Natural Selection as a Cause: Probability, Chance, and Selective Biases

Françoise Longy (1)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

To what do "natural selection" and "genetic drift" refer? To causes, as is usually thought? Or to mere statistical effects? The question arises because assessing causes faces specific difficulties when stochastic processes are concerned. In this paper, I establish that a central anti-causalist argument from Matthen and Ariew (2002) does not work, because selection doesn't depend on chance (or unknown factors) in the manner that current analogies with games of chance suggest. I then explain how a clear understanding of how chance and biases are involved in natural selection supports one form of causalism, while every other form has indeed to be rejected.

Mots clés: Natural selection; genetic drift; probability; selective factor; chance; biased chance; cause of evolution; interpretation of the theory of evolution

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Françoise Longy. Natural Selection as a Cause: Probability, Chance, and Selective Biases. Philosophy of Science Association 21st Biennial Meeting: PSA 2008, Nov 2008, Pittsburgh, United States. ⟨halshs-00791043⟩