Evolutionary Causation – Uller & Laland (Eds)
[British Library, Friday 16th May 2025]
Part of The Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology with its origins in KLI (Konrad Lorenz Institute in Klosterneuburg just outside Vienna)
Interesting to find Weiss and Bertalanffy in the intro – not the direction I came at this work – more convergence.
“Not limited to mathematical formalisation, but extended to the conceptual foundations (of biology) – the leading science of the 21st C”
Intro – by the two named – from the opening sentence –
“Scientific inference typically relies on establishing causation” … “whilst biologists are typically content to leave the nature of causation to philosophers, there is scientific value in reflecting on core theoretical concepts. Different views on causation can lead to alternative explanatory frameworks, dictate what counts as difference makers in evolutionary processes […] How causation is understood thus shapes the structure of evolutionary theory, with both historical and contemporary debates […] revolving around the nature of causation. [Proximate and Ultimate Causation – Ernst Mayr]”
“The opening contribution by Massimo Pigliucci captures the motivation for this volume. Pigliucci outlines for alternatives for the relationship between science and philosophy of science. He makes the case that there can be mutual benefit and goes on to show – using four case studies of causation – how this benefit can be realized. Pigliucci’s analysis emphasizes that, despite their different aims, philosophers and scientists can enrich their respective disciplines through *active engagement*.”
No Whitehead or Wittgenstein.
Index doesn’t include all authors referred to in chapter refs.
Physicist Erwin Schrodinger (1944) first pointed out that “living organisms are far-from-equilibrium systems relative to their physical or abiotic surroundings”.
“Watson and Thies paper “Are Developmental Plasticity, Niche Construction and Extended Inheritance Necessary for Natural Selection? The Role of Active Phenotypes in the Minimal Criteria for Darwinian Individuality”
Refs – Lewontin, Godfrey-Smith, Maynard-Smith, Szathmary … etc. but also W R Ashby (1952) “Design for a Brain” (not in index) –
” It is the non-standard nature of the component particles that standardizes (Darwinizes) the collective. […] Are active particles, without natural selection enough to get things started? Complementary to conventional evolutionary theory, there are a number of proto, or non-Darwinian adaptation mechanisms that have been proposed to provide adaptive change without natural selection. ‘These include homeostasis and ultrastability’ (Ashby, 1952) … [Photos]”
Group Selection? Not in index.