Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:33:25.573Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Form and Order in Evolutionary Biology: Stuart Kauffman's Transformation of Theoretical Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Richard M. Burian  and
Robert C. Richardson
Richard M. Burian
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and University of Cincinnati
Robert C. Richardson
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and University of Cincinnati
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Stuart Kauffman’s forthcoming book, The Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution (1991), is a large and ambitious attempt to bring about a major reorientation in theoretical biology and to provide a fundamental reinterpretation of the place of selection in evolutionary theory. Kauffman offers a formal framework which allows one to pose precise and well-defined questions about the constraints that self-organization imposes on the evolution of complex systems, and the relation of self-organization and selection. He says at the outset that he wants to “delineate the spontaneous sources of order, the self organized properties of simple and complex systems” and to understand how they “permit, enable and limit the efficacy of natural selection” (Introduction, p. 2).2 As he says somewhat later, the central theme running through his book is that “the order in organisms may largely reflect spontaneous order in complex systems” (ch. 6, p. 224).

Type
Part VII. Self-Organization, Selection and Evolution
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 266 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1991

Footnotes

1

This began as two papers, and evolved into a joint enterprise. The order of authors is only alphabetical. We are grateful to Marjorie Grene for arranging the symposium in which this work was presented, and for her encouragement in this project as well as everywhere else. We also thank Stu Kauffman for his patient help and discussion as we struggled to understand his views. We both benefited greatly from a workshop at the Santa Fe Institute, and from the participants there. RCR is indebted to the National Science Foundation (DIR-8921837) for supporting this work.

References

Alberch, P. (1982), “The Generative and Regulatory Roles of Development in Evolution”, in Environmental Adaptation and Evolution., Mossakowski, D. and Roth, G. (eds.). Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer, pp. 19–36.Google Scholar
Beatty, J. (1980), “Optimal-Design Models and die Strategy of Model Building in Evolutionary Biology”, Philosophy of Science. 47: 532–561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beatty, J., Brandon, R., and Burian, R. (in progress), “The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis”.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W. (in preparation), “Integrating Sciences by Creating New Disciplines: The Case of Cell Biology”.Google Scholar
Brandon, R. (1978), “Adaptation and Evolutionary Theory”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology. 9: 181–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandon, R. (1990), Adaptation and Environment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Culver, D., Kane, T. C, Fong, D. W., Jones, R., Taylor, M. A., and Sauereisen, S. C. (1990), “Morphology of Cave Organisms — Is It Adaptive?”, Memoires de Biospeologie. 17:13–26.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1859), On the Origin of Species. First Edition. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982), The Extended Phenotype: The Gene as the Unit of Selectio.. Oxford and San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1977), Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kane, T. C. Richardson, R. C , and Fong, D. (1990), “The Phenotype as the Level of Selection: Cave Organisms as Model Systems”, in PSA 19.., Volume 1, Fine, A. , Forbes, M. and Wessels, L. (eds.). East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 151–164.Google Scholar
Kauffman, S. (1991). The Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kimura, M. (1968), “Evolutionary Rate at the Molecular Level” Nature. 217: 264–626.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimura, M. (1980), “A Simple Method for Estimating Evolutionary Rate of Base Substitutions Through Comparative Studies of Nucleotide Sequences”, Journal of Molecular Evolution. 16:111–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimura, M. (1983), The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lande, R. (1976), “Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift in Phenotypic Evolution”, Evolutio.. 30: 314–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lande, R., and Arnold, S., (1983), “The Measurement of Selection on Correlated Characters”, Evolution. 37: 1210–1226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raff, R. (1987), “Constraint, Flexibility, and Phylogenetic History in the Evolution of Direct Development in Sea Urchins”, Developmental Biology 119:6–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raff, R., and Kaufman, T. C. (1983), Embryos, Genes, and Evolution. New York: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Raff, R., and Wray, G. A. (1989), “Heterochrony: Developmental Mechanisms and Evolutionary Results”, Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 2: 409–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raff, R., Parr, B. A., Parks, A. L., and Wray, G. A. (1990), “Heterochrony and Other Mechanisms of Radical Evolutionary Change in Early Development”, in Evolutionary Mechanism., Nitecki, M. (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 71–98.Google Scholar
Simon, H.: 1981. The Sciences of the Artificial., Second Edition. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Smith, J. Maynard, Burian, R., Kauffman, S., Alberch, P., Campbell, J., Goodwin, B., Lande, R., Raup, D., and Wolpert, L. (1985), “Developmental Constraints and Evolution”, Quarterly Review of Biolo.. 60:265–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stenseth, N. C. and Smith, J. Maynard (1984), “Coevolution in Ecosystems: Red Queen Evolution or Stasis”, Evolution. 38: 870–880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, D. W. (1952), On Growth and Form. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Valen, L., (1973), “A New Evolutionary Law”, Evolutionary Theory. 1:1–30.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. (1986), “Developmental Constraints, Generative Entrenchment, and the Innate-Acquired Distinction”, in Integrating Scientific Discipline., Bechtel, W. (ed.). Dordrecht: Martinus-Nijhoff, p. 185-208.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W., and Schank, J. C. (1988), “Two Constraints on the Evolution of Complex Adaptations and the Means for their Avoidance”, in Evolutionary Progress., M. Nitecki (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 231–273.Google Scholar