Wayward Modeling: Population Genetics and Natural Selection

Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a popul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophy of science 2006-10, Vol.73 (4), p.369-389
Main Author: Glymour, Bruce
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological evolution
Biology
Causality
Ecological competition
Epistemology. Philosophy of science. Theory of knowledge
Evolution
Genetics
Modeling
Modelling
Natural selection
Parametric models
Philosophy
Philosophy of science
Population
Population genetics
Population size
Predictive modeling
Reproduction
Reproductive success
Science
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Summary:Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a population genetics model. To understand selection is to understand what these parameter values measure and how differences in them lead to frequency changes. I argue that this traditional view is mistaken. The descriptions of natural selection rendered by population genetics models are in general neither predictive nor explanatory and introduce avoidable conceptual confusions. I conclude that a correct understanding of natural selection requires explicitly causal models of reproductive success.
ISSN:0031-8248
1539-767X
DOI:10.1086/516805