by Andrew Buskell
In his book Consilience, E.O. Wilson described science as he saw it: one moving ever closer to shared agreement on theories, principles, concepts, and standards of evidence. For Wilson, the indications that science was unifying were obvious; “disciplinary boundaries within the natural sciences are disappearing, to be replaced by shifting hybrid domains in which consilience
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by Axel Constant & Karl J Friston
The principle of evolution by natural selection provides a solid conceptual tool to understand adaptive design. It operates like a ratchet, to retain and build upon functional variation. Pull down, ‘click’! Variation. Hold tight, lock it! Retention and differential fitness. Push up! Inheritance, and ratchet your way up towards peaks in the adaptive landscape. As
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by Mark M Tanaka
In our paper published recently in American Naturalist, we used mathematical models to help us understand how positive niche construction can be maintained. Many animals, plants and other organisms engage in niche construction, that is, they modify the environment and the subsequent selective pressures to which they are exposed. Positive niche construction occurs when organisms
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