day develop an extended concept of heredity that upends ideas about how traits can and cannot be transmitted across generations. By examining the history of the gene-centered view in modern biology and reassessing fundamental tenets of evolutionary theory, Bonduriansky and Day show that nongenetic inheritance—involving epigenetic, environmental, behavioral, and cultural factors—could play an important role in evolution. The discovery of nongenetic inheritance therefore has major implications for key questions in evolutionary biology, as well as human health. Extended Heredity reappraises long-held ideas and opens the door to a new understanding of inheritance and evolution.