Philosophy of Selection (Natural, Sexual and Drift)

Telmo Pievani, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

Published online: April 2015

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0003461

Abstract

Four main ingredients are necessary for the recipe of natural selection: a common demanding and competitive environment; individual, spontaneous variation; inheritance of part of this variation and a sufficient time frame. The result is a differential survival and reproduction of varying individuals, multiplied over generations: self‐reproducing lineages of organisms change over time. As a statistical process with probabilistic outcomes, natural selection can be explained without using misleading terms such as “adaptation” and “chance”. The selective process is an experienced fact in nature and an explanatory pattern that could be generalised in different forms (such as sexual selection, kin selection and so on). Despite its strong explanatory power, natural selection is a constrained process and is not self‐sufficient: it is the pivot within a plurality of complementary and alternative explanatory patterns, the most important of which is the genetic drift.

Key Concepts

  • Natural selection cannot be reduced to easy metaphors such as “survival of the fittest” or “survival of the strongest”.
  • As differential survival and reproduction over generations, natural selection can be described without references to slippery words such as “adaptation” and “chance”.
  • Natural selection has been the first scientific explanation able to replace the “argument from design” of natural theology.
  • Saying that we are products of natural selection does not mean that we are children of purely fortuitous chains of events.
  • It is a mistake to assign to natural selection the old (intentional) attributes of a “designer”.
  • Natural selection needs two additional demanding requirements to occur: a continuously emerging variation and a perceived individual advantage.
  • Survival and reproduction are two faces of the same coin, inseparable.
  • Natural selection can be generalised into “selective processes”.
  • Genetic drift is another probabilistic sampling process, but with nonselective outcomes.
  • Selective processes do not work in a vacuum, but find case by case trade‐offs with structural constraints and constraints to variation.

Keywords: natural selection; variation; adaptation; chance; sexual selection; genetic drift; evolutionary constraints; exaptation

Figure 1. The original structure of selective explanation.
close

References

Brandon R (2008) Natural Selection. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural‐selection/

Caspeta L , Chen Y , Ghiaci P , et al. (2014) Altered sterol composition renders yeast thermotolerant. Science 346: 75–78.

Darwin CR (1859–1872) The Origin of Species. In: The Complete Work on line, University of Cambridge. www.darwinonline.edu

Darwin CR (1871) The Descent of Man. In: The Complete Work on line, University of Cambridge. www.darwinonline.edu

Endler JA (1986) Natural Selection in the Wild. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Godfrey‐Smith P and Lewontin RC (1993) The dimensions of selection. Philosophy of Science 60: 373–395.

Grant PR and Grant RB (2008) How and Why Species Multiply. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Henn BM et al. (2011) Hunter‐gatherer genomic diversity suggests a southern African origin for modern humans. PNAS 108 (13): 5154–5162.

Laland K et al. (2014) Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? Nature 514: 161–164.

Lewontin RC (1978) Adaptation. Scientific American 239 (9): 156–169.

Nowak MA (2006) Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science 314: 1560–1563.

Odling‐Smee J , Laland K and Feldman MW (2003) Niche Construction. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Pievani T and Serrelli E (2011) Exaptation in human evolution: How to test adaptive vs exaptive evolutionary hypotheses. Journal of Anthropological Sciences 89: 1–15.

Ramachandran SO , Deshpande O , Roseman CC , et al. (2005) Support from the relationship of genetic and geographic distance in human populations for a serial founder effect originating in Africa. PNAS 102 (44): 15942–15947.

Schmitz RJ (2014) The secret garden – epigenetic alleles underlie complex traits. Science 343: 1082–1083.

Sober E (1984) The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Further Reading

Dawkins R (1982) The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: Freeman.

Godfrey‐Smith P (2009) Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gould SJ and Lewontin RC (1979) The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Part B 205: 581–59.

Hull DL (2001) Science and Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mayr E (1991) One Long Argument. Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.

Monod J (1972) Chance and Necessity. London: Vintage Books.

Okasha S (2006) Evolution and the Levels of Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pievani T (2012) An evolving research programme: the structure of evolutionary theory from a Lakatosian perspective. In: Fasolo A , (ed). The Theory of Evolution and Its Impact, pp. 211–228. New York: Springer.

Sterelny K and Griffiths PE (1999) Sex and Death. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Biology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Williams GC (1966) Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Related Sub-Topics:

Philosophy of the Life Sciences | Evolution: Theories and Ideas | Selection and Variation | Science and Society - General
Contact Editor close
Submit a note to the editor about this article by filling in the form below.

* Required Field

Article Title: Philosophy of Selection (Natural, Sexual and Drift)
 
How to Cite close
Pievani, Telmo(Apr 2015) Philosophy of Selection (Natural, Sexual and Drift). In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0003461]