To Professors Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins,

The concept of natural selection on the surface seems to be a rather simple concept to grasp and you both have explained the concept in your respective writings. I have a few question regarding your views about the nature of natural selection, questions that I feel are not explicitly answered or addressed in your various writings. I have four basic questions, each with their own subset of questions:

1) Is natural selection a prescriptive or descriptive term?
2) Is natural selection a mechanism?
3) Is natural selection a cause or a force?
4) Is natural selection a process or an outcome?

Question 1: Prescriptive or Descriptive?

Do you view natural selection as prescriptive whereby natural selection is a cause or a force that "guides" the interaction or change of traits of biological entities, it "maintains" the prevalence of beneficial mutations, or "limits" or "favours" some variations over other variations, or "steers" biological change toward the local maxima in the "fitness landscape". On this view natural selection is an agent (albeit impersonal and blind, as in non-directional) that causally influences biological change by “maintaining” or “favouring” or “producing fitter” biological entities etc.

Do you view natural selection as a descriptive term that describes what happens when you have individuals in a population that have some kind of variation (e.g. genetic) and fitness differences and are able to pass on their traits

Question 2: Is natural selection a mechanism?

Professor Coyne, in your article "The Improbability Pump" (www.thenation.com) you defend the concept of natural selection from the criticisms of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini by stating that:

But first, since selection is so uncontroversial to Dawkins yet so maligned by F&P, it behooves us to understand what it is. In principle, natural selection is simple. It is neither a "law" nor a "mechanism." It is, instead, a "process"–a process that is inevitable if two common conditions are met.

From this I understand that you are saying natural selection is NOT a mechanism and that it IS a process. In your book, Why Evolution Is True page 3, you say:

In essence, the modern theory of evolution is easy to grasp. It can be summarized in a single (albeit slightly long) sentence: Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species—perhaps a self-replicating molecule—that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.

From this I understand that you are saying natural selection it IS a mechanism. Could you please state your view on natural selection and whether it is or is not a mechanism. What exactly do you mean by "mechanism"?

Question 3: Is natural selection a cause or a force?

Professor Dawkins, you have described natural selection as a "force" and Professor Coyne, you have described natural selection as a "cause." Do you think natural selection is some sort of cause or force that causes evolutionary change or plays a causal role in evolutionary change? Are the terms "cause" and "force" used metaphorically? What exactly do you mean with the term "cause" and "force"?

Do you agree or disagree with other biologists and philosophers that do not see natural selection as some sort of force? Evolutionary biologists such Professor Allen MacNeill form Ithaca, New York and Professor John A. Endler do not think natural selection is a force. Professor William B. Provine at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University does not think natural selection is a force. He writes in his book, The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics, citing Endler:

As John Endler has argued eloquently in Natural Selection in The Wild (1968), natural selection is not a mechanism. Natural selection does not act on anything, nor does it select (for or against), force, maximize, create, modify, shape, operate, drive, favor, maintain, push or adjust. Natural selection does nothing. Natural selection as a natural force belongs in the insubstantial category already populated by the Becker/Stahl phlogiston (Endler 1986) or Newton's "ether". Natural selection is the necessary outcome of discernible and often quantifiable causes.

Philosopher of  science (biology), Andre Ariew and Philosopher of Biology, Mohan Matthen, argue that natural selection is not a cause. James Lennox in turn argue that Darwin was a teleologist because of the fact that Darwin saw natural selection as some sort of force or cause that influences biological change or evolution. Andre Ariew, citing Lennox, in his article "Platonic and Aristotelian Roots of Teleological Arguments in Cosmology and Biology" writes:

How is natural selection a teleological "force"? I see remnants of two sorts of teleology operating in Darwin. The key to seeing both is within Darwin's concept of natural selection which can be summed up as follows: as a result of individuals possessing different heritable abilities striving to survive and reproduce in local environments, comes an explanation for changes in trait composition of populations through time. Traits become prevalent in populations because they are useful to organisms in their struggle to survive. Aristotle's functional teleology is preserved through the idea that an item's existence can be explained in terms of its usefulness (Lennox 1993). What makes a trait useful is that it provides certain individuals an advantage over others in their own struggle to survive and reproduce. Secondly, the concept of individual striving to survive and reproduce plays the fundamental role in Darwin's explanation for the origins of organic diversity. The same concept reminds us of Aristotle's formal teleology – the striving for self-preservation.

Are you aware of the different approaches to the concept of teleology and are you opposed to ALL the approaches?

Question 4: Is natural selection a process or an outcome?

Some biologists (see above) see it as a process, some see it as an outcome. What are your views and what do you mean by "process"?

If you have answered any of these questions EXPLICITLY in your literature please point me in the right direction. If not, could you please be so kind and provide proper, explicit, answers for the above questions so that your views regarding the nature of natural selection are clear.

Thank you

All of the best

Signed: Anonymous

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2011 at 9:44 am and is filed under Natural Selection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.