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The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory: No “No Hidden Variables Proof” But no Room For Determinism Either

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert N. Brandon  and
Scott Carson
Robert N. Brandon
Affiliation:
Departments of Philosophy and Zoology, Duke University
Scott Carson
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Duke University
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Abstract

In this paper we first briefly review Bell's (1964, 1966) Theorem to see how it invalidates any deterministic “hidden variable” account of the apparent indeterminacy of quantum mechanics (QM). Then we show that quantum uncertainty, at the level of DNA mutations, can “percolate” up to have major populational effects. Interesting as this point may be it does not show any autonomous indeterminism of the evolutionary process. In the next two sections we investigate drift and natural selection as the locus of autonomous biological indeterminacy. Here we conclude that the population-level indeterminacy of natural selection and drift are ultimately based on the assumption of a fundamental indeterminacy at the level of the lives and deaths of individual organisms. The following section examines this assumption and defends it from the determinists' attack. Then we show that, even if one rejects the assumption, there is still an important reason why one might think evolutionary theory (ET) is autonomously indeterministic. In the concluding section we contrast the arguments we have mounted against a deterministic hidden variable account of ET with the proof of the impossibility of such an account of QM.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 315 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

We wish to thank John Beatty, Alex Rosenberg and Elliott Sober for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

‡

Send reprint requests to the authors, Department of Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.

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