The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory: No “No Hidden Variables Proof” But no Room For Determinism Either | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core (original) (raw)

Abstract

In this paper we first briefly review Bell's (1964, 1966) Theorem to see how it invalidates any deterministic “hidden variable” account of the apparent indeterminacy of quantum mechanics (QM). Then we show that quantum uncertainty, at the level of DNA mutations, can “percolate” up to have major populational effects. Interesting as this point may be it does not show any autonomous indeterminism of the evolutionary process. In the next two sections we investigate drift and natural selection as the locus of autonomous biological indeterminacy. Here we conclude that the population-level indeterminacy of natural selection and drift are ultimately based on the assumption of a fundamental indeterminacy at the level of the lives and deaths of individual organisms. The following section examines this assumption and defends it from the determinists' attack. Then we show that, even if one rejects the assumption, there is still an important reason why one might think evolutionary theory (ET) is autonomously indeterministic. In the concluding section we contrast the arguments we have mounted against a deterministic hidden variable account of ET with the proof of the impossibility of such an account of QM.

References

Albert, D. Z. (1992), Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Beatty, J., and Finsen, S. (1989), “Rethinking The Propensity Interpretation”, in Ruse, M. (ed.), What the Philosophy of Biology Is: Essays for David Hull. Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer, pp. 17–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Bell, J. S. (1966), “On the Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics”, Reviews of Modern Physics 38:447–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Bever, J. D. (1994), “Feedback Between Plants and Their Soil Communities in an Old Field Community”, Ecology 75:1965–1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Bohm, D. (1951), Quantum Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar

Brandon, R. N. (1978), “Adaptation and Evolutionary Theory”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 9:181–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Brandon, R. N. (1990), Adaptation and Environment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Brandon, R. N. (1996), Concepts and Methods in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Brandon, R. N., and Beatty, J. (1984), “The Propensity Interpretation of ‘Fitness’: No Interpretation is no Substitute”, Philosophy of Science 51:342–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Burian, R. (1983), “Adaptation”, in Grene, M. (ed.), Dimensions of Darwinism. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 287–314.Google Scholar

Clauser, J. F., and Shimony, A. (1978), “Bell's Theorem: Experimental Tests and Implications”, Reports on Progress in Physics 41:1881–1927.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Cushing, J. T. (1989), “A Background Essay”, In Cushing and McMullin (1989), pp. 1–24.Google Scholar

Cushing, J. T. and McMullin, E. (1989), Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory: Reflections on Bell's Theorem: Studies in Science and the Humanities from the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, volume 2. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar

Galton, F. (1889), Natural Inheritance, London and New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar

Gillespie, J. H. (1977), “Natural Selection for Variances in Offspring Number: A New Evolutionary Principle”, American Naturalist 111:1010–1014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Horan, B. (1994), “The Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory”, Philosophy of Science 61:76–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Hughes, R. I. G. (1989) The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Kauffman, S. A. (1993), The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Kitcher, P. (1989), “Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World”, In Kitcher and Salmon (1989), pp. 410–505.Google Scholar

Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W. C. (eds.) (1989), Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar

Mermin, N. D. (1989), “Can You Help Your Team Tonight by Watching on TV? More Experimental Metaphysics from Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen”, In Cushing and McMullin (1989), pp. 38–59.Google Scholar

Mills, S., and Beatty, J. (1979), “The Propensity Interpretation of Fitness”, Philosophy of Science 46:263–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Richardson, R. C., and Burian, R. M. (1992), “A Defense of the Propensity Interpretation of Fitness”, in Hull, D., Forbes, M. and Okruhlik, K. (eds.), PSA 1992, Vol. 2. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar

Rosenberg, A. (1985), The Structure of Biological Science. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Rosenberg, A. (1988), “Is the Theory of Natural Selection a Statistical Theory?”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy (Suppl.) 14:187–207.Google Scholar

Rosenberg, A. (1994), Instrumental Biology or the Disunity of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

Roughgarden, J. (1979), Theory of Population Genetics and Evolutionary Theory: An Introduction. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar

Salmon, W. (1989), “Four Decades of Scientific Explanation”, In Kitcher and Salmon (1989), pp. 3–219.Google Scholar

Schilpp, P. A. (ed.) (1949), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar

Sober, E. (1984), The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

Weinberg, S. (1992), Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar