The War of Nature, Famine, and Death as Desing Source for Living Beings
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/endoxa.46.2020.28849Keywords:
Philosophy of Biology, Grafen, Evolution, Natural Selection, Biological DesignAgencies:
UNEDAbstract
Alan Grafen's 'Formal Darwinism project' proposes a mathematical formulation of Darwin's theory that seeks to demonstrate that natural selection shapes phenotypic traits through the maximization of fitness. Grafen's project is based on three premises: (1) natural selection is the only force that shapes phenotypes; (2) fitness is the only measure of evolution; and (3) biological design arises as a result of a process of selective optimization. In this paper, we argue that these three premises limit the applicability of the model to the simplest evolutionary facts. This is because Grafen implicitly presupposes a concept of fitness that is both cause and effect of phenotypic innovations; which, on the one hand, empties Darwin's theory of explanatory power and, on the other hand, leads to overlooking the potential contribution of non-selective evolutionary forces in the shaping of biological complexity. To overcome these pitfalls of the Formal Darwinism Project - which are also common to all formal adaptationist models - we propose to replace the causal concept of fitness with the concept of robustness, thus defining biological design as form and function rather than as maximization of fitness.Downloads
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