Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:45:02.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Biological Adaptation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Ronald Munson
Ronald Munson*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri-St. Louis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I attempt to show that adaptational sentences (i.e. sentences containing the terms “adaptive”, “adapted”, etc.) in evolutionary biology are best interpreted as equivalent to sentences about Darwinian or genetical selection. Thus, the use of adaptational languages does not introduce final purposes or other nonempirical notions into biology. I also try to demonstrate that adaptational sentences and functional sentences are not equivalent in an evolutionary context so that an analysis of function does not dispense with the need for an analysis of adaptation. Finally, it is argued that, although some adaptational sentences might be construed as teleological explanations, given an empirical content, they do not serve as explanations. Rather, they express the outcome of selection, regarded in one way, and regarded in another, they express data for which a theory of evolution must account.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 200 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 by 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.)

References

REFERENCES

[1] Burnett, A. L. and Eisner, Thomas, Animal Adaptation, N.Y., Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964.Google Scholar
[2] Canfield, John, “Teleological Explanation in Biology,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. XIV (1964), 285-295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] Dawes, Ben, A Hundred Years of Biology, London, Duckworth, 1952.Google Scholar
[4] Dobzhansky, Th., “Evolution and Environment,” Evolution after Darwin, vol. I, (ed. Sol Tax), Chicago, University Chicago Press, 1960.Google Scholar
[5] Dobzhansky, Th., “What is an Adaptive Trait?,” American Naturalist, vol. XC (1956), 337-347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6] Ghiselin, Michael T., “On Semantic Pitfalls of Biological Adaptation,” Philosophy of Science, vol. 33 (1966), 147-154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7] Grant, Verne, The Origins of Adaptations, N.Y., Columbia University Press, 1963.Google Scholar
[8] Grene, Marjorie, “Two Evolutionary Theories” (two parts), British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 9 (1958-1959), 110-127, 185-194.Google Scholar
[9] Hempel, Carl G., “The Logic of Functional Analysis,” Aspects of Scientific Explanation, N.Y., Free Press, 1965, pp. 297–331.Google Scholar
[10] Hempel, Carl G. and Oppenheim, Paul, “The Logic of Explanation,” Readings in the Philosophy of Science, (eds. Herbert Feigl and May Brodbeck), N.Y., Appleton, 1953, pp. 319–352.Google Scholar
[11] Hogben, Lancelot, The Nature of Living Matter, London, Kegan Paul, 1930.Google Scholar
[12] Huxley, Julian, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, N.Y., Harper, 1942.Google Scholar
[13] Kettlewell, H. D., “Selection Experiments on Industrial Melanism in the Lepidoptera,” Heredity, vol. 9 (1955), 323 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[14] Maynard Smith, John, The Theory of Evolution, Baltimore, Penguin, 1966.Google Scholar
[15] Mayr, Ernst, Systematics and the Origin of Species, N.Y., Columbia University Press, 1942.Google Scholar
[16] Medawar, P. B., “Problems of Adaptation,” New Biology, vol. 2 (1951), 10-25.Google Scholar
[17] Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[18] Pittendrigh, C. S., “Adaptation, Natural Selection, and Behavior,” Behavior and Evolution (eds. Roe, Anne and Simpson, George G.), New Haven, Yale University Press, 1958, pp. 390–417.Google Scholar
[19] Simpson, George G., The Major Features of Evolution, N.Y., Columbia University Press, 1953.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[20] Simpson, George G., The Meaning of Evolution (Rev.), New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
[21] Simpson, George G. and Beck, W. S., Life: An Introduction to Biology (2nd ed.), N.Y., Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1965.Google Scholar
[22] Tinbergen, Niko, Curious Naturalists, N.Y., Doubleday, 1968.Google Scholar
[23] Waddington, C. H., “Evolutionary Adaptation,” Evolution After Darwin, vol. II, (ed. Sol Tax), Chicago, University Chicago Press, 1960, pp. 381–402.Google Scholar
[24] Wright, Sewall, “Adaptation and Selection,” Genetics, Paleontology, and Evolution, (eds. Jepsen, G. L., Mayr, Ernst, and Simpson, George G.), Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1949, pp. 365–390.Google Scholar