One equation to rule them all: a philosophical analysis of the Price equation

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• 作者：Victor J. Luque
• 关键词：Price equation ; Generalization ; sketch ; Abstractness ; Unification ; Invariance
• 刊名：Biology & Philosophy
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：32
• 期：1
• 页码：97-125
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Philosophy of Biology; Evolutionary Biology;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1572-8404
• 卷排序：32

文摘

This paper provides a philosophical analysis of the Price equation and its role in evolutionary theory. Traditional models in population genetics postulate simplifying assumptions in order to make the models mathematically tractable. On the contrary, the Price equation implies a very specific way of theorizing, starting with assumptions that we think are true and then deriving from them the mathematical rules of the system. I argue that the Price equation is a generalization-sketch, whose main purpose is to provide a unifying framework for researchers, helping them to develop specific models. The Price equation plays this role because, like other scientific principles, shows features as abstractness, unification and invariance. By underwriting this special role for the Price equation some recent disputes about it could be diverted.