Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T20:41:03.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wayward Modeling: Population Genetics and Natural Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Bruce Glymour
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a population genetics model. To understand selection is to understand what these parameter values measure and how differences in them lead to frequency changes. I argue that this traditional view is mistaken. The descriptions of natural selection rendered by population genetics models are in general neither predictive nor explanatory and introduce avoidable conceptual confusions. I conclude that a correct understanding of natural selection requires explicitly causal models of reproductive success.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , October 2006 , pp. 369 - 389
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.)

Footnotes

‡

I wish to thank Doug Patterson, Srini Kambhampati, Brett Sandercock, Scott Tanonoa, and two anonymous referees; their collective suggestions have greatly improved the paper.

References

Ariew, André, and Lewontin, Richard C. (2004), “The Confusions of Fitness,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55:347–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coulson, T., Kruuk, L., Tavacchia, G., Pemberton, J., and Clutton-Brock, T. (2003), “Estimating Selection on Neonatal Traits in Red Deer Using Elasticity Path Analysis,” Evolution 57:2879–2892.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endler, John (1980), “Natural Selection on Color Patterns in Poecilia Reticulata,” Evolution 34:76–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endler, John, and McLellan, Tracy (1988), “The Processes of Evolution: Toward a Newer Synthesis,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9:395–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, Peter (1986), Ecology and Evolution of Darwin’s Finches. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Matthen, Mohan, and Ariew, André (2002), “Two Ways of Thinking about Fitness and Natural Selection,” Journal of Philosophy 99:55–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, Judea (2000), Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shipley, Bill (2000), Cause and Correlation in Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott (1984), The Nature of Selection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Spirtes, Peter, Glymour, Clark, and Schienes, Richard (2000), Causation, Prediction and Search. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, Kim, and Kitcher, Philip (1988), “The Return of the Gene,” Journal of Philosophy 87:151–158.Google Scholar
van Tienderen, Peter (2000), “Elasticities and the Link between Demographic and Evolutionary Dynamics,” Ecology 81:666–679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Dennis, Lewens, Tim, and Ariew, André (2002), “The Trials of Life: Natural Selection and Random Drift,” Philosophy of Science 69:452–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar