Towards a More General Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection: A Manifesto
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this manifesto for a more comprehensive account of evolution by natural selection (ENS), we draw on Hull’s framework to expand the reach of Darwinian explanations. His approach is centered on the notions of interactor and replicator. He (and many others following him) defines the interactor in terms of cohesiveness. Often, such cohesiveness is cashed out by the vertical transmission to the next generation of the replicators that constitute the interactors. While we maintain the importance of the reciprocal influence of interactors and replicators (the differential extinction and proliferation of interactors leads to the differential extinction and proliferation of the replicators that produce them) central to Hull’s framework, we downplay the importance of the cohesiveness of interactors and eliminate any need for lineage formation among them. This suggested revision of the interactor synthesizes various recent contributions in the field, and it allows the interactor/replicator framework to tackle more complex entities. Our approach, however, stands in stark opposition to the classical approach to ENS centered on lineage formation. In this paper, we present our view and argue that it should replace the classical approach in structuring future work in evolutionary biology.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.017 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.012 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".