Fitness y optimalidad

GINNOBILI, SANTIAGO; ROFFÉ, ARIEL

Congreso; II Congreso de la AIFIBI; 2015

AIFIBI

The goal of this presentation is to analyze the relations between optimality models and natural selection. We contend that these relationships can be divided into two kinds, as there are two kinds of natural selection explanations, which we call "historical" and "ahistorical". Historical explanations reveal how a given population acquires a trait which is adaptive in its environment, and involves many generations, variations, etc. Ahistorical ones, explain why, at a given moment, certain kinds of organisms have a greater reproductive success than others. We show that optimality models can play a role in determining the explanandum of historical selectionist phenomena, that is, they help us to recognize which traits are adaptive, and therefore need to be explained via a historical explanation. And, on the other hand, that optimality models sometimes allow us to determine part of the explanans of ahistorical explanations (particularly, the concept of fitness).