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Not a Sure Thing: Fitness, Probability, and Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Denis M. Walsh
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Abstract

In evolutionary biology changes in population structure are explained by citing trait fitness distribution. I distinguish three interpretations of fitness explanations—the Two-Factor Model, the Single-Factor Model, and the Statistical Interpretation—and argue for the last of these. These interpretations differ in their degrees of causal commitment. The first two hold that trait fitness distribution causes population change. Trait fitness explanations, according to these interpretations, are causal explanations. The last maintains that trait fitness distribution correlates with population change but does not cause it. My defense of the Statistical Interpretation relies on a distinctive feature of causation. Causes conform to the Sure Thing Principle. Trait fitness distributions, I argue, do not.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 147 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I wish to thank audiences in Exeter, Dubrovnik, Leeds, Bristol, Vienna, and the PSA meeting in Pittsburgh. I am particularly indebted to Michael Strevens, Bruce Glymour, Matthew Haug, Chris Haufe, Matthew Slater, Greg Mikkelson, Joel Velasco, and Elliott Sober for their helpful comments.

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