<特集：モデル> 進化生物学におけるモデルと多元論

Abstract

Evolutionary biologists, together with philosophers of biology, build two different, but mathematically equivalent models for a single selection process in a hierarchically structured population. I call one the BPS (broad-sense particle selection) model and the other the MLS (multi-level selection) model, and delineate a distinction between them in terms of parameterization. It is observed that in other sciences scientists employ multiple models to analyze and represent aspects of real-world phenomena indirectly. I argue that the same observation applies to biologists who employ both BPS and MLS models.