45 results on '"Grant Ramsey"'
Search Results
2. Developmental Channeling and Evolutionary Dappling
- Author
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Grant, Ramsey, Cristina, Villegas, Grant, Ramsey, and Cristina, Villegas
- Abstract
The developmental properties of organisms play important roles in the generation of variation necessary for evolutionary change. But how can individual development steer the course of evolution? To answer this question, we introduce developmental channeling as a disposition of individual organisms that shapes their possible developmental trajectories and evolutionary dappling as an evolutionary outcome in which the space of possible organismic forms is dappled it is only partially filled. We then trace out the implications of the channeling dappling framework for contemporary debates in the philosophy of evolution, including evolvability, reciprocal causation, and the extended evolutionary synthesis.
- Published
- 2024
3. Introduction
- Author
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Hugh Desmond and Grant Ramsey
- Abstract
Claims that our species is an “evolutionary success” typically do not feature prominently in academic articles. However, they do seem to be a recurring trope in science popularization. Why do we seem to be attracted to viewing human evolution through the lenses of “success”? In this chapter we discuss how evolutionary success has both causal-descriptive and ethical-normative components, and how its ethical status is ambiguous, with possible hints of anthropocentrism. We also place the concept of “success” in a wider context of biological thought, contrasting it with two other value-laden concepts: evolutionary progress and human uniqueness. Claiming the human species to be an evolutionary success is ostensibly grounded in metrics such as the dominance or the size of the human population, but the claim often goes beyond this, suggesting that humans are a unique species or the pinnacle of evolutionary progress.
- Published
- 2023
4. Three Kinds of Niche Construction
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Bendik Hellem Aaby
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,0301 basic medicine ,History ,Niche ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,Epistemology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Philosophy ,Niche construction ,030104 developmental biology ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Categorization ,Selection (linguistics) ,Sociocultural evolution ,Evolutionary theory - Abstract
Niche construction theory concerns how organisms can change selection pressures by altering the feature–factor relationship between themselves and their environment. These alterations are standardly understood to be brought about through two kinds of organism–environment interaction: perturbative and relocational niche construction. We argue that a reconceptualization is needed on the grounds that if a niche is understood as the feature–factor relationship, then there are three fundamental ways in which organisms can engage in niche construction: constitutive, relational, and external niche construction. We further motivate our reconceptualization by showing some examples of organismic activities that fall outside of the current categorization of niche construction, but nonetheless should be included. We end by discussing two objections to niche construction and show how our reconceptualization helps to undercut these objections. ispartof: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science vol:73 issue:2 pages:351-372 status: published
- Published
- 2022
5. Chance in Evolution
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence and Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence
- Published
- 2016
6. The proximate-ultimate distinction and the active role of the organism in evolution
- Author
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Bendik Hellem Aaby and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Philosophy ,History and Philosophy of Science ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences - Published
- 2022
7. Driftability.
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
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8. What are the ‘levels’ in levels of selection?
- Author
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Markus Ilkka Eronen and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Philosophy ,History ,History and Philosophy of Science - Published
- 2022
9. Causal inference from noise
- Author
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Nevin Climenhaga, Grant Ramsey, and Lane DesAutels
- Subjects
Philosophy ,Variable (computer science) ,Noise ,Correlation does not imply causation ,Algorithmic learning theory ,Causal inference ,sort ,Probability and statistics ,Causation ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Correlation is not causation is one of the mantras of the sciences—a cautionary warning especially to fields like epidemiology and pharmacology where the seduction of compelling correlations naturally leads to causal hypotheses. The standard view from the epistemology of causation is that to tell whether one correlated variable is causing the other, one needs to intervene on the system—the best sort of intervention being a trial that is both randomized and controlled. In this paper, we argue that some purely correlational data contains information that allows us to draw causal inferences: statistical noise. Methods for extracting causal knowledge from noise provide us with an alternative to randomized controlled trials that allows us to reach causal conclusions from purely correlational data. ispartof: Noûs vol:55 issue:1 pages:152-170 status: published
- Published
- 2021
10. Programmed cell death as a black queen in microbial communities
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Pierre M. Durand, and Andrew Ndhlovu
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,0301 basic medicine ,TERRESTRIAL ,Programmed cell death ,Biochemistry & Molecular Biology ,public goods ,METACASPASES ,Apoptosis ,Environmental Sciences & Ecology ,Kin selection ,adaptation ,Biology ,microbial ecology ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,ACTIVATION ,03 medical and health sciences ,otorhinolaryngologic diseases ,Genetics ,CASPASES ,OXIDATIVE STRESS ,CYANOBACTERIUM ,APOPTOSIS MACHINERY ,programmed cell death ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Selection (genetic algorithm) ,EUKARYOTE ,Evolutionary Biology ,Science & Technology ,Ecology ,ORIGIN ,Microbiota ,biology.organism_classification ,EVOLUTION ,030104 developmental biology ,Taxon ,Evolutionary biology ,Trait ,Queen (butterfly) ,Evolutionary ecology ,Adaptation ,Life Sciences & Biomedicine ,black queen hypothesis - Abstract
Programmed cell death (PCD) in unicellular organisms is in some instances an altruistic trait. When the beneficiaries are clones or close kin, kin selection theory may be used to explain the evolution of the trait, and when the trait evolves in groups of distantly related individuals, group or multilevel selection theory is invoked. In mixed microbial communities, the benefits are also available to unrelated taxa. But the evolutionary ecology of PCD in communities is poorly understood. Few hypotheses have been offered concerning the community role of PCD despite its far-reaching effects. The hypothesis we consider here is that PCD is a black queen. The Black Queen Hypothesis (BQH) outlines how public goods arising from a leaky function are exploited by other taxa in the community. Black Queen (BQ) traits are essential for community survival, but only some members bear the cost of possessing them, while others lose the trait In addition, BQ traits have been defined in terms of adaptive gene loss, and it is unknown whether this has occurred for PCD. Our conclusion is that PCD fulfils the two most important criteria of a BQ (leakiness and costliness), but that more empirical data are needed for assessing the remaining two criteria. In addition, we hold that for viewing PCD as a BQ, the original BQH needs to include social traits. Thus, despite some empirical and conceptual shortcomings, the BQH provides a helpful avenue for investigating PCD in microbial communities. ispartof: MOLECULAR ECOLOGY vol:30 issue:5 pages:1110-1119 ispartof: location:England status: published
- Published
- 2020
11. Human Success : Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implications
- Author
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Hugh Desmond, Grant Ramsey, Hugh Desmond, and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
- Human evolution--Philosophy
- Abstract
Human Success: Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implications examines human success from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with contributions from leading paleobiologists, anthropologists, geologists, philosophers of science, and ethicists. It considers how the human species grew in success-linked metrics, such as population size and geographical range, and how it came to dominate ecological systems across the globe. It probes whether the consequences of that dominance, such as human-driven climate change and the destruction of biodiversity, mandate a rethinking of the meaning of human success. The essays in this book urge us to reflect on what has led to our apparent evolutionary success—and, most importantly, what this success implies for the future of our species.
- Published
- 2023
12. Is Cultural Fitness Hopelessly Confused?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Andreas De Block
- Subjects
Philosophy ,History ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Biological fitness ,Biological evolution ,Sociology ,Sociocultural evolution ,Evolutionary psychology ,Evolutionary theory ,Epistemology - Abstract
Fitness is a central concept in evolutionary theory. Just as it is central to biological evolution, so, it seems, it should be central to cultural evolutionary theory (CET). But importing the biological fitness concept to CET is no straightforward task—there are many features unique to cultural evolution that make this difficult. This has led some theorists to argue that there are fundamental problems with cultural fitness that render it hopelessly confused. In this essay, we defend the coherency of cultural fitness against those who call it into doubt.
- Published
- 2017
13. The Nature of Programmed Cell Death
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Pierre M. Durand
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,0303 health sciences ,Programmed cell death ,Biology ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,03 medical and health sciences ,Multicellular organism ,Philosophy of biology ,Pleiotropy (drugs) ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Evolutionary biology ,Adaptation ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Evolutionary theory ,030304 developmental biology - Abstract
In multicellular organisms, cells are frequently programmed to die. This makes good sense: cells that fail to, or are no longer playing important roles are eliminated. From the cell’s perspective, this also makes sense, since somatic cells in multicellular organisms require the cooperation of clonal relatives. In unicellular organisms, however, programmed cell death (PCD) poses a difficult and unresolved evolutionary problem. The empirical evidence for PCD in diverse microbial taxa has spurred debates about what precisely PCD means in the case of unicellular organisms (how it should be defined). In this article, we survey the concepts of PCD in the literature and the selective pressures associated with its evolution. We show that definitions of PCD have been almost entirely mechanistic and fail to separate questions concerning what PCD fundamentally is from questions about the kinds of mechanisms that realize PCD. We conclude that an evolutionary definition is best able to distinguish PCD from closely related phenomena. Specifically, we define “true” PCD as an adaptation for death triggered by abiotic or biotic environmental stresses. True PCD is thus not only an evolutionary product but must also have been a target of selection. Apparent PCD resulting from pleiotropy, genetic drift, or trade-offs is not true PCD. We call this “ersatz PCD.”
- Published
- 2019
14. Guilt by association?
- Author
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Michael J. Deem and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Perspective (graphical) ,Shame ,050109 social psychology ,Guilt by association ,Evolutionary psychology ,Philosophy ,Group selection ,050501 criminology ,Trait ,Selection (linguistics) ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Psychology ,Social psychology ,Applied Psychology ,Mechanism (sociology) ,0505 law ,media_common - Abstract
Recent evolutionary perspectives on guilt tend to focus on how guilt functions as a means for the individual to self-regulate behavior and as a mechanism for reinforcing cooperative tendencies. While these accounts highlight important dimensions of guilt and provide important insights into its evolutionary emergence, they pay scant attention to the large empirical literature on its maladaptive effects on individuals. This paper considers the nature of guilt, explores its biological function, and provides an evolutionary perspective on whether it is an individual-level or group selected trait. After surveying philosophical and psychological analyses of guilt, we consider which psychological mechanisms underlie the capacity to experience and act from guilt and whether they point to an emergence of guilt in early humans or to guilt having a longer phylogenetic history. Because guilt is a characteristically social emotion, we then examine its contemporary role in social and legal contexts, which may provide clues to its original biological function. Finally, we provide the outlines of two evolutionary explanations for guilt. We argue that group selection may have promoted the capacity to experience guilt, but that under certain conditions there may have been a positive individual selection force as well.
- Published
- 2016
15. Is Organismic Fitness at the Basis of Evolutionary Theory?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Charles H. Pence
- Subjects
Value (ethics) ,Philosophy ,History ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Fitness landscape ,Trait ,Biology ,Evolutionary dynamics ,Social psychology ,Evolutionary theory ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Fitness is a central theoretical concept in evolutionary theory. Despite its importance, much debate has occurred over how to conceptualize and formalize fitness. One point of debate concerns the roles of organismic and trait fitness. In a recent addition to this debate, Elliott Sober argues that trait fitness is the central fitness concept, and that organismic fitness is of little value. In this paper, by contrast, we argue that it is organismic fitness that lies at the bases of both the conceptual role of fitness and its role as a measure of evolutionary dynamics.
- Published
- 2015
16. Trait Bin and Trait Cluster Accounts of Human Nature
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Ethical issues ,Human life ,Trait ,Human science ,Disease cluster ,Psychology ,Trait expression ,Social psychology ,Evolutionary psychology ,Bin ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Conceptions of human nature fall under two broad categories, trait bin accounts and trait cluster accounts. Trait bin accounts take there to be a special bin of traits, one composed of all and only those traits constituting our nature. For those arguing for a trait bin account of human nature, the challenge is to articulate what it is that marks a trait as being in or outside of the bin. For some, the bin is filled by the traits essential to being human. Others, such as Machery in his contribution to this volume, offer a non-essentialist trait bin conception of human nature. In this chapter, I argue that trait bin approaches to human nature are misguided, that there is no good way of dividing human traits into those that are a part of our nature and those that are not. Instead, I argue for a trait cluster account, which sees human nature not as a special bin of traits, but as the relationship among traits. Under this account, human nature lies in the patterns of trait expression within and across human life histories. This account does a superior job characterizing what humans are like and aligning human nature with the human sciences.
- Published
- 2018
17. How to Do Digital Philosophy of Science
- Author
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Charles H. Pence, Grant Ramsey, and UCL - SSH/ISP - Institut supérieur de philosophie
- Subjects
Philosophy of science ,History ,algorithm ,Computer science ,05 social sciences ,Digital data ,ComputerApplications_COMPUTERSINOTHERSYSTEMS ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Philosophy ,Digital philosophy ,History and Philosophy of Science ,big data ,philosophy of science ,060302 philosophy ,Engineering ethics ,digital humanities ,0509 other social sciences ,050904 information & library sciences - Abstract
Philosophy of science is beginning to be expanded via the introduction of new digital resources-both data and tools for its analysis. The data comprise digitized published books and journal articles, as well as heretofore unpublished and recently digitized material, such as images, archival text, notebooks, meeting notes, and programs. This growing bounty of data would be of little use, however, without quality tools with which to analyze it. Fortunately, the growth in available data is matched by the extensive development of automated analysis tools. For the beginner, this wide variety of data sources and tools can be overwhelming. In this essay, we survey the state of digital work in the philosophy of science, showing what kinds of questions can be answered and how one can go about answering them. ispartof: Philosophy of Science vol:85 issue:5 pages:930-941 ispartof: location:GA, Atlanta status: published
- Published
- 2018
18. The Organism-Centered Approach to Cultural Evolution
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Andreas De Block
- Subjects
Group based ,Class (computer programming) ,Philosophy of science ,05 social sciences ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy ,Cultural analysis ,Memetics ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Sociology ,0509 other social sciences ,Social science ,050904 information & library sciences ,Sociocultural evolution ,Philosophy of technology ,Organism - Abstract
In this paper, we distinguish two different approaches to cultural evolution. One approach is meme-centered, the other organism-centered. We argue that in situations in which the meme- and organism-centered approaches are competing alternatives, the organism-centered approach is in many ways superior. Furthermore, the organism-centered approach can go a long way toward understanding the evolution of institutions. Although the organism-centered approach is preferable for a broad class of situations, we do leave room for super-organismic (group based) or sub-organismic (meme-based) explanations of some cultural phenomena.
- Published
- 2015
19. Animal innovation defined and operationalized
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Meredith L. Bastian, Carel P. van Schaik, University of Zurich, and Ramsey, Grant
- Subjects
Knowledge management ,Physiology ,Ecology (disciplines) ,Culture ,Intelligence ,Population ,Animals, Wild ,Context (language use) ,Social Environment ,142-005 142-005 ,3206 Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Creativity ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Species Specificity ,Component (UML) ,2802 Behavioral Neuroscience ,Similarity (psychology) ,Animals ,Learning ,education ,Problem Solving ,education.field_of_study ,Operationalization ,Behavior, Animal ,Ecology ,business.industry ,Operational definition ,1314 Physiology ,Social learning ,Biological Evolution ,330 Economics ,Animal Communication ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Diffusion of Innovation ,business ,Psychology ,Social psychology - Abstract
Innovation is a key component of most definitions of culture and intelligence. Additionally, innovations may affect a species' ecology and evolution. Nonetheless, conceptual and empirical work on innovation has only recently begun. In particular, largely because the existing operational definition (first occurrence in a population) requires long-term studies of populations, there has been no systematic study of innovation in wild animals. To facilitate such study, we have produced a new definition of innovation: Innovation is the process that generates in an individual a novel learned behavior that is not simply a consequence of social learning or environmental induction. Using this definition, we propose a new operational approach for distinguishing innovations in the field. The operational criteria employ information from the following sources: (1) the behavior's geographic and local prevalence and individual frequency; (2) properties of the behavior, such as the social role of the behavior, the context in which the behavior is exhibited, and its similarity to other behaviors; (3) changes in the occurrence of the behavior over time; and (4) knowledge of spontaneous or experimentally induced behavior in captivity. These criteria do not require long-term studies at a single site, but information from multiple populations of a species will generally be needed. These criteria are systematized into a dichotomous key that can be used to assess whether a behavior observed in the field is likely to be an innovation.
- Published
- 2017
20. What is human nature for?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Fuentes, A, Visala, A, Fuentes, A., and Visala, A.
- Abstract
During the battle of Iwo Jima in June 1944, Private First Class Jackylin Harold Lucas and three other U.S. Marines came under attack while making their way along a ravine. Upon seeing two grenades thrown near the soldiers, Lucas dove onto one grenade and pulled the other under his body, saving his companions from serious injury or death. Lucas survived, but his injuries were so grave that his companions left him for dead (Lucas and Drum 2006). Lucas’s act was one of spectacular and nearly suicidal altruism. What does such an act show us about our nature and the human capacity for good and evil? Perhaps it offers a window onto our true nature—a nature ultimately good, though susceptible to corrupting influences. Or perhaps it seems extraordinary precisely because we are greedy and violent by nature but can, in rare instances, rise above those instincts. Questions about what human nature is and how we can learn about it are difficult to answer. They are difficult not just because humans are complex creatures whose behavior is deeply embedded in the cultural environment that they are a part of, but also because it is not obvious what a concept of human nature is supposed to do or what it is for. The concept of human nature is often used as a normative concept, one that can serve as a guide to action, showing us how we ought to behave. Less commonplace is an approach that seeks a descriptive account of human nature, one that characterizes what humans do and are disposed to do. I argue in this essay that the normative and descriptive approaches are at odds and that we should not expect a single concept of human nature to play both roles. Furthermore, there are deep problems with normative accounts. They often ignore or contradict the contemporary scientific worldview, and they often merely reflect biases about how we ought to be and what we ought to do. Human nature in this sense becomes politicized and serves in arguments about the moral status of issues like homosexuality, abortion, or biomedical enhancement. Because of the problems inherent in normative notions of human nature, I offer a descriptive alternative. My alternative attempts to align the scientific study of the human with human nature. ispartof: Verbs, Bones and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature pages:217-230 ispartof: pages:217-230 status: published
- Published
- 2017
21. Human Nature in a Post-essentialist World
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Philosophy ,History ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Essentialism ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Articulation (sociology) ,Evolutionary psychology ,Evolutionary theory ,Epistemology ,Skepticism ,media_common - Abstract
In this essay I examine a well-known articulation of human nature skepticism, a paper by Hull. I then review a recent reply to Hull by Machery, which argues for an account of human nature that he claims is both useful and scientifically robust. I challenge Machery’s account and introduce an alternative account—the “life-history trait cluster” conception of human nature—that I hold is scientifically sound and makes sense of (at least some of) our intuitions about—and desiderata for—human nature.
- Published
- 2013
22. A New Foundation for the Propensity Interpretation of Fitness
- Author
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Charles H. Pence and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
History ,Mathematical and theoretical biology ,business.industry ,Foundation (evidence) ,Interpretation (model theory) ,Philosophy ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Artificial intelligence ,business ,Set (psychology) ,Mathematical economics ,Evolutionary theory ,Counterexample ,Mathematics ,Simple (philosophy) - Abstract
The propensity interpretation of fitness (PIF) is commonly taken to be subject to a set of simple counterexamples. We argue that three of the most important of these are not counterexamples to the PIF itself, but only to the traditional mathematical model of this propensity: fitness as expected number of offspring. They fail to demonstrate that a new mathematical model of the PIF could not succeed where this older model fails. We then propose a new formalization of the PIF that avoids these (and other) counterexamples. By producing a counterexample-free model of the PIF, we call into question one of the primary motivations for adopting the statisticalist interpretation of fitness. In addition, this new model has the benefit of being more closely allied with contemporary mathematical biology than the traditional model of the PIF.
- Published
- 2013
23. Chance in Evolution
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence, Grant Ramsey, and Charles H. Pence
- Subjects
- Evolution (Biology)--Philosophy, Chance
- Abstract
Humans, however much we would care to think otherwise, do not represent the fated pinnacle of ape evolution. The diversity of life, from single-celled organisms to multicellular animals and plants, is the result of a long, complex, and highly chancy history. But how profoundly has chance shaped life on earth? And what, precisely, do we mean by chance? Bringing together biologists, philosophers of science, and historians of science, Chance in Evolution is the first book to untangle the far-reaching effects of chance, contingency, and randomness on the evolution of life. The book begins by placing chance in historical context, starting with the ancients and moving through Darwin and his contemporaries, documenting how the understanding of chance changed as Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection developed into the modern synthesis, and how the acceptance of chance in Darwinian theory affected theological resistance to it. Subsequent chapters detail the role of chance in contemporary evolutionary theory—in particular, in connection with the concepts of genetic drift, mutation, and parallel evolution—as well as recent empirical work in the experimental evolution of microbes and in paleobiology. By engaging in collaboration across biology, history, philosophy, and theology, this book offers a comprehensive and synthetic overview both of the history of chance in evolution and of our current best understanding of the impact of chance on life on earth.
- Published
- 2016
24. Organisms, Traits, and Population Subdivisions: Two Arguments against the Causal Conception of Fitness?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
History ,education.field_of_study ,Natural selection ,Population ,Causal structure ,Epistemology ,Philosophy ,Philosophy of biology ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Causal inference ,Construal level theory ,Causal decision theory ,Sociology ,education ,Set (psychology) - Abstract
A major debate in the philosophy of biology centers on the question of how we should understand the causal structure of natural selection. This debate is polarized into the causal and statistical positions. The main arguments from the statistical side are that a causal construal of the theory of natural selection’s central concept, fitness, either (i) leads to inaccurate predictions about population dynamics, or (ii) leads to an incoherent set of causal commitments. In this essay, I argue that neither the predictive inaccuracy nor the incoherency arguments successfully undermine the causal account of fitness.
- Published
- 2013
25. Driftability
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Philosophy ,education.field_of_study ,Property (philosophy) ,Phenomenon ,Product (mathematics) ,Population ,Selection (linguistics) ,General Social Sciences ,education ,Epistemology - Abstract
In this paper, I argue (contra some recent philosophical work) that an objective distinction between natural selection and drift can be drawn. I draw this distinction by conceiving of drift, in the most fundamental sense, as an individual-level phenomenon. This goes against some other attempts to distinguish selection from drift, which have argued either that drift is a population-level process or that it is a population-level product. Instead of identifying drift with population-level features, the account introduced here can explain these population-level features based on a property that I label driftability. Additionally, this account shows that biology’s “first law”—the Principle of Drift (Brandon, J Phil 102(7):319–335 2006)—is not a foundational law, but is a consequence of driftability.
- Published
- 2012
26. Chance in Evolution
- Author
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Thomas Lenormand, Luis-Miguel Chevin, Thomas Bataillon (authors) / Grant Ramsey and Charles H. Pence (Eds), Thomas Lenormand, Luis-Miguel Chevin, Thomas Bataillon (authors) / Grant Ramsey, and Charles H. Pence (Eds)
- Published
- 2014
27. 1. Contingency, Chance, and Randomness in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Biology
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Charles H. Pence
- Published
- 2016
28. Chance in Evolution
- Author
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Charles H. Pence and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
History of biology ,Natural selection ,Genetic drift ,Evolutionary biology ,Mutation (genetic algorithm) ,Macroevolution ,Biology - Published
- 2016
29. Culture in humans and other animals
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Philosophy ,Philosophy of biology ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Flourishing ,Culture theory ,Spite ,Animal culture ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences ,Social learning ,Construct (philosophy) ,Epistemology - Abstract
The study of animal culture is a flourishing field, with culture being recorded in a wide range of taxa, including non-human primates, birds, cetaceans, and rodents. In spite of this research, however, the concept of culture itself remains elusive. There is no universally assented to concept of culture, and there is debate over the connection between culture and related concepts like tradition and social learning. Furthermore, it is not clear whether culture in humans and culture in non-human animals is really the same thing, or merely loose analogues that go by the same name. The purpose of this paper is to explicate core desiderata for a concept of culture and then to construct a concept that meets these desiderata. The paper then applies this concept in both humans and non-human animals.
- Published
- 2012
30. How Human Nature Can Inform Human Enhancement: a Commentary on Tim Lewens's Human Nature: the Very Idea
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Philosophy ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Human enhancement ,Human science ,Philosophy of technology ,Epistemology - Abstract
In this commentary on Lewens (2012), I argue that although his criticisms of Machery's (2008) conception of human nature are sound, I disagree with his conclusion that human nature cannot inform us regarding issues of human enhancement. I introduce a framework for understanding human nature, the “life history trait cluster account,” which aligns the concept of human nature with the human sciences and allows human nature to inform questions of human enhancement.
- Published
- 2012
31. Sameness in Biology
- Author
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Anne Siebels Peterson and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
History ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Face (sociological concept) ,Serial homology ,Biology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Spite ,Homology (anthropology) ,Function (engineering) ,Centrality ,Relation (history of concept) ,Composition (language) ,Mathematics ,media_common - Abstract
Homology is a biological sameness relation that is purported to hold in the face of changes in form, composition, and function. In spite of the centrality and importance of homology, there is no consensus on how we should understand this concept. The two leading views of homology, the genealogical and developmental accounts, have significant shortcomings. We propose a new account, the hierarchical-dependency account of homology, which avoids these shortcomings. Furthermore, our account provides for continuity between special, general, and serial homology.
- Published
- 2012
32. Elliott Sober, Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards? Philosophical Essays on Darwin’s Theory. Amherst, NY: Prometheus (2011), 230 pp., $21.00
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence, Hope Hollocher, Ryan Nichols, Daniel John Sportiello, and Edwin Siu
- Subjects
Philosophy ,History ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Darwin (ADL) ,Art history ,Epistemology - Published
- 2011
33. Why reciprocal altruism is not a kind of group selection
- Author
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Robert N. Brandon and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Philosophy ,Group selection ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Inclusive fitness ,Helping behavior ,Kin selection ,Reciprocal altruism ,Altruism (biology) ,Positive economics ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences ,Psychology ,Green-beard effect ,Competitive altruism - Abstract
Reciprocal altruism was originally formulated in terms of individual selection and most theorists continue to view it in this way. However, this interpretation of reciprocal altruism has been challenged by Sober and Wilson (1998). They argue that reciprocal altruism (as well as all other forms of altruism) evolves by the process of group selection. In this paper, we argue that the original interpretation of reciprocal altruism is the correct one. We accomplish this by arguing that if fitness attaches to (at minimum) entire life cycles, then the kind of fitness exchanges needed to form the group-level in such situations is not available. Reciprocal altruism is thus a result of individual selection and when it evolves, it does so because it is individually advantageous.
- Published
- 2011
34. Can altruism be unified?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,History ,05 social sciences ,Helping behavior ,General Medicine ,Space (commercial competition) ,Altruism (biology) ,050905 science studies ,Helping Behavior ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,Evolutionary psychology ,Altruism ,Biological Evolution ,Competitive altruism ,Epistemology ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Prosocial behavior ,Humans ,Cooperative behavior ,Science studies ,Genetic Fitness ,0509 other social sciences ,Cooperative Behavior - Abstract
There is clearly a plurality of forms of altruism. Classically, biological altruism is distinguished from psychological altruism. Recent discussions of altruism have attempted to distinguish even more forms of altruism. I will focus on three altruism concepts, biological altruism, psychological altruism, and helping altruism. The questions I am concerned with here are, first, how should we understand these concepts? and second, what relationship do these concepts bear to one another? In particular, is there an essence to altruism that unifies these concepts? I suggest that while there is no essence to altruism, this does not mean that the array of altruism concepts is completely disunified. Instead, I propose we place all the concepts into a common framework—an altruism space—that could lead to new questions about how this space can be filled.
- Published
- 2015
35. The Fundamental Constraint on the evolution of culture
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
constraint ,Computer science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Cultural system ,Social learning ,Positive correlation ,innovation ,culture ,imitation ,Constraint (information theory) ,social learning ,Philosophy ,Philosophy of biology ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Order (exchange) ,evolution ,Human species ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences ,Imitation ,Mathematical economics ,media_common - Abstract
This paper argues that there is a general constraint on the evolution of culture. This constraint – what I am calling the Fundamental Constraint – must be satisfied in order for a cultural system to be adaptive. The Fundamental Constraint is this: for culture to be adaptive there must be a positive correlation between the fitness of cultural variants and their fitness impact on the organisms adopting those variants. Two ways of satisfying the Fundamental Constraint are introduced, structural solutions and evaluative solutions. Because of the limitations on these solutions, this constraint helps explain why there is not more culture in nature, why the culture that does exist has the form it has, and why complex, cumulative culture is restricted to the human species. ispartof: Biology & Philosophy vol:22 issue:3 pages:401-414 ispartof: location:CANADA, Guelph status: published
- Published
- 2006
36. A path to success? A review ofevolution, development, and the predictable genomeby David L. Stern
- Author
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Hope Hollocher, Charles H. Pence, Michelle M. Wirth, and Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Stern ,History and philosophy of science ,Environmental ethics ,Psychology ,Humanities ,Biological sciences ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Developmental Biology - Abstract
Hope Hollocher,* Charles H. Pence, Grant Ramsey, and Michelle M. Wirth Department of Biological Sciences, Galvin Life Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Program in History and Philosophy of Science, John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values, University of Notre Dame, Geddes Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Haggar Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
- Published
- 2013
37. Recolonization of bigleaf maple branches by epiphytic bryophytes following experimental disturbance
- Author
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Nalini M. Nadkarni, Alexander R. Cobb, Abraham J. Svoboda, and Grant Ramsey
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Maple ,Ecology ,Gamma diversity ,Plant Science ,Acer macrophyllum ,Ecological succession ,engineering.material ,Biology ,biology.organism_classification ,Disturbance (ecology) ,Botany ,engineering ,Colonization ,Bryophyte ,Epiphyte - Abstract
The dynamics of epiphytic bryophyte communities following natural and human disturbance have rarely been quantified. We describe the response of bryophyte communities on bigleaf maple trees (Acer macrophyllum Pursh) in Olympia, Washington, following their experimental removal. Approximately 8% of the exposed area was recolonized by bryophytes 1 year after clearing, and 27% after 3 years. Lateral encroachment from bryophytes on the sides of the 20-cm-long plots accounted for 75% of this recolonization, with growth from residual plant parts or aerially dispersed diaspores accounting for the remaining 25%. Though it was not possible to distinguish between the latter two sources of cover, the number of clear de novo colonization events over the course of the year was low (0.18 dm-2). Disturbance appeared to reduce bryophyte diversity at this successional stage, as alpha and gamma diversity remained low after 1 year and had not recovered after 3 years. Reflecting the preponderance of lateral encroachment as the mechanism for recolonization, disturbance size may significantly affect the time needed to recolonize disturbed branch substrates. In addition to contributing to ecologists' understanding of processes of succession, these experiments may help to develop sustainable practices for moss-harvesting in the Pacific Northwest.Key words: succession, bryophytes, epiphytes, Acer macrophyllum, recolonization, canopy studies.
- Published
- 2001
38. Fitness: Philosophical Problems
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Charles H. Pence
- Subjects
Natural selection ,Fitness landscape ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Interpretation (philosophy) ,Conceptual model ,Context (language use) ,Biology ,Social psychology ,Tautology (logic) ,Central element ,Selection (genetic algorithm) ,Epistemology ,media_common - Abstract
Fitness plays many roles throughout evolutionary theory, from a measure of populations in the wild to a central element in abstract theoretical presentations of natural selection. It has thus been the subject of an extensive philosophical literature, which has primarily centered on the way to understand the relationship between fitness values and reproductive outcomes. If fitness is a probabilistic or statistical quantity, how is it to be defined in general theoretical contexts? How can it be measured? Can a single conceptual model for fitness be offered that applies in all biological cases, or must fitness measures be case-specific? Philosophers have explored these questions over the last several decades, largely in the context of an influential definition of fitness proposed in the late 1970s: the propensity interpretation. This interpretation as first described undeniably suffers from significant difficulties, and debate regarding the tenability of amendments and alternatives to it remains unsettled.
- Published
- 2013
39. Can fitness differences be a cause of evolution?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey
- Subjects
Drift ,Philosophical literature ,Natural selection ,Evolution ,Holism ,Fitness landscape ,Evolutionary change ,Causal ,Statistical ,Biology ,Evolutionary biology ,Nothing ,Fitness ,Organism ,Selection ,Selection (genetic algorithm) ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
The causal status of fitness and natural selection is increasingly called into doubt in the philosophical literature. For example, Elliott Sober argues that the fitness of individual organisms is holistic; i.e., it is dependent on causally independent factors like census size. Others have argued that fitness differences cannot properly be causes of evolutionary change. In this paper I directly challenge the holistic conclusion, and thereby shed light on the debates over the causal status of fitness. I show that the causalists and statisticalists are—to a large degree—arguing past each other. There is a plurality of fitness concepts; some are legitimately causal, while others seem to be based, at least in part, on purely statistical parameters. But such facts say nothing about whether fitness in general is causal or statistical. ispartof: Philosophy and Theory in Biology vol:5 pages:1-13 status: published
- Published
- 2013
40. What’s Wrong with the Emergentist Statistical Interpretation of Natural Selection and Random Drift?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Robert N. Brandon
- Subjects
Natural selection ,Random drift ,Emergentism ,Statistical physics ,Mathematics ,Interpretation (model theory) - Published
- 2007
41. On the concept of animal innovation and the challenge of studying innovation in the wild
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Meredith L. Bastian, Carel P. van Schaik, University of Zurich, and Ramsey, Grant
- Subjects
3206 Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Operationalization ,Physiology ,Field (Bourdieu) ,2802 Behavioral Neuroscience ,Engineering ethics ,Sociology ,1314 Physiology ,142-005 142-005 ,330 Economics - Abstract
The commentaries have both drawn out the implications of, and challenged, our definition and operationalization of innovation. In this response, we reply to these concerns, discuss the differences between our operationalization and the preexisting operationalization if innovation, and make suggestions for the advancement of the challenging and exciting field of animal innovation.
- Published
- 2007
42. On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. By Brian Boyd. Belknap Press. Cambridge (Massachusetts): Harvard University Press. $35.00 (hardcover); $19.95 (paper). xiii + 540 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978‐0‐674‐03357‐3 (hc); 978‐0‐674‐05711‐1 (pb). 2009
- Author
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Charles H. Pence, Michelle M. Wirth, Hope Hollocher, Grant Ramsey, Agustín Fuentes, and Daniel John Sportiello
- Subjects
Index (economics) ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Art ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences ,Humanities ,media_common - Published
- 2011
43. Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection. By Peter Godfrey‐Smith. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. $49.95. ix + 207 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978‐0‐19‐955204‐7. 2009
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Hope Hollocher, Edwin Siu, Charles H. Pence, and Agustín Fuentes
- Subjects
Index (economics) ,Natural selection ,Philosophy ,Darwinism ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences ,Genealogy - Published
- 2010
44. Can fitness differences be a cause of evolution?
- Author
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Grant Ramsey, Grant Ramsey, Grant Ramsey, and Grant Ramsey
- Abstract
Philosophy & Theory in Biology: vol. 5, (dlps) 6959004.0005.001, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.6959004.0005.001, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. Please contact mpub-help@umich.edu to use this work in a way not covered by the license.
45. evoText: A new tool for analyzing the biological sciences
- Author
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Grant Ramsey and Charles H. Pence
- Subjects
History ,Computational biology ,Biological Science Disciplines ,Bibliometrics ,050905 science studies ,History and Philosophy of Science ,History of science ,Philosophy of biology ,Biological sciences ,Biology ,Digital humanities ,060201 languages & linguistics ,Medicine(all) ,Philosophy of science ,Electronic Data Processing ,Electronic data processing ,05 social sciences ,06 humanities and the arts ,General Medicine ,Text analysis ,Data science ,Variety (cybernetics) ,0602 languages and literature ,Science studies ,0509 other social sciences ,History of biology ,Software - Abstract
We introduce here evoText, a new tool for automated analysis of the literature in the biological sciences. evoText contains a database of hundreds of thousands of journal articles and an array of analysis tools for generating quantitative data on the nature and history of life science, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. This article describes the features of evoText, presents a variety of examples of the kinds of analyses that evoText can run, and offers a brief tutorial describing how to use it. publisher: Elsevier articletitle: evoText: A new tool for analyzing the biological sciences journaltitle: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2016.04.003 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. ispartof: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences vol:57 pages:83-87 ispartof: location:England status: published
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