The Trials of Life: Natural Selection and Random Drift*

By D. Walsh, T. Lewens, André Ariew. Philosophia Scientiæ, 2002

268 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We distinguish dynamical and statistical interpretations of evolutionary theory. We argue that only the statistical interpretation preserves the presumed relation between natural selection and drift. On these grounds we claim that the dynamical conception of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces is mistaken. Selection and drift are not forces. Nor do selection and drift explanations appeal to the (sub‐population‐level) causes of population level change. Instead they explain by appeal to the statistical structure of populations. We briefly discuss the implications of the statistical interpretation of selection for various debates within the philosophy of biology—the ‘explananda of selection’ debate and the ‘units of selection’ debate.

Subfields: Genetics, History and Philosophy of Science, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4d5d6613a3653c2edf4ee96949da3acda487d064

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In Genetics

In History and Philosophy of Science

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Citations in the corpus

Explanation in Biology: Reduction, Pluralism, and Explanatory Aims (2011, unknown): “This results from the fact that populations are always finite and can be quite small, so that random sampling effects occur, so-called genetic drift (Beatty 1984; Millstein 2002; Walsh et al. 2002).”
Moving Beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation (2015, background): “…interpretation of drift is as the statistical error term (Walsh, 2010) and many have defended a statistical interpretation of fitness that entails that selection and drift cannot be pulled apart as two separate causal processes (Matthen and Ariew 2002, 2009; Walsh et al. 2002; Walsh 2007, 2010).”
Manipulation and the Causes of Evolution (2005, background): “Our thesis opposes the noncausal view of selection and drift favored by Matthen and Ariew (2002) and Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew (2002).”
Selection, Drift, and the “Forces” of Evolution* (2004, background): “Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew (2002) motivate their paper by asking a simple question “is evolutionary theory a statistical theory or a dynamical theory?””
The Pomp of Superfluous Causes: The Interpretation of Evolutionary Theory* (2007, background): “S1 is argued for on the grounds that the property that explains population change in the modern synthesis theory is variation in trait fitness (see Matthen and Ariew 2002; Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew 2002; Walsh 2003, 2004; Ariew and Lewontin 2004).”