The Major Metaphors of Evolution

This book presents a unified evolutionary framework based on three sets of metaphors that will help to consolidate discussions on evolutionary transitions.

Evolution is the unifying principle of life, making identifying ways to apply evolutionary principles to tackle existence-threatening crises such as climate change crucial. A more cohesive evolutionary framework will further the discussions in this regard and also accelerate the process itself.

This book lays out a framework based on three dualistic classes of metaphors - time, space, and conflict resolution. Evolutionary transitions theory shows how metaphors can help us understand selective diversification, as Darwin described with his "tree of life". Moreover, the recently proposed Stockholm paradigm demonstrates how metaphors can help shed light on the emergence of complex ecosystems that Darwin highlighted with his "tangled bank" metaphor. Taken together, these ideas offer proactive measures for coping with existential crises for humanity, such as climate change.

The book will appeal to biologists, philosophers and historians alike.

Auteur

Sal Agosta is an Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University. He received a PhD in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007, after which he was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto followed by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship from Wilkes University. Sal is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist whose work ranges from field and laboratory studies of animal-plant interactions in both temperate and tropical habitats to theoretical studies of foundational concepts in ecology and evolution. His current research focuses on the physiological ecology of plant-feeding insects, particularly in the context of biological invasions and climate change.

Daniel R Brooks is Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Science) and Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Stockholm University and the University of Nebraska. He has been a Senior Visiting Fellow of the Collegium Budapest, Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study,Institute of Advanced Studies, Köszeg, and the Hungarian National Institute of Ecology. Dan is an evolutionary biologist whose more than 375 scientific publications, including half a dozen books, ranges from field studies of the evolution of host-pathogen systems in tropical wildlands to foundational studies of evolutionary theory. His current focus is integrating evolutionary principles into developing proactive public policy for coping with global climate change, with an emphasis on the emerging disease crisis.

Texte du rabat

This book presents a unified evolutionary framework based on three sets of metaphors that will help to consolidate discussions on evolutionary transitions.

Evolution is the unifying principle of life, making identifying ways to apply evolutionary principles to tackle existence-threatening crises such as climate change crucial. A more cohesive evolutionary framework will further the discussions in this regard and also accelerate the process itself.

This book lays out a framework based on three dualistic classes of metaphors time, space, and conflict resolution. Evolutionary transitions theory shows how metaphors can help us understand selective diversification, as Darwin described with his tree of life. Moreover, the recently proposed Stockholm paradigm demonstrates how metaphors can help shed light on the emergence of complex ecosystems that Darwin highlighted with his tangled bank metaphor. Taken together, these ideas offer proactive measures for coping with existential crises for humanity, such as climate change.

The book will appeal to biologists, philosophers and historians alike.

Contenu
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Context
Chapter 2. A Talking BookAbstract2.1. We are a Fearful Species2.1.1. The Complexity Paradox2.2. We are a Story-telling Species2.2.1. A Story within a Story2.3. We are a Dreaming Species2.4. SummaryReferences
Chapter 3. Setting the StageAbstract3.1. 1859: The Origin Appears3.1.1. The Nature of the Organism3.1.2. The Nature of the Organism and Darwin's Necessary Misfit3.1.3. Natural Selection Emerges from Darwin's Necessary Misfit and the Natureof the Conditions3.1.4. What Happens if the Conditions Change?3.1.5. Natural Selection as a Blunt Instrument: Survival of the Adequate orSurvival of the Fittest Collective3.2. Darwinian Evolution: The Law of the Conditions of Existence3.3. Two Powerful Visual Metaphors3.3.1. The Tree of Life3.3.2. The Entangled Bank3.4. What was Wrong with Darwinism?3.4.1. Naturalism3.4.2. Modernism3.4.3. Romanticism3.5. Organized Resistance3.5.1. The Geographers3.5.2. The Orthogeneticists3.5.3. The Neo-Lamarckians3.5.4. The Neo-Darwinians and the Rise of "Survival of the Fittest"3.6 SummaryReferences
Chapter 4. Neo-Darwinism, Expansion and Consolidation (1900-1980)4.1. Low Hanging Fruit: The Geographers4.1.1. Speciation by Reinforcement4.1.2. Peripatric Speciation plus Reinforcement4.1.3. Changing the Nature of Species4.1.4. Yes, but4.2. The Big Enchilada: Pan-adaptationism4.2.1. Mathematics4.2.2. Yes, but4.3. Co-opting Orthogenetic Adaptationism4.4. Act 2: The Hardened Synthesis (1959-1980)4.4.1. Absorbing the Final Holdout: Co-opting Coevolution4.5. Reinforcing the Cornerstones4.5.1. Speciation4.5.2. Species4.5.3. Adaptationism and the Hardened Synthesis4.6. The Hardened Synthesis and Ecology: The Rise of Evolutionary Ecology4.6.1. Geography as a Proxy for History4.6.2. Geography as a Means of Eliminating the Confounding Effects of History4.7. The Hardened Synthesis and Ethology: Behavioral Ecology Emerges4.8. Yeah, but4.8.1. Genetic Drift and Shifting Balance4.8.2. Epigenetic Landscapes4.9. SummaryReferences
Chapter 5. Criticism, Resistance, a Glimmer of HopeAbstract5.1. The Return of History5.1.1. The Phylogenetics Revolution5.1.2. Speciation5.1.3. Species5.1.4. The Orthogeneticists Return: Co-speciation5.1.5. Adaptationism Questioned5.1.6. The Return of History to Comparative Biology5.2. Evolution meets Complex Systems Analysis5.2.1. A Complex Systems View of the Nature of the Organism5.2.2. A Complex Systems View of Microevolution and Macroevolution5.2.3. Niches and Niche Construction5.3. Extending the Hardened Synthesis5.3.1. Renewed Interest in Galtonian Comparative Biology5.3.2. Evolutionary Ecology5.4. Why does the Hardened Synthesis Still Exist, and is even being Extended?5.5. Back to the Future5.5.1. Eldredge and Salthe (1984)5.5.2. Brooks and Wiley (1986, 1988)5.5.3. Maynard Smith and Szathmary (1995)5.6. SummaryReferences
Chapter 6. Buying TimeAbstract</div&...