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More About This Textbook
Overview
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
"Samir Okasha's wonderful new book...is a philosophical examination of the conceptual framework that multi-level selection theory deploys...It is gratifying that his book engages the details of mathematical models and at the same time connects those details with broader philosophical questions."—Elliott Sober, Bioscience"The current volume provides an exceptionally lucid and analyitically rigorous review of the main conceptual challenges facing biologists and philosophers who have engaged in this work."—Mark E. Borrello, The Quarterly Review of Biology
"Major contribution toward putting this controversial area on a coherent conceptual and philosophical footing. ... I can't imagine anyone working on multilevel selection-or attempting to dismiss it-without reading this book."—Science
"Every philosopher of biology interested in aspects of the levels of selection debates ought to confront this material, and should think seriously about how the positions he or she ahs staked out fits into the frameworks Okasha outlines. Okasha has written an extremely important book."—Jonathan Michael Kaplan, Notre Dame Philosophical Reivews
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Meet the Author
Samir Okasha is Professor of Philosophy at Bristol University. Before that he taught at the University of York for 3 years, and was a Jacobsen Research Fellow at the London School of Economics for 2 years. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Univeristy of Mexico for 1 year and received his doctorate in 1998 from the University of Oxford.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Natural Selection in the Abstract 10
Introduction 10
Abstract Formulations of Darwinian Principles 13
Price's Equation 18
Interpretation of Price's Equation 23
Statistical versus Causal Decomposition 25
Random Drift and Causal Decomposition 31
Price's Equation and the Lewontin Conditions 34
Selection at Multiple Levels: Concepts and Methods 40
Introduction 40
Hierarchical Organization 40
Selection at Multiple Levels: Key Concepts 46
Particle Characters and Collective Characters 48
Life Cycles 49
Particle Fitness and Collective Fitness 53
The Two Types of Multi-Level Selection 56
Particle Heritability and Collective Heritability 59
Price's Equation in a Hierarchical Setting 62
The Price Approach to MLS1 62
Applications 66
Heritability in MLS1 Revisited 71
The Price Approach to MLS2 74
Causality and Multi-Level Selection 76
Introduction 76
Causes, Correlations, and Cross-LevelBy-Products 76
Selection on Correlated Characters 80
Cross-Level By-Products in MLS1 84
Contextual Analysis: Further Remarks 89
Contextual Analysis versus Price's Equation 93
Cross-Level By-Products in MLS2 100
Particle[RightArrow]Collective By-Products 100
Collective[RightArrow]Particle By-Products 107
Philosophical Issues in the Levels-of-Selection Debate 112
Introduction 112
Emergence and Additivity 112
The Emergent Character Requirement 112
Additivity and the Wimsatt/Lloyd Approach 114
Emergent Relations and the Damuth-Heisler Approach 119
Screening Off and the Levels of Selection 121
Realism versus Pluralism about the Levels of Selection 125
Pluralism and Causality 128
Pluralism and Hierarchical Organization 130
Pluralism and Multiple Representations 133
Reductionism 139
The Gene's-Eye View and its Discontents 143
Introduction 143
The Origins of Gene's-Eye Thinking 143
Genic Selection and the Gene's-Eye View: Process versus Perspective 146
Outlaws and Genetic Conflicts 149
Price's Equation versus Contextual Analysis Revisited 154
Bookkeeping and Causality 158
The Limits of Genic Accounting 158
Sober and Lewontin's Heterosis Argument 162
Context-Dependence and the Gene's-Eye View 166
Reductionism and Pluralism Revisited 169
The Group Selection Controversy 173
Introduction 173
Origins of the Group Selection Controversy 174
Group Selection and the MLS1/MLS2 Distinction 178
Kin Selection, Reciprocal Altruism, and Evolutionary Game Theory 180
Maynard Smith versus Sober and Wilson on Group Heritability 185
The Averaging Fallacy 189
Random versus Assortative Grouping, Strong versus Weak Altruism 192
Contextual Analysis versus the Neighbour Approach 198
Species Selection, Clade Selection, and Macroevolution 203
Introduction 203
Origins of Species Selection 203
Genuine Species Selection versus 'Causation from Below' 206
Species versus Avatars: Damuth's Challenge 210
The Concept of Clade Selection 212
Levels of Selection and the Major Evolutionary Transitions 218
Introduction 218
The Transformation of the Levels-of-Selection Question 219
Genic versus Hierarchical Approaches to the Transitions 225
MLS1 versus MLS2 in Relation to Evolutionary Transitions 229
Michod on Fitness Decoupling and the Emergence of Individuality 233
Concluding Remarks 236
Bibliography 241
Index 257