Darwin’s claim about natural selection is reconstructed as an empirical claim about a causal connection leading from the match of the physiology of an individual and its environment to leaving surviving progeny. Variations in this match, Darwin claims, cause differences in the survival of the progeny. Modern concepts of fitness focus the survival side of this chain. Therefore, the assumption that evolutionary theory wants to explain reproductive success in terms of a modern concept of fitness has given rise to the so-called tautology problem. It is shown that the tautology problem reappears in the treatment of fitness proxies in today’s experimental evolutionary biology when these proxies are considered to indicate fitness only. Taking Darwin’s empirical claim seriously suggests, by contrast, that fitness proxies are first of all measures of the match between organism and environment, which I call the organism’s ‘fittedness’. At the same time, they are indeed related to reproductive success. Thus looking in both directions, at fitness and at fittedness, they are janiform. Acknowledging this situation not only allows for rejection of the tautology objection, but also for integration of Darwin’s argument into current evolutionary biology. It is suggested that this helps reframe and alleviate the dispute between the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Ben Bradley;
(2022)
Natural selection according to Darwin: Cause or effect?
Book
Creath, Richard;
Maienschein, Jane;
(2000)
Biology and epistemology
Thesis
Eugene, Earnshaw-Whyte.;
(2012)
Modeling Evolution
Article
Thierry Hoquet;
(2024)
Darwin and the White Shipwrecked Sailor: Beyond Blending Inheritance and the Jenkin Myth
Article
John Beatty;
(2019)
The Creativity of Natural Selection? Part II: The Synthesis and Since
Article
Alan Grafen;
(2019)
Should we ask for more than consistency of Darwinism with Mendelism?
Article
Yoichi Ishida;
(2017)
Sewall Wright, shifting balance theory, and the hardening of the modern synthesis
Thesis
Green, Lisa Anne;
(2012)
Science for Survival: The Modern Synthesis of Evolution and the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
Book
Richard G. Delisle;
Maurizio Esposito;
David Ceccarelli;
(2024)
Unity and Disunity in Evolutionary Biology: Deconstructing Darwinism
Book
Charles H. Pence;
(2021)
The Rise of Chance in Evolutionary Theory: A Pompous Parade of Arithmetic
Book
Michael A. Flannery;
(2018)
Nature's Prophet: Alfred Russel Wallace and His Evolution from Natural Selection to Natural Theology
Book
Brzezinski Prestes, Maria Elice;
Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr Pereira;
Stefano, Waldir;
(2006)
Filosofia e História da Biologia 1
Article
Amundson, Ron;
(2014)
Charles Darwin's Reputation: How It Changed during the Twentieth-Century and How It May Change Again
Article
Birch, Jonathan;
(2012)
The Negative View of Natural Selection
Article
Pierrick Bourrat;
(2020)
Natural selection and the reference grain problem
Article
Razeto-Barry, Pablo;
Frick, Ramiro;
(2011)
Probabilistic Causation and the Explanatory Role of Natural Selection
Article
Sober, Elliott;
Hecht Orzack, Steven;
(2003)
Common Ancestry and Natural Selection
Article
André Ariew;
Collin Rice;
Yasha Rohwer;
(2015)
Autonomous-Statistical Explanations and Natural Selection
Article
Daniel J. Molter;
(2022)
Bivalent Selection and Graded Darwinian Individuality
Article
Miguel García-Valdecasas;
Terrence W. Deacon;
(2024)
Biological functions are causes, not effects: A critique of selected effects theories
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Journal of the History of Biology
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Endeavour: Review of the Progress of Science
History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Be the first to comment!