Journal ArticleDOI
Cause and Effect in Biology Revisited: Is Mayr's Proximate-Ultimate Dichotomy Still Useful?
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TLDR
It is argued that Mayr’s formulation has acted to stabilize the dominant evolutionary paradigm against change but may now hamper progress in the biological sciences.Abstract:
Fifty years ago, Ernst Mayr published a hugely influential paper on the nature of causation in biology, in which he distinguished between proximate and ultimate causes. Mayr equated proximate causation with immediate factors (for example, physiology) and ultimate causation with evolutionary explanations (for example, natural selection). He argued that proximate and ultimate causes addressed different questions and were not alternatives. Mayr's account of causation remains widely accepted today, with both positive and negative ramifications. Several current debates in biology (for example, over evolution and development, niche construction, cooperation, and the evolution of language) are linked by a common axis of acceptance/rejection of Mayr's model of causation. We argue that Mayr's formulation has acted to stabilize the dominant evolutionary paradigm against change but may now hamper progress in the biological sciences.read more
Citations
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疟原虫var基因转换速率变化导致抗原变异[英]／Paul H, Robert P, Christodoulou Z, et al//Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
TL;DR: PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、树突状组胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作�ly.
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Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. In: Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Editor, Oxford University Press (2003) Pp. xi+794. Price $50.00 paper.
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The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions.
Kevin N. Laland,Tobias Uller,Tobias Uller,Marcus W. Feldman,Kim Sterelny,Kim Sterelny,Gerd B. Müller,Armin P. Moczek,Eva Jablonka,John Odling-Smee +9 more
TL;DR: The structure, core assumptions and novel predictions of the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) are spelled out, and it is shown how it can be deployed to stimulate and advance research in those fields that study or use evolutionary biology.
Journal ArticleDOI
Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World
Jianguo Liu,Vanessa Hull,Mateus Batistella,Ruth DeFries,Thomas Dietz,Feng Fu,Thomas W. Hertel,R. Cesar Izaurralde,Eric F. Lambin,Shuxin Li,Luiz Antonio Martinelli,William J. McConnell,Emilio F. Moran,Rosamond L. Naylor,Zhiyun Ouyang,Karen R. Polenske,Anette Reenberg,Gilberto de Miranda Rocha,Cynthia S. Simmons,Peter H. Verburg,Peter M. Vitousek,Fusuo Zhang,Chunquan Zhu +22 more
TL;DR: In this article, an integrated framework based on telecoupling, an umbrella concept that refers to socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances, is proposed to understand and integrate various distant interactions better.
Journal ArticleDOI
Animal personality and state–behaviour feedbacks: a review and guide for empiricists
Andrew Sih,Kimberley J. Mathot,Maria Moiron,Pierre-Olivier Montiglio,Max Wolf,Niels Jeroen Dingemanse +5 more
TL;DR: The role of feedbacks in recent models of adaptive personalities, and guidelines for empirical testing of model assumptions and predictions are provided, to provide a roadmap for including state-behaviour Feedbacks in behavioural ecology research.
References
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疟原虫var基因转换速率变化导致抗原变异[英]／Paul H, Robert P, Christodoulou Z, et al//Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
TL;DR: PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、树突状组胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作�ly.
Journal ArticleDOI
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
Ann S. Ferebee,Noam Chomsky +1 more
TL;DR: Methodological preliminaries of generative grammars as theories of linguistic competence; theory of performance; organization of a generative grammar; justification of grammar; descriptive and explanatory theories; evaluation procedures; linguistic theory and language learning.
Book
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
TL;DR: Generative grammars as theories of linguistic competence as discussed by the authors have been used as a theory of performance for language learning. But they have not yet been applied to the problem of language modeling.
Book
The Adapted mind : evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture
TL;DR: The Adapted Mind as discussed by the authors explores evolutionary psychology and its implications for a new view of culture, in which the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture.