Evolution and the Levels of Selection
by Okasha, SamirEdition: 1st
Format: Hardcover
Pub. Date: 2007-01-18
Publisher(s): Clarendon Press
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Summary
Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? The question of levels of selection - on which biologists and philosophers have long disagreed - is central to evolutionary theory and to the philosophy of biology. Samir Okasha's comprehensive analysis gives a clear account of the philosophical issues at stake in the current debate.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Natural Selection in the Abstract | p. 10 |
| Introduction | p. 10 |
| Abstract Formulations of Darwinian Principles | p. 13 |
| Price's Equation | p. 18 |
| Interpretation of Price's Equation | p. 23 |
| Statistical versus Causal Decomposition | p. 25 |
| Random Drift and Causal Decomposition | p. 31 |
| Price's Equation and the Lewontin Conditions | p. 34 |
| Selection at Multiple Levels: Concepts and Methods | p. 40 |
| Introduction | p. 40 |
| Hierarchical Organization | p. 40 |
| Selection at Multiple Levels: Key Concepts | p. 46 |
| Particle Characters and Collective Characters | p. 48 |
| Life Cycles | p. 49 |
| Particle Fitness and Collective Fitness | p. 53 |
| The Two Types of Multi-Level Selection | p. 56 |
| Particle Heritability and Collective Heritability | p. 59 |
| Price's Equation in a Hierarchical Setting | p. 62 |
| The Price Approach to MLS1 | p. 62 |
| Applications | p. 66 |
| Heritability in MLS1 Revisited | p. 71 |
| The Price Approach to MLS2 | p. 74 |
| Causality and Multi-Level Selection | p. 76 |
| Introduction | p. 76 |
| Causes, Correlations, and Cross-Level By-Products | p. 76 |
| Selection on Correlated Characters | p. 80 |
| Cross-Level By-Products in MLS1 | p. 84 |
| Contextual Analysis: Further Remarks | p. 89 |
| Contextual Analysis versus Price's Equation | p. 93 |
| Cross-Level By-Products in MLS2 | p. 100 |
| Particle[RightArrow]Collective By-Products | p. 100 |
| Collective[RightArrow]Particle By-Products | p. 107 |
| Philosophical Issues in the Levels-of-Selection Debate | p. 112 |
| Introduction | p. 112 |
| Emergence and Additivity | p. 112 |
| The Emergent Character Requirement | p. 112 |
| Additivity and the Wimsatt/Lloyd Approach | p. 114 |
| Emergent Relations and the Damuth-Heisler Approach | p. 119 |
| Screening Off and the Levels of Selection | p. 121 |
| Realism versus Pluralism about the Levels of Selection | p. 125 |
| Pluralism and Causality | p. 128 |
| Pluralism and Hierarchical Organization | p. 130 |
| Pluralism and Multiple Representations | p. 133 |
| Reductionism | p. 139 |
| The Gene's-Eye View and its Discontents | p. 143 |
| Introduction | p. 143 |
| The Origins of Gene's-Eye Thinking | p. 143 |
| Genic Selection and the Gene's-Eye View: Process versus Perspective | p. 146 |
| Outlaws and Genetic Conflicts | p. 149 |
| Price's Equation versus Contextual Analysis Revisited | p. 154 |
| Bookkeeping and Causality | p. 158 |
| The Limits of Genic Accounting | p. 158 |
| Sober and Lewontin's Heterosis Argument | p. 162 |
| Context-Dependence and the Gene's-Eye View | p. 166 |
| Reductionism and Pluralism Revisited | p. 169 |
| The Group Selection Controversy | p. 173 |
| Introduction | p. 173 |
| Origins of the Group Selection Controversy | p. 174 |
| Group Selection and the MLS1/MLS2 Distinction | p. 178 |
| Kin Selection, Reciprocal Altruism, and Evolutionary Game Theory | p. 180 |
| Maynard Smith versus Sober and Wilson on Group Heritability | p. 185 |
| The Averaging Fallacy | p. 189 |
| Random versus Assortative Grouping, Strong versus Weak Altruism | p. 192 |
| Contextual Analysis versus the Neighbour Approach | p. 198 |
| Species Selection, Clade Selection, and Macroevolution | p. 203 |
| Introduction | p. 203 |
| Origins of Species Selection | p. 203 |
| Genuine Species Selection versus 'Causation from Below' | p. 206 |
| Species versus Avatars: Damuth's Challenge | p. 210 |
| The Concept of Clade Selection | p. 212 |
| Levels of Selection and the Major Evolutionary Transitions | p. 218 |
| Introduction | p. 218 |
| The Transformation of the Levels-of-Selection Question | p. 219 |
| Genic versus Hierarchical Approaches to the Transitions | p. 225 |
| MLS1 versus MLS2 in Relation to Evolutionary Transitions | p. 229 |
| Michod on Fitness Decoupling and the Emergence of Individuality | p. 233 |
| Concluding Remarks | p. 236 |
| Bibliography | p. 241 |
| Index | p. 257 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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