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Driftability and niche construction
Niche construction is the process of organisms changing themselves or their environment—or their relationship with their environment—in ways that...
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Explanatory gaps in evolutionary theory
Proponents of the extended evolutionary synthesis have argued that there are explanatory gaps in evolutionary biology that cannot be bridged by...
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The concepts and origins of cell mortality
Organismal death is foundational to the evolution of life, and many biological concepts such as natural selection and life history strategy are so...
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The proximate-ultimate distinction and the active role of the organism in evolution
The validity and utility of the proximate-ultimate distinction in biology have recently been under debate. Opponents of the distinction argue that it...
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The Nature of Programmed Cell Death
In multicellular organisms, cells are frequently programmed to die. This makes good sense: cells that fail to, or are no longer playing important...
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The Organism-Centered Approach to Cultural Evolution
In this paper, we distinguish two different approaches to cultural evolution. One approach is meme-centered, the other organism-centered. We argue...
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Driftability
In this paper, I argue (contra some recent philosophical work) that an objective distinction between natural selection and drift can be drawn. I draw...
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Culture in humans and other animals
The study of animal culture is a flourishing field, with culture being recorded in a wide range of taxa, including non-human primates, birds,...
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How Human Nature Can Inform Human Enhancement: a Commentary on Tim Lewens's Human Nature: the Very Idea
In this commentary on Lewens (2012), I argue that although his criticisms of Machery's (2008) conception of human nature are sound, I disagree with...
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Why reciprocal altruism is not a kind of group selection
Reciprocal altruism was originally formulated in terms of individual selection and most theorists continue to view it in this way. However, this...
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The Fundamental Constraint on the evolution of culture
This paper argues that there is a general constraint on the evolution of culture. This constraint – what I am calling the Fundamental Constraint –...