Abstract
Evolutionary theory is readily acknowledged to be stochastic in that it only enables one to make probabilistic predictions, for instance regarding changes in genotypic frequencies within given populations. However, the very origin of this stochastic character has been the focus of much philosophical debate. Is it due to an inherent indeterminism? Or rather to epistemic limitations? In this chapter, we review some of the major arguments that have been exchanged on the topic recently. We argue that settling the issue would require first to answer the question of the relative contribution of the different factors of evolution. This leads us to defend a more nuanced vision of the origin of the stochastic character of evolutionary theory.
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Notes
- 1.
Sometimes, the main actors in this debate about the theory of evolution use different terms. As a matter of fact, Rosenberg, Horan and Graves talk about the “statistical” character of evolutionary theory; Brandon and Carson often use the expression “indeterministic theory of evolution”. Following Beatty (1984), we have decided to use the term “stochastic” in order to underline the fact that evolutionary theory is a indeed theory which, given the same initial conditions, allows one to make predictions not about one unique outcome but about the probabilistic distribution of many such outcomes.
- 2.
For an introduction to the notion of “fitness”. Concerning the propensity interpretation of probability, see for instance Popper (1959).
- 3.
A “dispositional property” is a propensity that manifests itself when some conditions are met; thus, for instance, a vase is fragile in so far as, if it were to fall down on a hard surface, it would break. Dispositional properties are often opposed to “categorical” properties (e.g., the property for an object of being spherical, property that does depend on the state of this object in the real world and not on some conditional counterfactual proposition).
- 4.
A similar example at the intracellular level is the phenotypic variation, in isogenic populations in a homogeneous and constant environment or in an individual over time, that is due to stochastic fluctuations in gene expression (or noise) (See Merlin 2009).
- 5.
Lateral gene transfer, also called horizontal gene transfer, brings together a set of processes that allow an organism to exchange genetic material with another organism without being its descendant. This phenomenon is relatively frequent in some unicellular organisms (See Thomas Heams’ chapter on heredity, Chap. 3, this volume).
- 6.
In his article on natural selection and random genetic drift, Beatty argues that it is not interesting to ask the question of whether natural evolution is the result of selection or drift; rather, one has to ask which relative role is respectively of selection and of drift.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the audience of the “PhilBio Seminar” at the IHPST where an earlier version of this paper was presented in 2007. C.M. also acknowledges financial support from the Institut de France (grant from the Fondation Louis D).
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Malaterre, C., Merlin, F. (2015). The (In)Determinism of Biological Evolution: Where Does the Stochastic Character of Evolutionary Theory Come From?. In: Heams, T., Huneman, P., Lecointre, G., Silberstein, M. (eds) Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9014-7_17
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