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The Fourth Perspective: the Reproducer as the Minimal Unit of Evolution| title | The Fourth Perspective: the Reproducer as the Minimal Unit of Evolution |
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| start_date | 2023/05/26 |
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| schedule | 13h-15h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle de conférence & zoom |
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| summary | Organisms are agents. They are able to act on their own behalf. The phenomenon of organismic agency has troubled evolutionary biologists for a very long time. Haldane famously called teleology the biologist's mistress: we cannot live without her, but neither do we want to be seen with her in public. Ernst Mayr attempted to avoid the problem of agency by popularising the term "teleonomy," which denotes apparently goal-seeking behavior that is in fact preprogrammed, shaped through adaptive evolution by natural selection. But is this really all there is to it? I think not. Basic agency is in fact a fundamental aspect of evolvable systems. It is a direct consequence of how organisms and their life cycles are organised. Using James Griesemer's account of the reproducer, I show that genetic replicators cannot be the fundamental units of evolution. Instead, this role must be played by the life cycle (or reproducer). Understanding the completion of the life cycle requires an account of ontogenesis and reproduction, which is centered around the dynamic concept of organizational continuity. Such a processual and agential perspective leads to an extended and redefined set of minimal conditions for evolution by natural selection—including revised principles of biological multiplication, heredity, variation, and ontogenesis. If we want to gain a proper empirical understanding of these principles, we need to take organismic agency seriously. I will conclude with a brief and speculative outline of what an agential perspective on evolution may achieve, and what it may look like. |
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| responsibles | du Crest, Montjean, Virenque |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2023/05/26 13:55 UTC |
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