Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T09:42:52.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Populations without Reproduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

For a population to undergo evolution by natural selection, it is assumed that the constituents of the population form parent-offspring lineages, that is, that they must reproduce. I challenge this assumption by dividing the notion of reproduction into two subprocesses, that is, multiplication and inheritance, that produce parent-offspring lineages between the parts of a population, and I show that their population-level roles, generation and memory, respectively, can be effected by processes that do not rely on such local-level lineages. I further argue that these two population-level processes, not local parent-offspring lineages, are necessary conditions for a population to undergo Darwinian evolution.

Type
Biological Sciences
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am especially grateful to Roberta Millstein for organizing and inviting me to join the symposium, as well as for inviting me for a stay at UC Davis in the fall of 2010, where the ideas for this paper were first developed. I also thank Frédéric Bouchard for his support and advice and my colleagues at the KLI for helpful comments. This paper was written with the financial support of the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture while being hosted by the KLI Institute.

References

Boyd, Robert, and Richerson, Peter J.. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Crain, Drew A., and Guillette, Louis J. Jr. 1998. “Reptiles as Models of Contaminant-Induced Endocrine Disruption.” Animal Reproduction Science 53:7786.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Devlin, Robert H., and Nagahama, Yoshitaka. 2002. “Sex Determination and Sex Differentiation in Fish: An Overview of Genetic, Physiological, and Environmental Influences.” Aquaculture 208:191364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fink, Anthony L. 1999. “Chaperon-Mediated Protein Folding.” Physiological Reviews 79:425–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Scott F., and Epel, David. 2009. Ecological Developmental Biology: Integrating Epigenetics, Medicine, and Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2009. Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter 2012. “Darwinism and Cultural Change.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367:2160–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonka, Eva, and Lamb, Marion J.. 2005. Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lewontin, Richard. 1970. “The Units of Selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1:118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewontin, Richard 1985. “Adaptation.” In The Dialectical Biologist, ed. Levins, Richard and Lewontin, Richard, 6584. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Li, Jiali, Browning, Shawn, Mahal, Sukhvir P., Oelschlegel, Anja M., and Weissmann, Charles. 2010. “Darwinian Evolution of Prions in Cell Culture.” Science 327:869–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mameli, Matteo. 2004. “Nongenetic Selection and Nongenetic Inheritance.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55:3571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mameli, Matteo 2005. “The Inheritance of Features.” Biology and Philosophy 20:365–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millstein, Roberta L. 2006. “Natural Selection as a Population-Level Causal Process.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57:627–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millstein, Roberta L. 2009. “Populations as Individuals.” Biological Theory 4:267–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millstein, Roberta L. 2010. “The Concepts of Population and Metapopulation in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology.” In Evolution since Darwin: The First 150 Years, ed. Bell, Michael A., Futuyma, Douglas J., Eanes, W. F., and Levinton, J. S., 6186. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Odling-Smee, John. 2010. “Niche Inheritance.” In Evolution: The Extended Synthesis, ed. Müller, Gerd B. and Pigliucci, Massimo, 175207. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavlidis, Michael, Greenwood, Lorraine, and Scott, Alexander P.. 2004. “The Role of Sex Ratio on Spawning Performance and on the Free and Conjugated Sex Steroids Released into the Water by Common Dentex (Dentex dentex) Broodstock.” General and Comparative Endocrinology 138:255–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prusiner, Stanley B., ed. 1999. Prion Biology and Diseases. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.Google Scholar
Scott, Alexander P., and Ellis, Tim. 2007. “Measurement of Fish Steroids in Water—a Review.” General and Comparative Endocrinology 153:392400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shorter, James, and Lindquist, Susan. 2005. “Prions as Adaptive Conduits of Memory and Inheritance.” Nature Reviews Genetics 6:435–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sterelny, Kim. 2012. The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar