dc.contributor.author | Currie, AM | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2019-02-06T15:32:37Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2019-04-03 | |
dc.description.abstract | Both paleobiology and investigations of ‘major evolutionary transitions’ are intimately
concerned with the macroevolutionary shape of life. It is surprising, then, how little
paleontological perspectives and evidence inform studies of major transitions. I argue that this
disconnect is partially justified because paleobiological investigation is typically ‘phenomena-led’,
while investigations of major transitions (at least as commonly understood) are ‘theory-led’. The
distinction turns on evidential relevance: in the former case, evidence is relevant in virtue of its
relationship to some phenomena or hypotheses that concern those phenomena; in the latter,
evidence is relevant in virtue of providing insights into, or tests of, an abstract body of theory.
Because paleobiological data is by-and-large irrelevant to the theory which underwrites the
traditional conception of major transitions, it is of limited use to that research program. I suggest
that although the traditional conception of major transitions is neither ad-hoc or problematically
incomplete, its promise of providing unificatory explanations of the transitions is unlikely to be
kept. Further, examining paleobiological investigations of mass extinctions and organogenesis, I
further argue that (1) whether or not transitions in paleobiology count as ‘major’ turns on how
we conceive of major transitions (that is, the notion is sensitive to investigative context); (2)
although major transitions potentially have a unified theoretical basis, recent developments
suggest that investigations are becoming increasingly phenomena-led; (3) adopting phenomenaled investigations maximizes the evidence available to paleobiologists. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Templeton World Charity Foundation | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Published online 03 April 2019. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1007/s10539-019-9676-0 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/35762 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Springer | en_GB |
dc.rights | © The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. | |
dc.title | Mass Extinctions as Major Transitions | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2019-02-06T15:32:37Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0169-3867 | |
dc.description | This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | Biology and Philosophy | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2018-07-07 | |
rioxxterms.version | AM | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2018-07-07 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2019-02-05T13:03:01Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | AM | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2019-05-10T08:21:30Z | |
refterms.panel | C | en_GB |