The Evolution of Agency and Other EssaysThis book presents a collection of linked essays written by one of the leading philosophers of biology, Kim Sterelny, on the topic of biological evolution.The first half of the book explores most of the main theoretical controversies about evolution and selection, while the second half of the book applies some of these ideas in considering cognitive evolution. These essays, some never before published, form a coherent whole that defends not jut an overall conception of evolution, but also a distinctive take on cognitive evolution. |
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Contents
| 3 | |
| 29 | |
| 53 | |
| 81 | |
EVOLUTION AND MACROEVOLUTION | 109 |
Explanatory Pluralism in Evolutionary Biology | 129 |
Darwins Tangled Bank | 152 |
THE DESCENT OF MIND | 181 |
Basic Minds | 198 |
Intentional Agency and the Metarepresentation Hypothesis | 221 |
Situated Agency and the Descent of Desire | 241 |
The Evolution of Agency | 260 |
References | 289 |
Index | 305 |
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Common terms and phrases
action adaptationist adaptive agents allele animal argue become behaviour biological burrow capacity causal cause Chapter characteristics chimps claim cognitive competition complex conception Consider copies cues Dawkins depends developmental distinction ecological effects environment environmental evolution evolutionary evolve example expect explain extended extinction factors fitness forces function genes genetic group selection hence hypothesis idea important individual intentional interaction internal involves kind learning less lineage mechanisms mind Moreover motivation natural selection nest notion organisms particular pattern perhaps phenotype physical play population possible potential preferences primate problem produce properties question range reason relations relative relevant replicators represent representation reproduction requires response result robust role seems selection signals similar simple single Sober social speciation species structure success suggests suppose theory tion track trait group true units variation vary vehicles
Popular passages
Page 152 - It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.
Page 152 - These laws, taken in the largest sense, being growth with reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a ratio of increase so high as to lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection, entailing divergence of character and the extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable...
Page 43 - An animal's behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes 'for' that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it.
Page 35 - But evolutionary theory, like statistical mechanics, has no use for such a fine grain of description: the aim is to make clear the central tendencies in the history of evolving populations, and to 97 GENERALIZATIONS this end, the strategy of averaging, which Sober decries, is entirely appropriate.
Page 115 - ... slow transformation. But there are many examples of such trends. Famous examples are size increase in the horse lineage, and brain size increase in the homo lineage. So perhaps these trends are caused by differential extinctions of species in the lineage. Horse species of various sizes have been born, but the larger species have survived better.
Page 112 - Selection will usually drive tracking. For migrants that follow the habitat (personally or by reproductive dispersion ) will typically be fitter than the population fragment that fails to move, for the residual fragment will be less well adapted to the new environment and will be faced with new competition from other migrants tracking their old habitat. Note that habitat tracking is as much a "strategy
Page 40 - An allele A at a locus L in a species S is for the trait P* (assumed to be a determinate form of the determinable characteristic P) relative to a local allele B and an environment E just in case (a) L affects the form of P in S...
Page 254 - Gorilla food preparation illustrates this idea of a programme. Since they often eat thistles and other rather awkward plants, gorillas often need to do a good deal of manual processing of their food before they can eat it. This processing is quite complex, and involves a division of labour between the hands that changes through different stages of the processing.
Page 65 - ... adaptive response to the environment. But that genome only exists because of the causal path (in that environment) from genome to desert-resistant shrub. By contrast, the aridity of the environment exists independently of the causal path (in that genetic environment) from arid conditions to desert adapted shrub.
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays, Kim Sterelny |
| Author | Kim Sterelny |
| Editor | Michael Ruse |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 2001 |
| ISBN | 0521645379, 9780521645379 |
| Length | 310 pages |
| Subjects | › › Science / Life Sciences / Evolution Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |