On the evolutionary significance of developmental constraints.
Item
-
Title
-
On the evolutionary significance of developmental constraints.
-
Identifier
-
AAI3074662
-
identifier
-
3074662
-
Creator
-
Menser, Michael Kent.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Fred Purnell
-
Date
-
2003
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Philosophy | Biology, General
-
Abstract
-
This dissertation seeks to understand the role of developmental processes in the production and modification of organismic form. Of special concern is the manner in which particular developmental mechanisms, or development in general, are said to inhibit the ability of the phenotype to respond to selective pressures or "bias" evolution along certain paths. While the existence of such "developmental constraints" (DC's) are widely acknowledged, their evolutionary significance is hotly debated. Some claim that such constraints "may hold the most powerful rein of all over possible evolutionary pathways," and, as such, set many of the parameters within which long-term evolutionary change ("macroevolution") takes place. (Gould and Lewontin 1979) Others grant that patterns of evolutionary change and stasis might indicate the presence of constraints, but natural selection is only temporarily impeded. As such, DC's are not of major evolutionary significance (Dawkins, Dennett, many in evo-devo). Over the course of six chapters I examine the emergence of the debate in Gould and Lewontin (1979), the entrenchment of the "received view" in Maynard Smith et al. (1985) and recent accounts and case studies. Throughout I am critical of adaptationist and "selectionist" accounts of constraints---including Dennett's (1995) and recent practitioners in evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). In turn, I offer a more "developmentalist" account that is pluralist insofar as I note the importance of developmental mechanisms alongside that of selection in its various modes (stabilizing, directional, internal). I call my view a "pluralist and organismic process structuralist" account. As part of my view I construct a taxonomy of the different kinds of constraints and their varying evolutionary effects by building upon and critiquing Gould (2002) and the work of K. Schwenk and G. Wagner.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
