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Henry C. Plotkin (editor) - The Role of behavior in evolution

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These six original essays focus on a potentially important aspect of evolutionary biology, the possible causal role of phenotypic behavior in evolution. Balancing theory with actual or potential empiricism, they provide the first full examination of this topic. Plotkins opening chapter outlines the conceptual minefields that the contributors attempt to negotiate: What is an adequate theory of evolution? What is behavior and is it possible to maintain a distinction between behavior and other attributes of the phenotype? is all, or only a special subset, of behavior both a cause and a consequence of evolution? And what do the theoretical issues mean in empirical terms? He concludes that any attempt to understand the causal role of behavior in evolution requires a more complicated theoretical structure than that of orthodox neoDarwinism, a conceptualization of behavior as a distinctive set of phenotypic attributes, and the accumulation of more data. David L. Hull (Northwestern University) provides an alternative account of the evolutionary process by developing a hierarchy of replicators-interactors-lineages to replace the traditional one of genes-organisms-species. Robert N. Brandon (Duke University) also posits hierarchy as an appropriate architecture for the theoretical complexity needed to support an examination of the role of behavior in evolution. F. J. Odling-Smee (Brunei University) outlines a theoretical structure to encompass the behavior of phenotypes, concentrating on the unrestricted definition of behavior (everything that an animal does). The remaining chapters are as much concerned with evidence as with theory. Plotkin concentrates on a restricted definition of behavior (behavior that is a product of choosing intelligence), reviewing our empirical knowledge of how learning might influence evolution. R.I.M. Dunbar (University College, London) uses empirical studies of vertebrate social behavior to deal with the question of how the social systems, especially of primates, might have a causal role in species evolution. Henry C. Plotkin is Lecturer at the University College, London. A Bradford Book.

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title The Role of Behavior in Evolution author Plotkin H C - photo 1

title:The Role of Behavior in Evolution
author:Plotkin, H. C.
publisher:MIT Press
isbn10 | asin:0262161079
print isbn13:9780262161077
ebook isbn13:9780585358406
language:English
subjectBehavior evolution, Evolution (Biology)
publication date:1988
lcc:QH371.R63 1988eb
ddc:575.01
subject:Behavior evolution, Evolution (Biology)
Page iii
The Role of Behavior in Evolution
Edited by H. C. Plotkin
Page iv 1988 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved - photo 2
Page iv
1988 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Palatino by Asco Trade Typesetting Ltd. in Hong Kong and printed and bound by Halliday Lithograph in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Role of Behavior in Evolution.
Includes indexes.
1. Behavior evolution. 2. Evolution. I. Plotkin, H. C. (Henry C.)
QH371.R63 1988 575.01 87-29693
ISBN 0-262-16107-9
Page v
Contents
Preface
vii
Chapter 1
Behavior and Evolution
H. C. Plotkin
1
Chapter 2
Interactors versus Vehicles
David L. Hull
19
Chapter 3
The Levels of Selection: A Hierarchy of Interactors
Robert N. Brandon
51
Chapter 4
Niche-Constructing Phenotypes
F. J. Odling-Smee
73
Chapter 5
Learning and Evolution
H. C. Plotkin
133
Chapter 6
The Evolutionary Implications of Social Behavior
R. I. M. Dunbar
165
List of Contributors
189
Name Index
191
Subject Index
195

Page vii
Preface
Biologists, by and large, have paid too little attention to the possible causal role of behavior in the process of evolution. What follows is intended as a remedy to this deficiency in the literature on evolutionary theory.
The idea that what a phenotype does may in some way be causal in the evolution of the population to which it belongs strikes a slightly heterodox chord among orthodox evolutionists. This is partly because many of the chief proponents of such an idea in the past (including Waddington, Piaget, and Lorenz), as important as they have all been to their own specialist areas of biology, have always been peripheral to mainstream evolutionary theory; and partly because some of the supporters of the position have been Lamarckians, or vitalists, or both. They make uncomfortable bedfellows when one is trying to convince colleagues whose theoretical views are usually somewhere to the center of center. Of course, it hasn't always been the case that elevating individual behavior to a cause rather than just an effect of evolution is something that has been pursued only by those peripheral to the development of evolutionary theory or by cranks, as the first chapter shows. One of the founders of "the synthesis" consistently, if rather thinly, expounded on the importance of behavior to evolution. Recently, an excellent general text on animal behaviorThe Study of Animal Behavior, by F. Huntingford (London: Chapman and Hall, 1984)devoted a whole chapter to "the role of behavior in the evolutionary process." And scattered through the literature there are attempts to redress the balance in behavioral biology, where "behavioral ecologists are usually concerned with the way the behavior of animalsas individuals or as groupsmay have evolved, with little reference to the consequences such behavior may have for the population dynamics" (M. P. Hassell and R. M. May, "From Individual Behavior to Population Dynamics," in Behavioral Ecology: Ecological Consequences of Adaptive Behavior, ed. R. M. Sibley and R. H. Smith [Oxford: Blackwell, 1985]). But as far as I know, this is the first book to be devoted entirely to this matter. The aims, simply stated, are to explore the rudimentary theoretical requirements for such an approach to evolutionary theory and to consider a very limited number of its empirical
Page viii
implications. My concern has been to balance the emphasis on theory that is necessary at this stage with actual or potential empiricism.
The shape of the book is explained in chapter 1, which also outlines some of the conceptual minefields that we, and others before us, have tried to negotiate. What is an adequate theory of evolution? What is behavior, and is it possible to maintain a distinction between behavior and other attributes of the phenotype? Is all, or only some special subset, of behavior both a cause and a consequence of evolution? And what does it all mean in empirical terms? I urge the reader to begin with chapter 1I have deliberately written it as an "easy read" rather than an exhaustive survey, but it does establish a context for the chapters that follow.
Each chapter was sent for review to independent authorities. I am grateful to Richard Burian, Morris Gosling, Timothy Johnston, Aubrey Manning, Stanley Salthe, Robert Seyfarth, L. B. Slobodkin, and Elliott Sober, who generously gave of their time in this matter. If the book has errors, they are certainly not the fault of these reviewers. Their comments served only to improve the chapters. Robin Dunbar and John Odling-Smee were kind enough to comment on chapter 1. My thanks also to an anonymous reviewer; to Robert Bolick of The MIT Press; and to Margaret Boden, who first put me in mind of The MIT Press as a suitable publisher for this work. Above all, I am grateful to my co-authors, who patiently endured a lengthy review process when they might have published their contributions elsewhere.
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