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William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce were instrumental in founding functional psychology, which draws heavily from Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. This theory suggests that individual traits, including behaviors, are adapted to their environments through natural selection. At the heart of functionalism is the concept of adaptation, meaning that a trait enhances an individual's chances of survival and reproduction.
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Natural selection influences the frequencies of particular alleles and phenotypes within populations in several different ways. Primarily, natural selection can be directional, stabilizing, or disruptive. Directional selection favors one extreme trait and shifts the population towards that phenotype while selecting against individuals displaying alternate traits. Stabilizing selection favors an intermediate trait with a narrow range of variation. Deviation from the optimal phenotype towards an...
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Function, persistence, and selection: Generalizing the selected-effect account of function adequately.

Pierrick Bourrat1

  • 1Macquarie University, Department of Philosophy, North Ryde, NSW, 2109, Australia; The University of Sydney, Department of Philosophy & Charles Perkins Centre, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
|September 26, 2021
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The selected effect account of function is challenged by its generalization to non-reproductive sorting processes. This paper argues that evolutionarily uninteresting selection yields uninteresting function, rather than no function at all.

Keywords:
AdaptationFunctionPersistenceSelected effectsSelection

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Area of Science:

  • Philosophy of Science
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Philosophy of Biology

Background:

  • The selected effect account defines trait function by its evolutionary selection history.
  • Justin Garson recently generalized this account to include non-reproductive sorting processes.
  • This generalization leads to counterintuitive function attributions, such as rocks resisting erosion.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate Justin Garson's argument against ascribing function in non-reproductive sorting processes.
  • To propose an alternative framework for understanding function in generalized selection contexts.
  • To determine when selection processes yield interesting versus uninteresting forms of function.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of Garson's argument concerning population formation in selection processes.
  • Development of a conceptual distinction between evolutionarily interesting and uninteresting selection.
  • Philosophical argumentation regarding the concept of function in biology.

Main Results:

  • Garson's argument for withholding function in sorting processes is found to be wanting.
  • Selection processes that are evolutionarily uninteresting yield a less significant, but still valid, form of function.
  • The concept of function need not be withheld even in cases of simple sorting.

Conclusions:

  • The generalized selected effect account can be maintained for non-reproductive sorting processes.
  • The evolutionary significance of a selection process determines the 'interest level' of the resulting function.
  • Distinguishing between evolutionarily interesting and uninteresting selection offers a more nuanced understanding of biological function.