Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:39:10.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Using False Models to Elaborate Constraints on Processes: Blending Inheritance in Organic and Cultural Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

William C. Wimsatt
William C. Wimsatt*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
*
Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, 1050 E. 59th St., University of Chicago, Chicago, Il., 60637, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scientific models may be more useful for false assumptions they make than true ones when one is interested not in the fit of the model, but in the form of the residuals. Modeling Darwin's (false) “blending” theory of inheritance shows how it illuminates features of Mendelian theory. Insufficient understanding of it leads to incorrect moves in modeling population structure. But it may prove even more useful for organizing a theory of cultural evolution. Analysis of “blending” inheritance gives new tools for recognizing population structure for culture and for understanding differences between biological and cultural inheritance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 69 , Issue S3 , September 2002 , pp. S12 - S24
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

References

Boyd, Robert, and Richerson, Peter (1985), Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi, and Feldman, Marcus (1981), Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Falconer, D. S. (1960), An Introduction to Quantitative Genetics. New York: Ronald Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, Ronald. A. (1930), The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartl, Daniel (1988), A Primer of Population Genetics, 2nd ed. Stamford, Conn.: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Jenkin, Fleeming. (1867), Review of The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. The North British Review, (June), 46:277–318. Reprinted in David. L. Hull (ed.), Darwin and His Critics, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 302–350.Google Scholar
Nettle, Daniel (1999), Linguistic Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Orr, Daniel. (1996), Review of Darwin’ s Dangerous Idea, by Daniel Dennett. Evolution 50:467–472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oyama, Susan, Griffiths, Paul, and Gray, Russell (eds.) (2001), Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Schank, Jeffrey C., and Wimsatt, William C. (1993), ModelBuilding 2.0. Simulation software for Macintosh for teaching model building and its critical analysis. BioQUEST library of Strategic Simulations. Academic Press (on CD-ROM).Google Scholar
Shannon, Claude E., and Weaver, Warren (1949), The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Wade, Michael (1978), “A Critical Review of the Models of Group Selection”, A Critical Review of the Models of Group Selection 53:101–114.Google Scholar
Wallace, B. (1968), Topics in Population Genetics. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1980), “Reductionistic Research Strategies and Their Biases in the Units of Selection Controversy”, in Nickles, T. (ed.), Scientific Discovery-Vol.II: Case Studies. Dordrecht: Reidel, 213–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1981), “Units of Selection and the Structure of the Multi-level Genome”, in PSA 1980, Vol. 2. Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science Association, 122–183.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1987), “False Models as Means to Truer Theories”, in Nitecki, M., and Hoffman, A. (eds.), Neutral Models in Biology. London: Oxford University Press, 23–55.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1999), “Genes, Memes, and Cultural Inheritance”, Genes, Memes, and Cultural Inheritance 14:279–310.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (2001), “Generative Entrenchment and the Developmental Systems Approach to Evolutionary Processes”, in Oyama, S. et. al. (eds.), Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 219–237.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (2002), “Emergence as Non-Aggregativity and the Biases of Reductionism(s)”, in Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C., and Schank, Jeffrey C., (1993), Modelling—A Primer (or: the crafty art of making, exploring, extending, transforming, tweaking, bending, disassembling, questioning, and breaking models). Academic Press (on CD-ROM). BioQUEST library of strategic simulations.Google Scholar