Pence, Charles H. (2013) Putting Process and Product Conceptions of Natural Selection and Genetic Drift to the Test. [Preprint]

Preview

PDF Preprint_Pence_Process_Product.pdf - Draft Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (295kB)

Abstract

This paper argues for two claims. First, despite a persistent appearance to the contrary in the philosophy of biology literature, the question of whether natural selection and genetic drift should be defined as processes or as the products (or outcomes) of those processes is independent of the question of whether natural selection and genetic drift are causally efficacious (the debate between the 'causalist' and 'statisticalist' interpretations of evolutionary theory). Second, there exist biological cases – cases which are quite prevalent in natural populations – that can be used to drive apart process and product notions of selection and drift, and hence which could provide evidence useful in determining which of these two classes of definitions is in line with biological practice. Two cases presented here weigh in favor of process definitions, though this does not suffice to resolve the question.

---

Export/Citation:

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

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Pence, Charles H. charles@charlespence.net
Keywords:	natural selection, genetic drift, process, product, outcome, causation
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory General Issues > Causation
Depositing User:	Charles H. Pence
Date Deposited:	02 Jul 2013 05:05
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2013 05:05
Item ID:	9859
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory General Issues > Causation
Date:	29 June 2013
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9859

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item