Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:07:33.040Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Is a Lineage?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Celso Neto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article defends lineage pluralism; the view that biological lineages are not a single, unified type of entity. I analyze aspects of evolutionary theory, phylogenetics, and developmental biology to show that these areas appeal to distinct notions of lineage. I formulate three arguments for lineage pluralism. These arguments undercut the main motivations for lineage monism; the view that biological lineages are a single, unified type of entity. Although this view is rarely made explicit, it is often assumed in philosophy and biology. Hence, this article sheds light on this monistic assumption and shows why lineage pluralism should be adopted instead.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1099 - 1110
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I thank Marc Ereshefsky, the Calgary Philosophy of Science Group, Joyce Havstad, Alison McConwell, Justin Bzovy, Matt Haber, the PSA 2018 audience, the WCPA 2018 audience, and my dear friend Sinan Şencan (in m).

References

Andam, Cheryl P., and Gogarten, J. Peter. 2011. “Biased Gene Transfer and Its Implications for the Concept of Lineage.” Biology Direct 6:47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Avise, John C., and Robinson, Terence J.. 2008. “Hemiplasy: A New Term in the Lexicon of Phylogenetics.” Systematic Biology 57:503–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baum, David A., and Smith, Stacey D.. 2013. Tree Thinking: An Introduction to Phylogenetic Biology. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts.Google Scholar
Booth, Austin. 2014. “Populations and Individuals in Heterokaryotic Fungi: A Multilevel Perspective.” Philosophy of Science 81:612–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boucher, Yan, and Bapteste, Eric. 2009. “Revisiting the Concept of Lineage in Prokaryotes: A Phylogenetic Perspective.” Bioessays 31:526–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Ellen. 2013. “The Multiple Realizability of Biological Individuals.” Journal of Philosophy 110:413–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Ellen. 2016. “Levels of Selection in Biofilms: Multispecies Biofilms Are Not Evolutionary Individuals.” Biology and Philosophy 31:191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Degnan, James H., and Rosenberg, Noah A.. 2006. “Discordance of Species Trees with Their Most Likely Gene Trees.” PLoS Genetics 2: e68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Queiroz, Kevin. 1999. “The General Lineage Concept of Species and the Defining Properties of the Species.” In Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Doolittle, W. Ford, and Bapteste, Eric. 2007. “Pattern Pluralism and the Tree of Life Hypothesis.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:2043–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doolittle, W. Ford, and Brunet, Tyler D. P.. 2016. “What Is the Tree of Life?” PLoS Genetics 12: e1005912.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doolittle, W. Ford, and Zhaxybayeva, Olga. 2013. “What Is a Prokaryote?” In The Prokaryotes, 21–37. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dröscher, Ariane. 2014. “Images of Cell Trees, Cell Lines, and Cell Fates: The Legacy of Ernst Haeckel and August Weismann in Stem Cell Research.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 36:157–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dupre, John. 1993. The Disorder of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ereshefsky, Marc. 1992. “Eliminative Pluralism.” Philosophy of Science 59:671–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ereshefsky, Marc. 2001. The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy: A Philosophical Study of Biological Taxonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fagan, Melinda. 2013. Philosophy of Stem Cell Biology: Knowledge in Flesh and Blood. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Scott F. 2000. Developmental Biology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2009. Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2011. “Darwinian Individuals.” In From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haber, Matthew. 2012. “Multilevel Lineages and Multidimensional Trees: The Levels of Lineage and Phylogeny Reconstruction.” Philosophy of Science 79:609–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hennig, Willi. 1966. Phylogenetic Systematics. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Hull, David L. 1980. “Individuality and Selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 11:311–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, Kim B., Driskell, Ryan R., and Watt, Fiona M.. 2010. “Assaying Proliferation and Differentiation Capacity of Stem Cells Using Disaggregated Adult Mouse Epidermis.” Nature Protocols 5:898–911.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kretzschmar, Kai, and Watt, Fiona M.. 2012. “Lineage Tracing.” Cell 148:33–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewontin, Richard C. 1970. “The Units of Selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1:1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddison, Wayne P. 1997. “Gene Trees in Species Trees.” Systematic Biology 46:523–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mishler, Brent. 2010. “Species Are Not Uniquely Real Biological Entities.” In Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology, ed. Ayala, Francisco J. and Arp, Robert. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Reydon, Thomas. 2005. “On the Nature of the Species Problem and the Four Meanings of ‘species.’” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science C 36:135–58.Google Scholar
Stent, G. S. 1987. “Cell Lineage in Development.” FEBS Letters 215:1–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhaxybayeva, Olga, and Doolittle, W. Ford. 2011. “Lateral Gene Transfer.” Current Biology 21:R242–R246.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed