The principle of drift: Biology's first law

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 103, Issue 7, 2006, Pages 319-335

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EID: 34250829264     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/jphil2006103723     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Sober, Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology (Cambridge: MIT, 1984, second edition).
2. See Denis M. Walsh, Tim Lewens, and André Anew, "Trials of Life: Natural Selection and Random Drift, " Philosophy of Science, LXIX(2002): 452-73;
3. Mohan Matthen and André Ariew, "Two Ways of Thinking about Fitness and Natural Selection, " this JOURNAL, XCIX, 2 (February 2002):55-83.
4. See Christopher Stephens, "Selection, Drift, and the 'Forces' of Evolution, " Philosophy of Science, LXXI (2004): 550-70.
5. See, for example, Carl Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York: Free Press, 1965).
6. See Wesley Salmon, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance(Pittsburgh: University Press, 1971),
7. and his Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World(Princeton: University Press, 1984).
8. See Brandon, Adaptation and Environment (Princeton: University Press, 1990), where I was inspired by Salmon's Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World.
9. Endler, Natural Selection in the Wild (Princeton: University Press, 1986).
10. See Brandon and Grant Ramsey, "What's Wrong with the Emergentist Statistical Interpretation of Natural Selection and Random Drift, " in Michael Ruse and David L. Hull, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Biology (New York: Cambridge, forthcoming).
11. See Brandon, "The Difference between Selection and Drift: A Reply to Millstein, " Biology and Philosophy, XX (2005): 153-70.
12. See Brandon, Adaptation and Environment, especially chapter 2, "The Concept of Environment in the Theory of Natural Selection."
13. See Brandon, "The Difference between Selection and Drift."
14. See, for example, Martin Krcitman, "Methods to Detect Selection in Populations with Applications to the Human, " Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, I (2002): 539-59;
15. Ziheng Yang and Joseph P. Bielawski, "Statistical Methods for Detecting Molecular Adaptation, " Trends in Ecology and Evolution, XV(2000): 496-503;
16. Michael Bamshad and Stephen P. Wooding, "Signatures of Natural Selection in the Human Genome, " Nature Reviews Genetics, IV (2003): 99-111.
17. See Brandon and H. Fred Nijhout, "The Empirical Non-equivalence of Genie and Genotypic Models of Selection: A (Decisive) Refutation of Genie Selectionism and Pluralistic Genie Selectionism, " forthcoming in Philosophyof Science.
18. See Brandon and Scott Carson, "The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory: No 'No Hidden Variables Proof' but No Room for Determinism Either, " Philosophy of Science, LXIII (1996): 315-37.
19. Beatty, "What's Wrong with the Received View of Evolutionary Theory?" in P.D. Asquith and R.N. Giere, eds., PSA 1980, Volume 2 (East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association, 1980), pp. 397-426.
20. See Brandon and Nijhout; and see D. McShea and Brandon, "Diversityand Complexity: the Zero-Force Expectation for Biology" (in preparation).
21. Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (New York: Oxford, 1930).
22. See, for example, R. Quiring, U. Walldorf, U. Kloter, and W.J. Gehring, "Homology of the Eyeless Gene of Drosophila to the Small Eye Gene in Miceand Aniridia in Humans, " Science, CCLXV (1994): 785-89.
23. See Endler, Brandon and Ramsey; and J.G. Kingsolver, H.E. Hoekstra, J.M.Hockstra, D. Berrigan, S.N. Vignieri, C.E. Hill, A. Hoang, P. Gibert, and P.Beerli, "The Strength of Phenotypic Selection in Natural Populations, "The American Naturalist, CLVII (2001): 245-61.
24. See Brandon and Alex Rosenberg, "Philosophy of Biology, " in Peter Clark and Katherine Hawley, eds., Philosophy of Science Today (New York:Oxford, 2003), pp. 147-80.
25. See Brandon, "Adaptation and Evolutionary Theory, " Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, IX (1978): 181-206, and Adaptation and Environment.
26. See Ian Hacking, Logic of Statistical Inference (New York: Cambridge, 1965), pp. 1-12.
27. There are other interpretations of this principle, which instead ofconnecting objective probabilities with outcomes, connect them with subjectiveprobabilities; see Isaac Levi, "Direct Inference, " this JOURNAL, LXXIV, 1 (January 1977): 5-29. My view is that an objectivist theory ofprobability requires principles to connect observation of relative frequenciesto objective probabilities and to connect objective probabilities withobservable events. On this view probabilities are no different from any othersort of theoretical entity, for example, black holes. If we are meaningfully toposit black holes we need principles to go from observables to black holes andvice versa; similarly for objective probabilities. Subjective probabilities aresuperfluous on this view. Given these principles we can reconstruct subjectiveprobabilities, but they do no work. My view of evolutionary theory's requirementof objective probabilities is similar to Karl Popper's view of quantummechanics.
28. See Popper, "The Propensity Interpretation of Probability, " The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, X (1959): 25-42. My view ofobjective probability finds precedent in the works of Hans Reichenbach, Salmon, and Hacking, among others. In particular, I follow Salmon's idea of objectivelyhomogeneous reference classes as being the solution to the reference classproblem. I have specifically developed these ideas in the context ofevolutionary biology and have argued that my notion of " selectiveenvironmental homogeneity" solves the reference class problem inevolutionary biology.
29. G.H. Hardy, "Letter to the Editor, " Science, XXVIII (1908):49-50.
30. Richard Lewontin, personal communication, 2005.