Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T19:31:18.510Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Epistemic Value of the Living Fossils Concept

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Aja Watkins
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Living fossils, taxa with similar members now and in the deep past, have recently come under scrutiny. Those who think the concept should be retained have argued for its epistemic and normative utility. This article extends the epistemic utility of the living fossils concept to include ways in which a taxon’s living fossil status can serve as evidence for other claims about that taxon. I will use insights from developmental biology to refine these claims. Insofar as these considerations demonstrate the epistemic utility of the living fossils concept, they support retaining the concept and using it in biological research.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 1221 - 1233
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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

*

To contact the author, please write to: Boston University; e-mail: [email protected].

References

Carnall, M. 2016. “Let’s Make Living Fossils Extinct.” Guardian, July 6. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/06/why-its-time-to-make-living-fossils-extinct.Google Scholar
Casane, D., and Laurenti, P.. 2013. “Why coelacanths are not ‘living fossils.’” Bioessays 35:332–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Currie, A. M. 2016. “The Mystery of the Triceratops Mother: How to Be a Realist about the Species Category.” Erkenntnis 81:785–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, C. 1859/1964. On the Origin of Species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. 2011. Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Fusco, G., and Minelli, A.. 2010. “Phenotypic Plasticity in Development and Evolution: Facts and Concepts.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365:547–56.Google ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, S. F. 2000. Developmental Biology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Hay, J. M., Subramanian, S., Millar, E., Mohandesan, C. D., and Lambert, D. M.. 2008. “Rapid Molecular Evolution in a Living Fossil.” Trends Genet 24 (3): 106–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ho, S. 2008. “The Molecular Clock and Estimating Species Divergence.” Nature Education 1 (1): 168.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D., and Shubin, N. H.. 2015. “The Future of the Fossil Record: Paleontology in the 21st Century.” PNAS 112 (16): 4852–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laland, K. N., Uller, T., Feldman, M. W., Sterelny, K., Muller, G. B., Moczek, A., Jablonka, E., and Odling-Smee, J.. 2015. “The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Its Structure, Assumptions and Predictions.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 282:20151019.Google Scholar
Lidgard, S., and Love, A. C.. 2018. “Rethinking Living Fossils.” Bioscience 68 (10): 760–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lidgard, S., and Love, A. C.. 2021. “The Living Fossil Concept: Reply to Turner.” Biology and Philosophy 36:13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-021-09789-z.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathers, T. C., Hammond, R. L., Jenner, R. A., Hänfling, B., and Gómez, A.. 2013. “Multiple Global Radiations in Tadpole Shrimps Challenge the Concept of ‘Living Fossils.’” PeerJ 1:e62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nijhout, H. F. 2019. “The Multistep Morphing of Beetle Horns: Genes That Specify Insect Wings Initiate Horn Development in Dung Beetles.” Science 366 (6468): 946–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Omland, K. E., Cook, L. G., and Crisp, M. D.. 2008. “Tree Thinking for All Biology: The Problem with Reading Phylogenies as Ladders of Progress.” BioEssays 30:854–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schopff, T. J. M. 1984. “Rates of Evolution and the Notion of ‘Living Fossils.’” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 12:245–92.Google Scholar
Turner, D. D. 2011. Paleontology: A Philosophical Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, D. D.. 2016. “A Second Look at the Color of Dinosaurs.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 55:60–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turner, D. D.. 2019. “In Defense of Living Fossils.” Biology and Philosophy 34 (23).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, P., Haug, J. T., Sell, J., and Haug, C.. 2017. “Ontogenetic Sequence Comparison of Extant and Fossil Tadpole Shrimps: No Support for the ‘Living Fossil’ Concept.” PalZ 91:463–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werth, A. J., and Shear, W. A.. 2014. “The Evolutionary Truth about Living Fossils.” American Scientist 102:434–43.Google Scholar
West-Eberhard, M. J. 2003. Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West-Eberhard, M. J.. 2005. “Phenotypic Accommodation: Adaptive Innovation due to Developmental Plasticity.” Journal of Experimental Zoology B 304:610–18.Google ScholarPubMed
West-Eberhard, M. J.. 2019. “Modularity as a Universal Emergent Property of Biological Traits.” Journal of Experimental Zoology 332:356–64.Google ScholarPubMed