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On monism and pluralism : a reply to Dickins, T. E.

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Rodrigues_2023_Monism_pluralism_Evol_Biol_Ch22.pdf (146.8Kb)
Date
09/03/2023
Author
Rodrigues, Antonio
Gardner, Andy
Funder
NERC
European Research Council
Grant ID
NE/K009524/1
771387
Keywords
Levels of biological organisation
Maximisation principle
Meta-science
Natural selection
Purpose of adaptation
Shifting balance
QH301 Biology
MCP
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Abstract
Dickins has made some thoughtful suggestions as to why the important contributions of inclusive fitness theory have not been more celebrated by the proponents of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, considering the extent to which inclusive fitness theory has accommodated and illuminated—and, indeed, been motivated by—their “laundry list” of supposedly neglected evolutionary factors. We agree that this oversight could be explained, in part, by their seeing inclusive fitness as a “monist” alternative to a more “pluralist” multilevel selection that was not part of the Modern Synthesis. Here we clarify that multilevel selection and inclusive fitness are not competing explanations, but rather they address orthogonal issues, concerning the process of selection and the purpose of adaptation, respectively. We discuss the sense in which inclusive fitness is “monist” in providing the only generally correct adaptive maximand, but also “pluralist” in the sense of accommodating a diversity of adaptive agents. We also emphasise that multilevel selection was, in fact, part of the Modern Synthesis and, indeed, its inadequacies as a theory of organismal adaptation provided a crucial motivation for the concept of inclusive fitness.
Citation
Rodrigues , A & Gardner , A 2023 , On monism and pluralism : a reply to Dickins, T. E. in T Dickins & B Dickins (eds) , Evolutionary Biology : Contemporary and Historical Reflections upon Core Theory . Evolutionary Biology – New Perspectives on Its Development , no. 6 , vol. 2524-776X , Springer , Cham , pp. 369-372 . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22028-9_22
Publication
Evolutionary Biology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22028-9_22
ISSN
2524-7751
Type
Book item
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Description
Funding: Natural Environment Research Council (NE/K009524/1) and European Research Council (771387).
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-22028-9_22
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/26133

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