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Fitness As a Function

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Henry Byerly
Henry Byerly*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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Extract

Recent attempts to clarify the fitness in evolutionary theory as a propensity (Brandon 1978; Brandon and Beatty 1984; Burian 1983; Mills and Beatty 1979; Sober 1984a, 1984b) or as a primitive theoretical term (Rosenberg 1983, 1985; Williams 1970, Williams and Rosenberg 1985) all miss the mark in clarifying the empirical content and explanatory power of natural selection theory.

I shall argue that the crucial distinction missing in these accounts is between the sense of fitness common in population genetics as actual relative rate of increase of genotypes and fitness in the more ordinary sense--and Darwin’s--of adaptedness of organisms. The relation between these senses of ‘fitness’ is that fitness as actual reproduction success depends on, is a function of, variables representing adaptive capacities and environmental properties.

Type
Part VIII. Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 494 - 501
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

1

I wish to thank Harris Bernstein, Fred Hopf, Evelyn Keller and Richard Michod for helpful discussions.

References

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