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We describe new ESS models of density regulation driven by genic selection to explain the cyclical dynamics of a social system that exhibits a rock-paper-scissors (RPS) set of three alternative strategies. We tracked changes in morph frequency and fitness of Lacerta vivipara and found conspicuous RPS cycles. Morphs of Uta and Lacerta exhibited parallel survival-performance trade-offs. Frequency cycles in both species of lizards are driven by genic selection. In Lacerta, frequency of each allele in adult cohorts had significant impacts on juvenile recruitment, similar to mutualistic, altruistic, and antagonistic relations of RPS alleles in Uta. We constructed evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) models in which adults impact juvenile recruitment as a function of self versus nonself color recognition. ESS models suggest that the rapid 4-year RPS cycles exhibited by Lacerta are not possible unless three factors are present: behaviors evolve that discriminate self versus nonself morphs at higher rates than random, self- versus non-self-recognition contributes to density regulation, and context-dependent mate choice evolves in females, which choose sire genotypes to enhance progeny survival. We suggest genic selection coupled to density regulation is widespread and thus fundamental to theories of social system evolution as well as theories of population regulation in diverse animal taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since its inception, the theory of evolution has been reified into an "-ism": Darwinism. Although biologists today, by and large, do not use the term "Darwinism" in their research, it still enjoys currency in broader academic and societal contexts. "Darwinian approaches" proliferate across the sciences and humanities and, in public discourse, various so-called "Darwinian views on life" are perceived to have ethically and politically laden consequences. What exactly is Darwinism, and how precisely are its nonscientific uses related to the scientific theory of evolution? Some claim the term's meaning should be limited to scientific content, yet others call for its abolition altogether. In this paper, we propose a unified account of these varieties of Darwinism. We show how the theories introduced by Darwin have grounded a "logic" or style of reasoning about phenomena, as well as various ethically and politically charged "worldviews." The full meaning of Darwinism, as well as how this meaning has changed over time, can only be understood through the complex interaction between these dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present, evaluate, and discuss evidence that evolutionary and life history theory can inform our understanding of violence and warfare as well as how these human challenges are influenced by the evolution of male life histories and our perceptions of masculinity. While other anthropological perspectives have interrogated the evolution of war from human and comparative contexts, few have addressed the influence of male life history variables such as age-specific mortality and reproductive constraints on the emergence and conduct of war. Other evolutionary factors worthy of consideration include sexual dimorphism, phenotypic plasticity, and paternity uncertainty. I initially present a contextual examination of the evolutionary science that underlies the engagement of human males with violence and warfare, casting particular attention on the opportunities and constraints of deploying evolutionary and life history theory. I later incorporate other variables including human variation, behavioral endocrinology, and comparative perspectives. In the latter half of this paper I suggest a novel perspective for understanding males, war, and violence by drawing on male-specific patterns of mortality, paternity uncertainty, and the evolution of male aging. While evolutionary and life history theory can provide an informative perspective to understand how males contribute to violence and warfare, there are limitations that set the stage for intellectual partnership opportunities with cultural anthropologists, psychologists, and other social scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, I categorize the papers presented in this issue according to a particular scheme: (a) those that support Wynn and Coolidge's hypothesis that enhancement of working memory probably played a significant role in cognitive evolution in the Homo lineage, (b) those that expand understanding of working memory, and (c) those that criticize Wynn and Coolidge's hypothesis. Second, I comment on the papers so categorized, focusing on the explanatory utility of working memory for particular cognitive advances in the Homo lineage as confirmed by archaeology and the computational prowess implied by those advances. Third, I suggest some avenues for future discussion, including what I think are two critical needs: first, clarification of what modern thinking is supposed to consist of and, second, clarification of what working memory is supposed to be. Finally, I make a methodological suggestion for embedding cognitive archaeological research in a larger research framework of comparative primate cognitive neuroscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From its inception, antievolution activism has been aimed not only at the natural sciences but also, and almost as often, at the social sciences. Although almost entirely overlooked by scholars, this activism played a significant part in the development of American social science in the early twentieth century. Analyzing public writings and private papers of antievolution activists, academic social scientists, and university officials from the 1920s, this essay recalls this forgotten history, showing how antievolution activism contributed to the abandonment of evolutionary theory and the adoption of a set of secular, scientific, and professional characteristics that have come to define much of modern social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to offer a new biological interpretation of Fisher’s ‘Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection’ and from this to consider optimality properties of gene frequency changes. These matters are of continuing interest to biologists and philosophers alike. In particular, the extent to which biological evolution can be calculated from the ‘gene’s-eye’ point of view is also discussed. In this sense, the paper bears indirectly on the concepts of the unit of selection and of the ‘selfish gene’. A new biological significance for the Fundamental Theorem, not previously found in the literature, is offered, together with an optimality principle connected with this theorem. 1Introduction2Preliminary Calculations and Average Effects3The Modern Interpretation of the One-Locus Fundamental Theorem4The Whole-Genome Interpretation of the Fundamental Theorem5A New Biological Meaning for the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection6A Numerical Example7The Malthusian Parameter8Decreases in Mean Fitness9Optimality Considerations10Conclusions [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The reconstruction and prioritization of masculinity in human evolution (and thus human nature) is often rooted in reference to other primates and the hominin fossil and archaeological record. And it almost always involves violence. Whether it be the "demonic males" hypothesis, the trope of aggressive alpha maleness and sexual coercion, or gender-biased representations of toolmaking, hunting, and fierce encounters between different populations of the genus Homo in the Pleistocene, a particular pattern of masculinity (maleness)—and violence—permeates most popular discourse and much of the academic discourse. While there are some significant sexual differences and divergent strategies among our closest cousins, and the fossil record does offer important insights into the development and deployment of gender, much of the data do not fit seamlessly with typical assumptions. In fact, much in our contemporary understandings of other primate behavior and the hominins either contradicts or complexifies assumptions and assertions about the origins and "ancestral" patterns of contemporary human masculinity and its associated violence. This paper articulates what we do and do not know about maleness in primates and past humans and offers some possibilities for how such information might assist in elaborating more integrative understandings of the complexities of human masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its broadest conceptualization, violence includes everything from physical assault to the creation and maintenance of institutional structures that are discriminatory and exclusionary. However, violence as a topic of biological and archaeological anthropological inquiry has often been limited to malevolent physical assault perpetrated by men against other men. This is due to an outsized focus on the role that men played in the evolutionary history of our species. This conceptualization of violence obscures both the ways that other forms of harm—other violence(s) also often committed by men—structure the daily lives of people who do not have significant social or institutional power and how this harm becomes embodied. In this paper I explore how gendered knowledge production in anthropology has influenced our acceptance of what counts as meaningful harm. I posit that the threat of physical violence and encounters with other violence(s), specifically emotional and structural violence, shape the lives of people who are structurally disadvantaged in ways that are missing from our analyses. When we forgo emphases on war and murder and choose to study other violence(s) that are enacted in families and relationships, we become aware of the kinds of hidden assaults that are often meted out in small doses, eventually accumulating and impacting individual mental and physical health and survivorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary physiology is the emerging physiological discipline. Unlike environmental physiology or ecophysiology, whose definitions have long been made quite clear, evolutionary physiology has a broader scope of objectives, and its definition lacks a concise treatise. This paper presents the argument that the lack of a common definition of evolutionary physiology is retarding the unification of the mechanistic and amechanistic physiological sciences, a multidisciplinary obligation crucial for a holistic understanding of a physiological basis of fitness. The divide between mechanistic ‘how’ questions, devoted primarily to homeostasis, and evolutionary ‘why’ questions, concerned with understanding phenotypic and genotypic physiological variation, remains broad and is currently not conducive to synergy in the physiological disciplines. Unification may be facilitated, however, by embracing a common currency of measurement and analysis. A likely candidate is the cascade of energy from the environment to offspring and the evolution of physiological form and function, including homeostasis, associated with power management. This currency approach seeks to identify an energetic basis of fitness, namely, whether or how the evolution of life-history traits is influenced by energetic constraints and/or trade-offs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore the various attempts to integrate anthropology--and anthropologists--within the wider synthesis of evolution in the interval of time between 1927 and 1962 by tracking intersecting individuals and groupings at critical junctures such as conferences, commemorative events, and collaborative publications. I focus on the discipline as a unit of historical analysis and on a series of rhetorical arguments used to discipline and bound areas of study that grounded the secular philosophy of evolutionary humanism. I trace the beginnings of an originary narrative and offer a kind of prehistory of what was first referred to as "human evolution" and then "biological anthropology," an area of study that brought humans into the discipline of evolutionary biology. I examine the key roles played by "architects" of the evolutionary synthesis--such as Theodosius Dobzhansky, Julian Huxley, G. G. Simpson, and Ernst Mayr--and their relations with the anthropologists Sherwood Washburn, Ashley Montagu, and Sol Tax at pivotal meetings such as the Cold Spring Harbor meeting of 1950, the Darwin centennial at the University of Chicago in 1959, and a number of Wenner-Gren symposia culminating with the Burg Wartenstein symposium (no. 19) that saw the emergence of the new "molecular anthropology." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the activities that happened in 2006 for the American Society of Naturalists. The executive meeting held June 23, 2006 emphasized on the success of the three-editor system and electronic papers of the society's publication. The business meeting of the society focused on the presentation of the anti-wedge document to the Joint Council, which establishes medium-term and long-term goals to defend and promote the teaching of evolutionary biology. The next meeting of the joint committee pointed on the support of the Joint Council to the anti-wedge document.

Symptoms of illness provide information about an organism's underlying state. This notion has inspired a burgeoning body of research on organisms' adaptations for detecting and changing behavior toward ill individuals. However, little attention has been paid to a likely outcome of these dynamics. Once an organism's fitness is affected by others' responses to symptoms of illness, natural selection can favor individuals who alter symptom expression to influence the behavior of others. That is, many symptoms may originate as cues, but will evolve into signals. In this paper, I develop the hypothesis that symptoms of illness serve signaling functions, and provide a comprehensive review of relevant evidence from diverse disciplines. I also develop novel empirical predictions generated by this hypothesis and discuss its implications for public health. Signaling provides an ultimate explanation for otherwise opaque aspects of symptom expression, such as why symptoms fluctuate in social contexts, and can exist without underlying pathology, and why individuals deliberately generate symptoms of illness. This analysis suggests that signaling theory is a major organizing framework for understanding symptom etiology.

Evidence for "controlled use of fire" by Homo erectus pekinensis at Zhoukoudian Locality 1 was initially discovered in the early 1930s and was widely accepted as the earliest such record in human evolutionary history for more than half a century. However, since the mid-1980s, this evidence has been questioned. Some of the questions were based on new research results, including geochemical and taphonomic studies conducted in the 1990s. Others are hypothetical and to some extent stem from a theoretical shift in ideas about early hominin subsistence capabilities, including hunting big game and using fire. Limited access to Chinese archaeological collections and literature, limited geological sampling, and postdepositional disturbance might all contribute to the results of these recent investigations. A thorough review of original field notes, excavation reports, and research papers leads to the conclusion that fossils, cultural materials, and traces of fire use in certain horizons at the site are abundant, unambiguous, and mutually supportive. New field investigations and laboratory analyses at Locality 1, ongoing since 2009, have yielded new evidence that indicates that Layer 4 contains clear-cut evidence for in situ use of fire. Future research may well reveal similar evidence for Layers 8-9 and 10, potentially resolving this ongoing debate comprehensively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a set of papers written by U.S. entomologist Charles T. Brues in the 1920s published in the journal on the evolution of dietary specialization in insects. It cites several issues tackled by Brues in his papers such as the occurrence of parallel evolution. It also mentions Brues' concern about the decline in knowledge of the natural history of species and interactions in biological training and research.

The article comments on the paper “Biology and Body Size in Human Evolution: Statistical Inference Misapplied," by Richard J. Smith. According to the author, the paper misses the “biology" appeared in the title and confines itself mainly to statistical conditions without offering any perspective. Efforts to presage body weight from skeletal remains in order to deduce relative brain size or life-history parameters are brushed aside as statistically incorrect. Further, he stresses that Smith, for some reason, gives the belief of being the first to deal problems with body-weight predictions.

The status of genes as bearers of semantic content remains very much in dispute among philosophers of biology. In a series of papers, Nicholas Shea has argued that his 'infotel' theory of semantics vindicates the claim that genes carry semantic content. On Shea's account, each organism is associated with a 'developmental system' that takes genetic representations as inputs and produces whole-organism traits as outputs. Moreover, at least in his most recent work on the topic, Shea ([2013], p. 1) is explicit in claiming that these genetic representations are 'read in ontogenetic time, in the course of individual development'. Here I argue that a close examination of the process of reading, in Shea's sense, reveals that acts of reading do not actually occur over the course of developmental time at all. Tomake this vivid, I contrast the process of reading for Shea with another type of developmental process that is widely seen as a form of reading directed on inherited genes, and which certainly does occur over the course of developmental time, namely, gene expression. I suggest that this error in Shea's thinking can be traced back to an equivocation on Shea's part in the meaning of 'reads', and also to a reliance on an invalid principle regarding the transference of representational content from one token gene to another. The issues at play are bound up with questions about causation and in particular about causation over time. Thus, having first presented my arguments in a way that doesn't depend on any particular theory of causation, I then make use of Kenneth Waters' ([2007]) framework of difference-making causation to conceptually sharpen and shed further light on matters. I conclude by discussing a consequence of the fact that acts of reading do not occur in development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a reconceptualization of the social dimension of the human niche and the evolutionary process that brought it into existence. We agree with many other evolutionary approaches that a key aspect of the human niche is a social environment consisting primarily of cooperating and altruistic individuals, not a Hobbesian social environment of "war of all against all." However, in contrast to the conception of this social environment as consisting of individuals who, in Boyd and Richerson's words, "cooperate with large groups of unrelated individuals," we propose that it is more accurately described as consisting of cooperating individuals who currently are often nonkin but who, until relatively recently in human existence, were primarily, and in many cases almost exclusively, kin. In contrast to the conception of this social environment coming into existence by way of a process of selection within and between groups, we propose that it is the result of selection operating on traditions originated by ancestors and transmitted to their descendants. We use our fieldwork in three areas of the world (New Guinea, Ecuador, and Canada) to illustrate this process and how current social environments can be roughly placed on a continuum from traditional to nontraditional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeing bodies and evolutionary histories as quantifiable features that can be measured separately from the human cultural experience is an erroneous approach. Seeing cultural perceptions and the human experience as disentangled from biological form and function and evolutionary history is equally misguided. An integrative anthropology moves past dichotomous perspectives and seeks to entangle the "inside" and "outside," methodologically and theoretically, to move beyond isolationist trends in understanding the human. In this paper I illustrate the underlying rationale for some anthropological lack of engagement with neo-Darwinian approaches and review contemporary evolutionary theory discussing how, in combination with a dynamic approach to human culture, it can facilitate integration in anthropology. Finally, I offer an overview of the human niche concept and propose a heuristic framework as a set of shared assumptions about human systems to help frame a sincerely anthropological and emphatically evolutionary approach to the human experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1978, the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers and Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the Black Panthers, began a collaboration exploring the evolution of self-deception. Together they published a brief paper that used their ideas about the naturalistic basis of deceit and self-deception to explain the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 in Washington, D.C. Given the continued power of the naturalistic fallacy in the modern life sciences, historical attention typically focuses on highly visible controversies with great popular traction. This essay instead mobilizes the muted legacy of Trivers and Newton's publication to underscore the inherent difficulties scientists face in finding a receptive audience for their theories, even naturalistic ones.

Theoretical and experimental studies have shown that high mutation rates can be advantageous, especially in novel or fluctuating environments. Here we examine how frequency-dependent competition may lead to fluctuations in trait frequencies that exert upward selective pressure on mutation rates. We use a mathematical model to show that cyclical trait dynamics generated by "rock-paper-scissors" competition can cause the mutation rate in a population to converge to a high evolutionarily stable mutation rate, reflecting a trade-off between generating novelty and reproducing past success. Introducing recombination lowers the evolutionarily stable mutation rate but allows stable coexistence between mutation rates above and below the evolutionarily stable rate. Even considering strong mutational load and ignoring the costs of faithful replication, evolution favors positive mutation rates if the selective advantage of prevailing in competition exceeds the ratio of recombining to nonrecombining offspring. We discuss a number of genomic mechanisms that may meet our theoretical requirements for the adaptive evolution of mutation. Overall, our results suggest that local mutation rates may be higher on genes influencing cyclical competition and that global mutation rates in asexual species may be higher in populations subject to strong cyclical competition.

From its inception, antievolution activism has been aimed not only at the natural sciences but also, and almost as often, at the social sciences. Although almost entirely overlooked by scholars, this activism played a significant part in the development of American social science in the early twentieth century. Analyzing public writings and private papers of antievolution activists, academic social scientists, and university officials from the 1920s, this essay recalls this forgotten history, showing how antievolution activism contributed to the abandonment of evolutionary theory and the adoption of a set of secular, scientific, and professional characteristics that have come to define much of modern social science.

The concept of Irreducible Complexity (IC) has played a pivotal role in the resurgence of the creationist movement over the past two decades. Evolutionary biologists and philosophers have unambiguously rejected the purported demonstration of "intelligent design" in nature, but there have been several, apparently contradictory, lines of criticism. We argue that this is in fact due to Michael Behe's own incoherent definition and use of IC. This paper offers an analysis of several equivocations inherent in the concept of Irreducible Complexity and discusses the way in which advocates of the Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) have conveniently turned IC into a moving target. An analysis of these rhetorical strategies helps us to understand why IC has gained such prominence in the IDC movement, and why, despite its complete lack of scientific merits, it has even convinced some knowledgeable persons of the impending demise of evolutionary theory.

Adaptive evolution can cause a species to gain, lose, or modify a function; therefore, it is of basic interest to determine whether any of these modes dominates the evolutionary process under particular circumstances. Because mutation occurs at the molecular level, it is necessary to examine the molecular changes produced by the underlying mutation in order to assess whether a given adaptation is best considered as a gain, loss, or modification of function. Although that was once impossible, the advance of molecular biology in the past half century has made it feasible. In this paper, I review molecular changes underlying some adaptations, with a particular emphasis on evolutionary experiments with microbes conducted over the past four decades. I show that by far the most common adaptive changes seen in those examples are due to the loss or modification of a pre-existing molecular function, and I discuss the possible reasons for the prominence of such mutations.

The occurrence of endoreplication has been repeatedly reported in many organisms, including protists, plants, worms, arthropods, molluscs, fishes, and mammals. As a general rule, cells possessing endoreplicated genomes are large-sized and highly metabolically active. Endoreplication has not been frequently reported in neuronal cells that are typically considered to be fully differentiated and non-dividing, and which normally contain a diploid genome. Despite this general statement, various papers indicate that giant neurons in molluscs, as well as supramedullary and hypothalamic magnocellular neurons in fishes, contain DNA amounts larger than 2C. In order to study this issue in greater detail here, we review the available data about endoreplication in invertebrate and vertebrate neurons, and discuss its possible functional significance. As a whole, endoreplication seems to be a sort of molecular trick used by neurons in response to the high functional demands that they experience during evolution.

This paper focuses on abstraction as a mode of reasoning that facilitates a productive relationship between philosophy and science. Using examples from evolutionary developmental biology, I argue that there are two areas where abstraction can be relevant to science: reasoning explication and problem clarification. The value of abstraction is characterized in terms of methodology (modeling or data gathering) and epistemology (explanatory evaluation or data interpretation).

Animal breeding research, reproductive biology, and cellular biogerontology show that fertilization rates and zygote viability critically depend on sperm age. Sexual selection research focuses on differences between male genotypes in sperm performance, such as motility, competitive ability, or compatibility with eggs, but without considering sperm age. A combined view (that the thermodynamically inevitable decline in sperm performance selects for traits in diploid individuals to prevent fertilization with aged sperm) has received very little attention. In this paper, I correct this bias and show that many male and female traits affect sperm aging or the sperm age distribution at any reproductive event. Such traits coincide well with condition-dependent traits considered sexually selected: multiple mating by both sexes, high sperm production rates, the delivery of dense ejaculates containing many sperm (including nonfertilizing types), the packaging of sperm into spermatophores, male and female sperm ejection, sexual coercion, as well as the production of showy antioxidants and various cellular and nuclear repair mechanisms. I conclude that altering the sperm age distribution at any step during reproduction can be an origin of sexually selected traits, and may explain presently observed paternity variation without assuming genetic incompatibility of gametes.

Moral evolution theories have emphasized kinship, reciprocity, group selection, and equilibrium selection. Yet, moral virtues are also sexually attractive. Darwin suggested that sexual attractiveness may explain many aspects of human morality. This paper updates his argument by integrating recent research on mate choice, person perception, individual differences, costly signaling, and virtue ethics. Many human virtues may have evolved in both sexes through mutual mate choice to advertise good genetic quality, parenting abilities, and/or partner traits. Such virtues may include kindness, fidelity, magnanimity, and heroism, as well as quasi-moral traits like conscientiousness, agreeableness, mental health, and intelligence. This theory leads to many testable predictions about the phenotypic features, genetic bases, and social-cognitive responses to human moral virtues.

Differences between related species are usually explained as separate adaptations produced by individual selection. I discuss in this paper how related species, which differ in many respects, may evolve by a combination of individual selection, self-organization, and group-selection, requiring an evolutionary adaptation of only a single trait. In line with the supposed evolution of despotic species of macaques, we take as a starting point an ancestral species that is egalitarian and mildly aggressive. We suppose it to live in an environment with abundant food and we put the case that, if food becomes scarce and more clumped, natural selection at the level of the individual will favor individuals with a more intense aggression (implying, for instance, biting and fierce fighting). Using an individual-centered model, called DomWorld, I show what happens when the intensity of aggression increases. In DomWorld, group life is represented by artificial individuals that live in a homogeneous world. Individuals are extremely simple: all they do is flock together and, upon meeting one another, they may perform dominance interactions in which the effects of winning and losing are self-reinforcing. When the intensity of aggression in the model is increased, a complex feedback between the hierarchy and spatial structure results; via self-organization, this feedback causes the egalitarian society to change into a despotic one. The many differences between the two types of artificial society closely correspond to those between despotic and egalitarian macaques in the real world. Given that, in the model, the organization changes as a side effect of the change of one single trait proper to an egalitarian society, in the real world a despotic society may also have arisen as a side effect of the mutation of a single trait of an egalitarian species. If groups with different intensities of aggression evolve in this way, they will also have different gradients of hierarchy. When food is scarce, groups with the steepest hierarchy may have the best chance to survive, because at least a small number of individuals in such a group may succeed in producing offspring, whereas in egalitarian societies every individual is at risk of being insufficiently fed to reproduce. Therefore, intrademic group selection (selection within an interbreeding group) may have contributed to the evolution of despotic societies.

In this paper I ask questions about the evolution of self-organized activity cycles that are found in some ant colonies. I use a computer model that generates periodic activity patterns in interacting subunits and explore the parameters of this model using a genetic algorithm in which selecting on one aspect of the system produces the distinctive self-organized pattern. The general point that I explore, using the example of activity cycles, is that the observation of a self-organized pattern does not mean that the pattern is an adaptation. Self-organized patterns can represent nonadaptive correlated responses to selection, exaptations or even selectively disadvantageous traits. Evolution of self-organized patterns requires genetic feedback between the self-organized output and the subunits that produce the pattern. Without this necessary feedback, a self-organized system does not evolve.

The studies of Clausen, Keck, and Hiesey (CKH) have been widely cited as exemplars of ecotypic differentiation in textbooks and in the primary literature. However, the scope of their findings and achievements is significantly greater than this. In this paper we analyze the research program of CKH, highlighting their major findings during the years when the modern synthesis of evolution was taking shape. That synthesis, curiously, drew little from their examples, although their studies at the Carnegie Institution represent conceptual and methodological work that is still relevant. The works of CKH not only embodied the principles of the nascent synthesis, but often provided needed supporting data. Their classic work, especially on Achillea and Potentilla, produced abundant evidence on population differentiation of many quantitative traits and plant phenotypes, as well as demonstrating the now commonly reported distinction between environmental and genetic determination of traits. Their ecological genetic investigations of quantitative traits in plants were in sharp contrast to contemporaneous animal studies on adaptation that focused on discrete polymorphisms--with correspondingly little influence of the environment on phenotypic expression. Of utmost importance was the demonstration by CKH of adaptive differentiation by natural selection and their approaches to understanding the genetic structure of populations.

This paper presents a new reading of Franz Boas's philosophy of science and his approach to the understanding of culture and behavior. It points out that his approach had important parallels with the worldview of the major figures associated with pragmatism and suggests that a similar perspective can be useful today.

The comparative method has long been a fundamental exploratory tool in evolutionary biology, but this venerable approach was revolutionized in 1985, when Felsenstein published "Phylogenies and the Comparative Method" in The American Naturalist. This article forced comparative biologists to start thinking phylogenetically when conducting statistical analyses of correlated trait evolution rather than simply applying conventional statistical methods that ignore evolutionary relationships. It did so by introducing a novel analytical method (phylogenetically "independent contrasts") that required a phylogenetic topology with branch lengths and that assumed a Brownian motion model of trait evolution. Independent contrasts enabled comparative biologists to avoid the statistical dilemma of nonindependence of species values, arising from shared ancestry, but came at the cost of needing a detailed phylogeny and of accepting a specific model of character change. Nevertheless, this article not only revitalized comparative biology but even encouraged studies aimed at estimating phylogenies. Felsenstein's characteristically lucid and concise statement of the problem (illustrated with powerful graphics), coupled with an oncoming flood of new molecular data and techniques for estimating phylogenies, led Felsenstein's 1985 article to become the second most cited article in the history of this journal. Here we present a personal review of comparative biology before, during, and after Joe's article. For historical context, we append a perspective written by Joe himself that describes how his article evolved, unedited transcripts of reviews of his submitted manuscript, and a guide to some nontrivial calculations. These additional materials help emphasize that the process of science does not always occur gradually or predictably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sterelny’s Thought in a Hostile World ([2003]) presents a complex, systematically structured theory of the evolution of cognition centered on a concept of decoupled representation. Taking Godfrey-Smith’s ([1996]) analysis of the evolution of behavioral flexibility as a framework, the theory describes increasingly complex grades of representation beginning with simple detection and culminating with decoupled representation, said to be belief-like, and it characterizes selection forces that drive evolutionary transformations in these forms of representation. Sterelny’s ultimate explanatory target is the evolution of human agency. This paper develops a detailed analysis of the main cognitive aspects. It is argued that some of the major claims are not correct: decoupled representation as defined doesn’t capture belief-like representation, and, properly understood, decoupled representation turns out to be ubiquitous among multicellular animals. However, some of the key ideas are right, or along the right lines, and suggestions are made for modifying and expanding the conceptual framework. IntroductionThe Core Structure of the Theory 2.1The environmental complexity thesis2.2The evolution of beliefs and desires2.2.1The evolution of decoupled representation2.2.2The evolution of preferencesClarifying the Structure of the Theory 3.1Initial taxonomic questions3.1.1Integrative behavior control3.1.2Behavior management3.2Initial selection questions3.2.1Flexible control and internal complexity3.2.1Translucency [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Elliott Sober and his defenders think of selection, drift, mutation, and migration as distinct evolutionary forces. This paper exposes an ambiguity in Sober's account of the force of selection: sometimes he appears to equate the force of selection with variation in fitness, sometimes with ‘selection for properties’. Sober's own account of fitness as a property analogous to life-expectancy shows how the two conceptions come apart. Cases where there is selection against variance in offspring number also show that selection and drift cannot be distinguished in the way Sober hopes for. These issues have significance beyond the parochial matter of the coherence of Sober's system. There is no good principled answer to the question of which features of a population should count among the contributors to fitness. This means there is no non-arbitrary account of the nature of selection. Evolutionary ForcesSelection and DriftEvolutionary and Newtonian ForcesIs Natural Selection a Cause?An Ambiguity in Sober's Account of Selection: Variation in Fitness versus Selection-forA Second Problem: The Determinants of FitnessConclusion [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the author's experience as a graduate student in which they were taught on the subject of evolutionary biology. Topics discussed include the authors van Noordwijk and de Jong's 1986 article in "The American Naturalist", the author's trivial but real fact about heterogeneity across individual and the decades of research in evolutionary ecology.

The theological doctrine of biblical inerrancy is the intellectual basis for modern creation science. Yet Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield of Princeton Theological Seminary, the theologian who more than any other defined modern biblical inerrancy, was throughout his life open to the possibility of evolution and at some points an advocate of the theory. Throughout a long career Warfield published a number of major papers on these subjects, including studies of Darwin's religious life, on the theological importance of the age of humanity (none) and the unity of the human species (much), and on Calvin's understanding of creation as proto-evolutionary. He also was an engaged reviewer of many of his era's important books by scientists, theologians, and historians who wrote on scientific research in relation to traditional Christianity. Exploration of Warfield's writing on science generally and evolution in particular retrieves for historical consideration an important defender of mediating positions in the supposed war between science and religion.

According to Aristotelian essentialism, the nature of an organism is constituted of a particular goal-directed disposition to produce an organism typical of its kind. This paper argues—against the prevailing orthodoxy—that essentialism of this sort is indispensable to evolutionary biology. The most powerful anti-essentialist arguments purport to show that the natures of organisms play no explanatory role in modern synthesis biology. I argue that recent evolutionary developmental biology provides compelling evidence to the contrary. Developmental biology shows that one must appeal to the capacities of organisms to explain what makes adaptive evolution adaptive. Moreover, the specific capacities in question are precisely those that, according to Aristotle, constitute the nature of an organism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Morrison [2000] I argued that the frameworks and mechanisms that produce unification do not enable us to explain why the unified phenomena behave as they do. That is, we need to look beyond the unifying process for an explanation of these phenomena. Anya Plutynski ([2005]) has called into question my claim about the relationship between unification and explanation as well as my characterization of it in the context of the early synthesis of Mendelism with Darwinian natural selection. In this paper I argue that her methodological criticisms rest on a misinterpretation of my views on explanation and defend my historical interpretation of the work of Fisher and Wright. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the received view of evolution, only genes are inherited. From this view it follows that only genetically-caused phenotypic variation is selectable and, thereby, that all selection is at bottom genetic selection. This paper argues that the received view is wrong. In many species, there are intergenerationally-stable phenotypic differences due to environmental differences. Natural selection can act on these nongenetically-caused phenotypic differences in the same way it acts on genetically-caused phenotypic differences. Some selection is at bottom nongenetic selection. The argument against the received view involves a reformulation of the concepts of inheritance and heritability. Inherited factors are all those developmental factors responsible for parent-offspring similarity; some inherited factors are genetic and some are not. Heritable variation is intergenerationally-stable phenotypic variation; some such variation is genetically caused and some is not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emlen's (1995) paper "An evolutionary theory of the family" reviewed existing ideas about the nature of family systems and the reasons why they have evolved in certain animal species. His theorizing led him to propose 15 predictions about how family systems function, based on favorable evidence from various species, mostly birds. While he suggested that these predictions can be applied to the human case, he himself did not attempt to do so. We consider the applicability of Emlen's 15 predictions to the study of human family systems, and find that several aspects of the life history and ecology of Homo sapiens require that they be modified. These considerations include: (1) the importance of intragroup solidarity in the context of intergroup competition: unlike in many other species where dispersal constraints arise from food or breeding site shortages, the primary pressure driving human sociality seems to be competition from other human groups; (2) the complex nature of exchange and reciprocity in human society: reciprocal altruism in particular is integral to human social interaction and leads to a particularly high degree of non-nepotistic helping behavior; and (3) the implications of menopause and the existence of potentially dominant, postreproductive helpers: helpers of this sort have little incentive to disperse or to encourage offspring to disperse, thus greatly increasing family stability.

Functionalists believe that social and cultural variation results from adaptation at the group level. Such explanations are controversial for two reasons: (I) Extensive analysis of mathematical models of group selection by evolutionary biologists suggests that group selection is unlikely to be important. (2) Group extinctions are too rare to generate sufficient evolutionary change. Boyd and Richerson have proposed a new model of group selection based on cultural variation that is theoretically more plausible than group selection on genetic variation. In this paper we present data on patterns of group extinction, group formation, and between-group variation in New Guinea which are consistent with the operation of this model. Observed rates of group extinction suggest that a minimum of 500 to 1,000 years would be required for the spread of a single group-beneficial trait under the influence of group selection. This result implies that group selection cannot explain cultural changes that take less than 500 to 1,000 years. It does not, however, preclude a role for group selection in explaining the evolution of human societies over the longer run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comment on the paper "Dense Forests, Cold Steppes, and the Palaeolithic Settlement of Northern Europe," by Wil Roebroeks, Nicholas J. Conard, and Thijs van Kolfschoten, that appear in the December 1992 issue of the journal "Current Anthropology." He said that the paper indicates that the environment is irrelevant to the last 150,000 years of human evolution.

The article comments on the paper on symbolic material culture and the evolution of the mind during the African Middle Stone by Christopher S. Henshilwood, and Benoît Dubreuil, published in the current issue of the journal. It states that if human behavior is signified by an ability to produce artifacts as mentioned in the paper then the flexibility which underwrites this variance has to be specified. It states that moreover mirror neurons have found to be present in the human brain.

The article comments the paper of Daniel Garrigan and Sarah B. Kingan entitled "Archaic Human Admixture." The author questions the impact of hybridization on human genome as well as the difference between technologically oriented people and ancient people. He explains the features of homo erectus whose brain was smaller than homo sapiens and his cortex was less convoluted. On the other hand, it presents the reply from Garrigan and Kingan regarding the discussion of Konrad R. Fialkowski. According to them, the conclusion that natural selection is the driving force behind human neurological evolution is widely embraced by the author. They suggest further studies to discover ways on genotype translation to prove the role of natural section in evolution.

The article presents the author's arguments on the paper "Why Hunter-Gatherers Work," which presented an empirical, sociological framework of small-scale society with reference to hunting behavior. He comments on the field research entitled "Warao of the Orinoco Delta." The Warao are matrilocal fishers and gatherers, with hunting as a specialty with a few of them, mainly of large mammals such as deer and tapirs. For the Warao, young men from neighboring communities married into the village, were required to fish and hunt, as well as to construct houses for their fathers-in-law. The author further makes a comparison between the reciprocity system of the society during the Warao period and today's society. According to him, institutionalized reciprocity works only under social pressure. Furthermore, the formal models presented indicate that there are different strategies for women and men, the former emphasizing "private goods" and the latter "public goods." The author also tries to differentiate cultural evolution from biological evolution, and thus reflects on the domain of a narrow evolutionary ecology.

The article presents the author's comment on the paper "Dense Forests, Cold Steppes, and the Palaeolithic Settlement of Northern Europe," by Wil Roebroeks, Nicholas J. Conard, and Thijs van Kolfschoten, that appear in the December 1992 issue of the journal "Current Anthropology." According to him, there are no clear difference between Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic behavioral abilities.