Units of Selection

'Unit of selection' is a polysemic expression, meaning interactor, replicator/reproducer or manifestor of adaptation/type-1 agent in today's biological research.

Javier Suárez (Author), Elisabeth A. Lloyd (Author)

9781009449236, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 September 2023

96 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 1.2 cm, 0.29 kg

'This volume disambiguates unit of selection, which is a term that is often used loosely and confusingly: a laudable if somewhat modest goal … My personal take is that once we understand the process of natural selection, what its units are is a matter of definition. Not unimportant and requiring stipulation, but arbitrary. This book, reading as an extended paper in philosophy of biology, assembles many arguments to show that it is not arbitrary. And surely it is worth reading, even if you disagree.' W. Ford Doolittle, The Quarterly Review of Biology

This Element introduces the Disambiguating Project (DP) about the units of selection. By DP, the authors mean the thesis that the expression 'units of selection' refers to at least three non-co-extensional functional concepts: interactor, replicator/reproducer/reconstitutor, and manifestor of adaptation/type-1 agent. They present each concept and demonstrate the necessity of their isolation, because each of them responds to a distinct question about the units of selection, and these distinct questions are not always posed in combination in today's biological research. They further apply the framework to the analysis of the debates concerning the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality (ETI) and argue that the DP interprets the ETI better than any project rejecting the three meanings of 'units of selection.' Thus, they claim that the differentiation between at least these three functional concepts is fundamental to clarify some conceptual confusions in biology, which rest on the conflation of these distinct meanings.

Introduction
1. What is a Unit of Selection and How Can We Identify It? The Disambiguating and the Unitary Projects
2. How the Expression 'Units of Selection' Acquired Its Polysemic Meaning or Why the Disambiguating Project Started
3. Two Sources of Misunderstanding in Past and Today's Debates about Units
4. The Framework of the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality: A Challenge to the Disambiguating Project
Conclusion
Glossary
References.

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP]