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Crítica (México, D.F.)
versión impresa ISSN 0011-1503
Resumen
DEULOFEU BATLLORI, Roger. Natural Selection and the Nature of Statistical Explanations. Crítica (Méx., D.F.) [online]. 2023, vol.55, n.165, pp.27-52. Epub 23-Jun-2024. ISSN 0011-1503. https://doi.org/10.22201/iifs.18704905e.2023.1465.
There is a widespread philosophical interpretation of natural selection in evolutionary theory: natural selection, like mutation, migration, and drift are seen as forces that propel the evolution of populations. Natural selection is thus a population level causal process. This account has been challenged by the Statistics, claiming that natural selection is not a population level cause but rather a statistical feature of a population. This paper examines the nature of the aforementioned ontological debate and the nature of statistical explanations given by population genetics. I claim that the Modern Synthesis provides good explanations of the changes in trait structure of populations without appealing to detailed causal information about the individual trajectories of the members of a population.
Palabras llave : causal explanation; structural explanations; Modern Synthesis; population genetics; explanation in biology.