Evolution and the Machinery of Chance: Philosophy, Probability, and Scientific Practice in Biology

An innovative view of the role of fitness concepts in evolutionary theory.

Natural selection is one of the factors responsible for changes in biological populations. Some traits or organisms are fitter than others, and natural selection occurs when there are changes in the distribution of traits in populations because of fitness differences. Many philosophers of biology insist that a trait’s fitness should be defined as an average of the fitnesses of individual members of the population th...