Resumo

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.

Palavras-chave : causal explanation; structural explanations; Modern Synthesis; population genetics; explanation in biology.