Units of Selection
Units of Selection
Elisabeth A. Lloyd, Indiana University
This Element introduces the Disambiguating Project (DP) about the units of selection. By DP, the authors mean the thesis that the expression 'units of selection' refers to at least three non-co-extensional functional concepts: interactor, replicator/reproducer/reconstitutor, and manifestor of adaptation/type-1 agent. They present each concept and demonstrate the necessity of their isolation, because each of them responds to a distinct question about the units of selection, and these distinct questions are not always posed in combination in today's biological research. They further apply the framework to the analysis of the debates concerning the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality (ETI) and argue that the DP interprets the ETI better than any project rejecting the three meanings of 'units of selection.' Thus, they claim that the differentiation between at least these three functional concepts is fundamental to clarify some conceptual confusions in biology, which rest on the conflation of these distinct meanings.
Reviews & endorsements
‘… a very interesting, sophisticated and well-informed intervention in the current debate.’ Sandy C. Boucher, Metascience
‘This volume disambiguates unit of selection, which is a term that is often used loosely and confusingly: a laudable if somewhat modest goal … My personal take is that once we understand the process of natural selection, what its units are is a matter of definition. Not unimportant and requiring stipulation, but arbitrary. This book, reading as an extended paper in philosophy of biology, assembles many arguments to show that it is not arbitrary. And surely it is worth reading, even if you disagree.’ W. Ford Doolittle, The Quarterly Review of Biology
Product details
September 2023Paperback
9781009276412
75 pages
229 × 152 × 6 mm
0.16kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. What is a Unit of Selection and How Can We Identify It? The Disambiguating and the Unitary Projects
- 2. How the Expression 'Units of Selection' Acquired Its Polysemic Meaning or Why the Disambiguating Project Started
- 3. Two Sources of Misunderstanding in Past and Today's Debates about Units
- 4. The Framework of the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality: A Challenge to the Disambiguating Project
- Conclusion
- Glossary
- References.
