Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin: The Dialectical Biologist

1988 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-284
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Simon ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Richard Levins

Acercamiento a la ciencia desde la asimetría, la irregularidad y la subversión

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Redacción CEIICH
Keyword(s):  
Richard Levins

<p class="p1">Entrevista a Richard Levins, un hombre que nunca aceptó las divisiones entre las disciplinas, ni entre la ciencia y otras actividades del ser humano, como la política, por ejemplo.</p>

The Dialectical Biologist. Richard Levins , Richard Lewontin

Isis ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 614-615
Author(s):  
Allan Larson
Keyword(s):  
Richard Levins

Engineering Model Independence

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-229
Author(s):  
Zachary Pirtle ◽  
Jay Odenbaugh ◽  
Andrew Hamilton ◽  
Zoe Szajnfarber ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Levels Of Detail ◽  
Levee Failure ◽  
Model Complex ◽  
Richard Levins ◽  
Model Independence ◽  
Epistemic Goals ◽  
Modeling Strategy

According to population biologist Richard Levins, every discipline has a “strategy of model building,” which involves implicit assumptions about epistemic goals and the types of abstractions and modeling approaches used. We will offer suggestions about how to model complex systems based upon a strategy focusing on independence in modeling. While there are many possible and desirable modeling strategies, we will contrast a model-independence-focused strategy with the more common modeling strategy of adding increasing levels of detail to a model. Levins calls the latter approach a ‘brute force’ strategy of modeling, which can encounter problems as it attempts to add increasing details and predictive precision. In contrast, a model-independence-focused strategy, which we call a ‘pluralistic strategy,’ draws off of Levins’s use of an assemblage of multiple, simple and—critically—independent models of ecological systems in order to do predictive and explanatory analysis. We use the example of model analysis of levee failure during Hurricane Katrina to show what a pluralistic strategy looks like in engineering. Depending on one’s strategy, one can deliberately engineer the set of available models in order to have more independent and complementary models that will be more likely to be accurate. We offer advice on ways of making models independent as well as a set of epistemic goals for model development that different models can emphasize.

La agroecología como conocimiento necesario para transformar la mutua determinación sociedad–naturaleza

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (14) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Lev Jardón Barbolla
Keyword(s):  
Richard Levins ◽  
Siglo Xx

Los agroecosistemas son, en principio, un tipo particular de ecosistemas orientados a la producción —a partir de la tierra— de bienes materiales útiles a los seres humanos. Su estudio dista de ser simple. Consideremos que para la ecología, incluso al margen de los agroecosistemas, el estudio de los ecosistemas y de los diferentes niveles de organización de las comunidades bióticas y su interacción con el medio abiótico planteaba ya un reto tal que en los años sesenta del siglo XX el ecólogo Richard Levins (1966) hablaba ya de la necesidad de un nuevo programa de investigación al que Levins y Lewontin nombraron <em>biología de poblaciones</em> (Levins 2004; Lewontin 2004).

scholarly journals On reciprocal causation in the evolutionary process

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik I. Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Ernst Mayr ◽  
Extended Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Reciprocal Causation ◽  
Constructive Development ◽  
Richard Levins ◽  
Dynamic Feedbacks

AbstractRecent calls for a revision of standard evolutionary theory (SET) are based in part on arguments about the reciprocal causation. Reciprocal causation means that cause-effect relationships are obscured, as a cause could later become an effect andvice versa. Such dynamic cause-effect relationships raise questions about the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes, as originally formulated by Ernst Mayr. They have also motivated some biologists and philosophers to argue for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). The EES will supposedly expand the scope of the Modern Synthesis (MS) and Standard Evolutionary Theory (SET), which has been characterized as gene-centred, relying primarily on natural selection and largely neglecting reciprocal causation. I critically examine these claims, with a special focus on the last conjecture and conclude – on the contrary– that reciprocal causation has long been recognized as important both in SET and in the MS tradition, although it remains underexplored. Numerous empirical examples of reciprocal causation in the form of positive and negative feedbacks are now well known from both natural and laboratory systems. Reciprocal causation have also been explicitly incorporated in mathematical models of coevolutionary arms races, frequency-dependent selection, eco-evolutionary dynamics and sexual selection. Such dynamic feedbacks were already recognized by Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, well before the recent call for an EES. Reciprocal causation and dynamic feedbacks is one of the few contributions of dialectical thinking and Marxist philosophy in evolutionary theory, and should be recognized as such. I discuss some promising empirical and analytical tools to study reciprocal causation and the implications for the EES. While reciprocal causation have helped us to understand many evolutionary processes, I caution against uncritical extension of dialectics towards heredity and constructive development, particularly if such extensions involves attempts to restore Lamarckian or “soft inheritance”.

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