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The Ecological Dimension of Natural Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Bendik Hellem Aaby
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Abstract

In this article I argue that we should pay extra attention to the ecological dimension of natural selection. By this I mean that we should view natural selection primarily as acting on the outcomes of the interactions organisms have with their environment, which influences their relative reproductive output. A consequence of this view is that natural selection is not (directly) sensitive to what system of inheritance ensures reoccurrences of organism-environment interactions over generations. I end by showing the consequences of this view when looking at how processes like niche construction and the Baldwin effect relate to natural selection.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 1199 - 1209
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

†

Special thanks to Felipe Morales for helpful comments on an initial draft of this article. I would also like to thank Angela Potochnik for suggesting some changes to the final manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank Grant Ramsey for commenting on several drafts of this article.

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