Optimality, fitness, and the principle of selection

ROFFÉ, ARIEL; GINNOBILI, SANTIAGO

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires

Encuentro; Meeting on Alex Rosenberg; 2015

UNTREF

Proponents of the so called "Propensity interpretation of fitness" (Brandon, 1978; Mills & Beatty, 1979; Millstein, 2014) argue that fitness must be directly operationalizable via optimality models. In this presentation we argue that this is not true, at least not for models coming from Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT). We will present two arguments against this position, one "empirical" and another "conceptual", and then we draw some consequences as to the way of formulating the "Principle of Natural Selection" (PNS).