Article ID: CBB000770692

Adaptive Speciation: The Role of Natural Selection in Mechanisms of Geographic and Non-geographic Speciation (2005)

unapi

Baker, Jason M. (Author)


Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 36
Pages: 303--326


Publication Date: 2005
Edition Details: Part of a special issue: “Mechanisms in Biology”
Language: English

Recent discussion of mechanism has suggested new approaches to several issues in the philosophy of science, including theory structure, causal explanation, and reductionism. Here, I apply what I take to be the fruits of the `new mechanical philosophy' to an analysis of a contemporary debate in evolutionary biology about the role of natural selection in speciation. Traditional accounts of that debate focus on the geographic context of genetic divergence---namely, whether divergence in the absence of geographic isolation is possible (or significant). Those accounts are at best incomplete, I argue, because they ignore the mechanisms producing divergence and miss what is at stake in the biological debate. I argue that the biological debate instead concerns the scope of particular speciation mechanisms which assign different roles to natural selection at various stages of divergence. The upshot is a new interpretation of the crux of that debate---namely, whether divergence with gene flow is possible (or significant) and whether the isolating mechanisms producing it are adaptive.

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Article Craver, Carl F.; Darden, Lindley (2005) Introduction. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 233). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000770692/

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Authors & Contributors
Desmond, Hugh
Bourrat, Pierrick
Bertoldi, Nicola
Molter, Daniel J.
Paternotte, Cédric
Green, Lisa Anne
Concepts
Evolution
Natural selection
Adaptation (biology)
Biology
Species concept (biology)
Darwinism
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
21st century
20th century, early
18th century
Places
Great Britain
Americas
United States
Southeast Asia
Institutions
Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Md.)
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