Green, Sara (2014) A philosophical evaluation of adaptationism as a heuristic strategy. [Preprint]

Preview

PDF Methodological_Adaptationism.pdf - Draft Version Download (364kB)

Abstract

Adaptationism has for decades been the topic of sophisticated debates in philosophy of biology but
methodological adaptationism has not received as much attention as the empirical and explanatory
issues. In addition, adaptationism has mainly been discussed in the context of evolutionary biology
and not in fields such as zoophysiology and systems biology where this heuristic is also used in design
analyses of physiological traits and molecular structures. This paper draws on case studies from these
fields to discuss the productive and problematic aspects of this heuristic in different research
practices, in functional as well as evolutionary studies on different levels of biological organization.
Gould and Lewontin’s Spandrels-paper famously criticized adaptationist methodology for implying
the risk of generating ‘blind spots’ with respect to non-selective effects on evolution. Some have
claimed that this bias can be accommodated through the testing of evolutionary hypotheses. Although
this is an important aspect of overcoming naïve adaptationism, I argue that the issue of
methodological biases is broader than the question of testability. I demonstrate the productivity of
adaptationist heuristics but also discuss the deeper problematic aspects associated with the
methodological imperialism that is part of the strong adaptationist position.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Green, Sara
Keywords:	methodological adaptationism, optimality, design principles, reverse engineering, design analogies, heuristic
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Dr. Sara Green
Date Deposited:	18 Sep 2014 13:59
Last Modified:	18 Sep 2014 13:59
Item ID:	11028
DOI or Unique Handle:	10.1007/s10441-014-9232-x
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory General Issues > Explanation
Date:	2014
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11028

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Altmetric.com

Actions (login required)

View Item