Hostname: page-component-68945f75b7-77sjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-04T23:34:15.844Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Selection of Alleles and the Additivity of Variance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Sahotra Sarkar
Sahotra Sarkar*
Affiliation:
Dibner Institute, MIT and McGill University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since the mid-1970s, when philosophical scrutiny of biology began to be focused on evolutionary theory, the center of philosophical attention in that field has been what is called the “units of selection” controversy. In particular, two problems have attracted philosophical and, on occasion, biological attention: (i) should natural selection be regarded as capable of operating on groups of individuals as distinct units, or should such a process only be regarded as a special type of selection on the constituent individuals of such groups even when every member of the group, by virtue of its membership of that group, is affected by selection in an identical manner?; and (ii) similarly, should selection be regarded as “ultimately” operating only on individual alleles since, even when the genotype seems to feel the action of selection more directly, any change in the genotypic composition of a population also consists of a change in its allelic composition?

Type
Part I. Philosophy of Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 2 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

The influence of Richard Lewontin on this paper should be obvious. My skepticism about the value of variance-based analyses in theoretical population genetics arose from conversation with John Maynard Smith. Discussions with J. F. Crow. T. Nagylaki and, in particular, W.C. Wimsatt have been useful. This analysis is part of a larger project of attempting to give a comprehensive account of the structure of contemporary evolutionary theory, with full attention to the technical details and complexities of the models and strategies employed in that field. I apologize for several references to that incomplete work but these are needed to situate the arguments being offered here in the context of past work on the units of selection. Please note that the basic—and technical—argument of this paper is fully elaborated here and does not rely on that work.

References

Brandon, R. (1990), Adaptation and Environment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brandon, R. and Burian, B., (eds.). (1984), Genes, Organisms and Populations: Controversies over the Units of Selection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Edelstein, S.J. (1986), The Siclded Cell: From Myths to Molecules. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewens, W.J. (1989), “An Interpretation and Proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection.” Theoretical Population Biology 36: 167–180.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Falk, R. and Sarkar, S. (1992), “Harmony from Discord.” Biology and Philosophy 7: 463–472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (1992), “Additivity and the Units of Selection.” In Hull, D., Forbes, M. and Okruhlik, K. (eds.). PSA 1992, Vol I. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 315–328.Google Scholar
Hull, D.L. (1989), The Metaphysics of Evolution. Stony Brook: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Kingman, J.F.C. (1961), “A Mathematical Problem in Population Genetics.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 57: 574–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewontin, R.C. (1970), “The Units of Selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1:1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewontin, R.C. (1974), “The Analysis of Variance and the Analysis of Causes.” American Journal of Human Genetics 26: 400–411.Google ScholarPubMed
Lewontin, R.C. (1991), “The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory.” Biology and Philosophy 6: 461–466.Google Scholar
Li, C.C. (1969), “Increments of Average Fitness for Multiple Alleles.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 62: 395–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, E.A. (1988), The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory. Westport: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Nagylaki, T. (1992), An Introduction to Theoretical Population Genetics. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkar, S. (Forthcoming), Drift, Selection, and Fitness: The Conceptual Framework of Evolutionary Theory.Google Scholar
Wade, M.J. (1978), “A Critical Review of the Models of Group Selection.” Quarterly Review of Biology 53: 101–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, G.C. (1966), Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W.C. (1980), “Reductionist Research Strategies and Their Biases in the Units of Selection Controversy.” In Nickles, T., (ed.). Scientific Discovery: Case Studies. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp,213–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar