Evolution by natural selection explains the tree of life and the complex adaptations found throughout nature. The power and versatility of evolutionary explanations have proved tempting to scientists outside of biology, but adapting evolutionary concepts to new domains has been challenging. Even within biology, there are many difficult questions and problem cases that face evolutionary theory.
Modelling Evolution offers a new, general account of evolution by natural selection that identifies the essential features of evolutionary models that transcend any particular discipline. Evolution by natural selection in its broad sense is the systemic advantage of a type, in contrast to the narrow definition using heritable variation in fitness. This account is explained, contextualised and applied to a variety of questions in both biology and the social sciences.
Offering an accessible and comprehensive account of evolution that is applicable both to biology and the broader social sciences, Modelling Evolution will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as biology, economics, sociology, history, and psychology.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Basic Evolutionary Concepts
Adaptation, fitness
And dandelions
Chance and basketball
Types and individuals
Selection
The original recipe
Systemic advantage of a type
Populations
Collections of individuals
Traits and types
Evolutionary Processes
In General
The Bias
Processes in Population Genetics
Selection as process
Selection v. Drift
Chance and Lightning
Discriminate v. Indiscriminate
Fixation in the population via drifty discriminate sampling
Expected and unexpected
Expecting the unexpected
Process vs. Outcome
The Evolutionary System
Bibliography
Chapter 2: The History of the Evolutionary Idea
Pausing for Context
Darwin
Variation and heredity
Selection
What evolves
Darwin’s Evolutionary Processes
Fisher
Evolution: Selection vs. Mutation
Fisher and fitness
Heredity, mutation, and genes
Adaptation and Heredity
Lewontin
The definition of evolution by natural selection
Segregation distortion and multilevel selection
Individual fitness and group fitness
Sober
Evolutionary forces
Fitness: Early Sober and Fisher compared
The Neodynamical account
Bibliography
Chapter 3: Evolutionary Forces
From Process to Force
The causal hierarchy
Functions of Time and Continuity
Causal variables vs. processes
Force Models
The three basic types of evolutionary force
Formalisms
Selection
Broad Selection
Heredity and Evolution by Natural Selection
Selection for traits and context dependence
Types of Drift
Bibliography
Chapter 4: Multilevel Selection
Individuality
The evolutionary transitions from individual to part
Fungi and biological individuals
Interactions
Kin Selection
Multilevel selection a la Lewontin
MLS 1, MLS 2, and contextual analysis
Contextual analysis and mus muscula
Three kinds of multilevel evolutionary models
More distinctions? Yes indeed
Multilevel Fitness models
Multilevel Force models
Multilevel Trait models
Bibliography
Chapter 5: Cultural Evolution
Challenges
The specter of biologism
The problem with replicators
Cultural Traits
Reproduction in Cultural Evolution
Processes
Boyd and Richerson
Looking at a model: farming practices
Lamarck and Technological Evolution
Novelty and guided variation (in evolutionary economics)
Application
This could be important
For example in sociology
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Multilevel Social Evolution
Concepts
Human groups and cultural individuals
Altruism in human societies
An extended illustration
Turchin on the historical evolution of egalitarianism
Critique
An alternative, multilevel approach
A model of multilevel cultural macroevolution
Developing the schema
Evaluating and adjusting
Specifying and Analysing
Bibliography
Biography
Eugene Earnshaw teaches History of Western Civilization, Sociology and Critical Thinking in the Liberal Arts program, Seneca College, Toronto, Canada
