Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T17:42:46.640Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Selection, Indeterminism, and Evolutionary Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Bruce Glymour
Bruce Glymour*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, at Department of Philosophy, 201 Dickens Hall, Kansas State University, 66506; email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue that results from foraging theory give us good reason to think some evolutionary phenomena are indeterministic and hence that evolutionary theory must be probabilistic. Foraging theory implies that random search is sometimes selectively advantageous, and experimental work suggests that it is employed by a variety of organisms. There are reasons to think such search will sometimes be genuinely indeterministic. If it is, then individual reproductive success will also be indeterministic, and so too will frequency change in populations of organisms employing such search.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , December 2001 , pp. 518 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

My thanks to Ray Dacey for the conversational motivation, to Craig Goodman for help reproducing the figures, to Clark Glymour and Chris Smith for their advice, and to two anonymous referees for their careful, and very useful, comments.

References

Beatty, John (1984), “Chance and Natural Selection”, Philosophy of Science 51: 183–211.10.1086/289177CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhamou, Simon and Bovet, Pierre (1989), “How Animals Use Their Environment: A New Look at Kinesis”, Animal Behavior 38: 375–383.10.1016/S0003-3472(89)80030-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, Alan (1980), “Optimal Foraging in a Uniform Habitat: The Search Mechanism of the Green Lacewing”, Animal Behavior 28: 10–19.10.1016/S0003-3472(80)80003-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bovet, Pierre and Benhamou, Simon (1991), “Optimal Sinuosity in Central Place Foraging Movements”, Animal Behavior 42: 57–62.10.1016/S0003-3472(05)80605-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, Hillary and Barrows, Edward (1978), “Oviposition and Host Feeding Behavior of Aphelinus asychis (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Aphelinidae) on Schizaphis graminum (Homoptera: Aphididae) and Some Reactions of Aphids to this Parasite”, Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 80: 441–445.Google Scholar
Carter, M.C. and Dixon, A.F.G. (1982), “Habitat Quality and Foraging Behaviour of Coccinellid Larvae”, Journal of Animal Ecology, 51: 865–878.10.2307/4011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandler, A. (1969), “Locomotory Behavior of First Instar Larvae of Aphidophagous Syrphidae (Diptera) after Contact with Aphids”, Animal Behavior 17: 673–678.10.1016/S0003-3472(69)80011-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, N. (1977), “Prey Selection and the Search Strategy of the Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata): A Field Study on Optimal Foraging”, Animal Behavior 25: 1016–1033.10.1016/0003-3472(77)90053-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeVries, Dennis, Stein, Roy, and Chesson, Peter (1989), “Sunfish Foraging among Patches: The Patch-Departure Decision”, Animal Behavior 37: 455–464.10.1016/0003-3472(89)90092-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driver, P. M. and Humphries, D. A. (1988), Protean Behaviour. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Faber, Donald, Young, William, Legendre, Pascal, and Korn, Henri (1992), “Intrinsic Quantal Variability Due to Stochastic Properties of Receptor-Transmitter Interactions”, Science 258: 1494–1498.10.1126/science.1279813CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fielden, L. J., Perrin, M. R., and Hickman, G. C. (1990), “Feeding Ecology and Foraging Behaviour of the Namib Desert Golden Mole, Eremitalpa granti namibensis”, Journal of Zoology 220: 367–389.Google Scholar
Focardi, S., Marcellini, P., and Montanaro, P. (1996), “Do Ungulates Exhibit a Food Density Threshold? A Field Study of Optimal Foraging and Movement Patterns”, Journal of Animal Ecology 65: 606–620.10.2307/5740CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraenkel, Gottfried, and Gunn, Donald (1961), The Orientation of Animals: Kineses, Taxes and Compass Reactions. New York: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Gerling, D., Roitberg, B., and Mackauer, M. (1990), “Instar-Specific Defense of the Pea Aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum: Influence on Oviposition Success of the Parasite Aphelinus asychis (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae)”, Journal of Insect Behavior 3: 501–514.10.1007/BF01052014CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graves, Leslie, Horan, Barbara, and Rosenberg, Alex (1999), “Is Indeterminism the Source of the Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory?”, Philosophy of Science 66: 140–157.10.1086/392680CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchcock, Christopher (1999), “Contrastive Explanation and the Demons of Determinism”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50: 585–612.10.1093/bjps/50.4.585CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Gerhard (1990), “How to Describe the Search of a Predator for Patchily Distributed Prey?”, in Wolfgang, Alt and Hoffman, Gerhard (eds.), Biological Motion. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 331–339.10.1007/978-3-642-51664-1_24CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horan, Barbara (1994), “The Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory”, Philosophy of Science 61: 76–95.10.1086/289781CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kareiva, Peter and Odell, Garrett (1987), “Swarms of Predators Exhibit ‘Preytaxis’ If Individual Predators Use Area-Restricted Search”, The American Naturalist 130: 233–270.10.1086/284707CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lea, S. (1979), “Foraging and Reinforcement Schedules in the Pigeon: Optimal and Non-Optimal Aspects of Choice”, Animal Behavior 27: 875–886.10.1016/0003-3472(79)90025-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, C., Roitberg, B., and Mackauer, M. (1992), “The Search Pattern of a Parasitoid Wasp, Aphelinus asychis, for Its Host”, Oikos 65: 207–212.10.2307/3545011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marschall, Elizabeth, Chesson, Peter, and Stein, Roy (1989), “Foraging in a Patchy Environment: Prey-Encounter Rate and Residence Time Distributions”, Animal Behavior 37: 444–454.10.1016/0003-3472(89)90091-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdams, Harley and Arkin, Adam (1997), “Stochastic Mechanisms in Gene Expression”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 94: 814–819.10.1073/pnas.94.3.814CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McNamara, John and Houston, Alasdair (1987), “Partial Preferences and Foraging”, Animal Behavior 35: 1084–1099.10.1016/S0003-3472(87)80166-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellgren, R. and Roper, T. (1986), “Spatial Learning and Discrimination of Food Patches in the European Badger (Meles meles L.)”, Animal Behavior 34: 1129–1134.10.1016/S0003-3472(86)80172-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merlushkin, Anton and Hawkes, Alan (1997), “Stochastic Behavior of Ion Channels in Varying Conditions”, Journal of Mathematics Applied in Medicine and Biology 14: 125–149.10.1093/imammb/14.2.125CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Montague, Richard (1974), Formal Philosophy: Papers by R. Montague. Edited by Richmond Thomason. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Nemoto, Tomomi, Uchida, Go, Takamatsu, Atsuko, and Tsuchiya, Yoshimi (1995), “Stochastic Behavior of Organelle Motion in Nitella Internodal Cells”, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 214: 1102–1107.10.1006/bbrc.1995.2399CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nishimura, Kinya (1999), “Exploration of Optimal Giving-Up Time in Uncertain Environments: A Sit-and-Wait Forager”, Journal of Theoretical Biology 199: 321–327.10.1006/jtbi.1999.0961CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oaten, Allen (1977), “Optimal Foraging in Patches: A Case for Stochasticity”, Theoretical Population Biology 12: 263–285.10.1016/0040-5809(77)90046-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rodewald, A. and Foster, S. (1998), “Effects of Gravidity on Habitat Use and Antipredator Behaviour in Three-Spined Sticklebacks”, Journal of Fish Biology 52: 973–984.10.1111/j.1095-8649.1998.tb00597.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roeder, K. (1962), “The Behavior of Free Flying Moths in the Presence of Artificial Ultrasonic Pulses”, Animal Behavior 10: 300–304.10.1016/0003-3472(62)90053-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Alex (1988), “Is the Theory of Natural Selection a Statistical Theory”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy (Suppl.) 14: 187–207.Google Scholar
Sirot, E. and Krivan, V. (1997), “Adaptive Superparasitism and Host-Parasitoid Dynamics”, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 59: 23–41.10.1007/BF02459469CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, James (1974a), “The Food Searching Behaviour of Two European Thrushes. I. Description and Analysis of Search Paths”, Behaviour 48: 276–302.10.1163/156853974X00363CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, James (1974b), “The Food Searching Behaviour of Two European Thrushes. II. The Adaptiveness of Search Patterns”, Behaviour 49:1–61.10.1163/156853974X00390CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott (1984), The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Chicago; University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Spirtes, Peter, Glymour, Clark, and Scheines, Richard (1993), Causation, Prediction and Search. New York: Springer-Verlag.10.1007/978-1-4612-2748-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werner, Earl and Hall, Donald (1974), “Optimal Foraging and the Size Selection of Prey by the Bluegill Sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus)”, Ecology 55: 1042–1052.10.2307/1940354CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, John, Klink, Ruby, Alonso, Angel, and Kay, Alan (1998), “Noise from Voltage-Gated Ion Channels May Influence Neuronal Dynamics in the Entorhinal Cortex”, Journal of Neurophysiology 80: 262–269.10.1152/jn.1998.80.1.262CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilders, Ronald and Jongsma, Habo (1993), “Beating Irregularity of Single Pacemaker Cells Isolated from the Rabbit Sinoatrial Node”, Biophysical Journal 65: 2601–2613.10.1016/S0006-3495(93)81289-XCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed