While undeniably one of the central explanatory concepts in biology, fitness is deployed in an ambiguous or even inconsistent manner
by evolutionary biologists as well as philosophers. This sort of foundational confusion is a plea for conceptual clarity and has, thereby,
presented a wonderful opportunity for philosophers of science to ply their trade. After engaging with the topic, however, several influential
philosophers of science (e.g., Mohan Matthen, Dennis Walsh, and Andre Ariew) and biologists (Richard Lewontin and Massimo Pigliucci) have
reached the conclusion that biological fitness is not in fact the cause of natural selection but instead a mere statistical artifact or
redescription of systematic transgenerational change. It is, as they see matters, a label best reserved for abstract trait types rather than
the organisms that bear such traits. This poses a serious challenge to the working intuitions of most biologists and many philosophers of
biology. Moreover, it is but one of many challenges to the explanatory and ontological primacy of natural selection in recent memory. For at
least three decades, some practitioners in the burgeoning subdiscipline of evolutionary developmental biology have been outspoken in
insisting that the tools of population biology are insufficient for describing or explaining observations of adaptive evolutionary change
both past and present. In this dissertation, I examine these recent challenges to orthodox conceptions of fitness and natural selection, as
well as the rejoinders given in defense. Ultimately, I defend a conception of fitness as a probabilistic dispositional property (i.e., a
propensity) of token organisms that causes natural selection. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2017. / November 15, 2017. / biological fitness, causation, evo-devo, natural selection, propensity / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael Ruse, Professor Directing Dissertation; Joseph Travis, University Representative; Michael
Bishop, Committee Member; James Justus, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_605022 |
| Contributors | Takacs, Peter (author), Ruse, Michael (professor directing dissertation), Travis, Joseph, 1953- (university representative), Bishop, Michael A. (committee member), Justus, James (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Arts and Sciences (degree granting college), Department of Philosophy (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (151 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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