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Of Mice and Metaphysics: Natural Selection and Realized Population-Level Properties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Matthew C. Haug
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Abstract

In this paper, I answer a fundamental question facing any view according to which natural selection is a population-level causal process—namely, how is the causal process of natural selection related to, yet not preempted by, causal processes that occur at the level of individual organisms? Without an answer to this grounding question, the population-level causal view appears unstable—collapsing into either an individual-level causal interpretation or the claim that selection is a purely formal, statistical phenomenon. I argue that a causal account of realization provides an answer to the grounding question. By applying this account of realization to the natural selection of melanism in rock pocket mice, I show how an alternative, formal account of realization, favored by proponents of the statistical interpretation, misses biologically important features. More generally, this paper shows how metaphysical issues about realization normally discussed in the philosophy of mind apply to debates in philosophy of biology. Thus, it is a first step toward fleshing out the oft-noted similarities between debates in these areas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 431 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Previous versions of this paper were presented at the Cornell Philosophy Department Workshop, Brandeis University, the University of Iowa, Southern Methodist University, the College of William and Mary, and the 2006 Central Division APA meeting. Thanks to the members of those audiences for their comments and questions and especially to Robert Skipper, my commentator at the APA. I am also grateful to Richard Boyd, André Ariew, Mohan Matthen, Eric Swanson, and two anonymous referees for helpful conversations, comments, and/or correspondence. This material is based upon work supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

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