Evolution

Research in evolutionary ecology on random foraging ignores the possibility that some random foraging is an adaptation not to environmental randomness, but to what Wimsatt called "perceived randomness". This occurs when environmental features are unpredictable, whether physically random or not. Mere perceived randomness may occur, for example, due to effects of climate change or certain kinds of static landscape variation. I argue that an important mathematical model concerning random foraging does not depend on randomness, despite contrary remarks by researchers. I also use computer simulations to illustrate the idea that random foraging is an adaptation to mere perceived randomness.

Adaptationism is often taken to be the thesis that most traits are adaptations. In order to assess this thesis, it seems we must be able to establish either an exhaustive set of all traits or a representative sample of this set. Either task requires a more systematic and principled way of individuating traits than is currently available. Moreover, different criteria of trait individuation can make adaptationism turn out true or false, and criteria based on selection may presuppose adaptationism. In this paper, we show that adaptationism depends on trait individuation and that the latter is an open and unsolved problem.

Proponents of the extended evolutionary synthesis have argued that there are explanatory gaps in evolutionary biology that cannot be bridged by standard evolutionary theory. In this paper, we consider what sort of explanatory gaps they are referring to. We outline three possibilities, data-based gaps, frame-based gaps, and elusive gaps. We then examine the purported evolutionary gaps and attempt to classify them using this taxonomy. From there we reconsider the significance of the gaps and what they imply for the proposed need for an extended evolutionary synthesis.

There is surprisingly little philosophical work on conceptually spelling out the difference between the traits on which natural selection may be said to act (e.g. “having an above average running speed”) and merely circumstantial traits (e.g. “happening to be in the path of a forest fire”). Here, I show that the two existing proposals as to how this distinction should be made are unconvincing because they rule out frequency-dependent selection. I then propose two new potential solutions, which share the idea that extrinsic properties dependent on internal relations should be accepted as traits on which natural selection can act.