Person: Nuño De La Rosa García, Laura
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First Name
Laura
Last Name
Nuño De La Rosa García
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Filosofía
Department
Lógica y Filosofía Teórica
Area
Filosofía
Identifiers
6 results
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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
Item From the method of division to the theory of transformations: Thompson after Aristotle, and Aristotle after Thompson(Biological Theory, 2023) Nuño De La Rosa García, Laura; Lennox, James G.; SpringerAristotle’s influence on D’Arcy Thompson was praised by Thompson himself and has been recognized by others in various respects, including the aesthetic and normative dimensions of biology, and the multicausal explanation of living forms. This article focuses on the relatedness of organic forms, one of the core problems addressed by both Aristotle’s History of Animals (HA), and the renowned chapter of Thompson’s On Growth and Form (G&F), “On the Theory of Transformations, or the Comparison of Related Forms.” We contend that, far from being an incidental inspiration stemming from Thompson’s classicist background, his translation of HA played a pivotal role in developing his theory of transformations. Furthermore, we argue that Thompson’s interpretation of the Aristotelian method of comparison challenges the prevailing view of Aristotle as the founder of “typological essentialism,” and is a key episode in the revision of this narrative. Thompson understood that the method Aristotle used in HA to compare animal forms is better comprehended as a “method of transformations,” leading to a morphological arrangement of animal diversity, as opposed to a taxonomical classification. Finally, we examine how this approach to the relatedness of forms lay the foundation for a causal understanding of parts and their interconnections. Although Aristotle and Thompson emphasized distinct types of causes, we contend that they both differ in a fundamental sense from the one introduced by Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which was formulated as a solution to the species problem rather than the form problem. We conclude that Thompson’s interpretation of Aristotle’s approach to form comparison has not only impacted contemporary scholarship on Aristotle’s biology, but revitalized a perspective that has regained significance due to the resurgence of the problem of form in evo-devo.Item Dispositional properties in evo-devo(Evolutionary developmental biology: a reference guide, 2021) Austin, Cristopher J.; Nuño De La Rosa García, Laura; Nuño De La Rosa García, Laura; Müller, Gerd B.In identifying intrinsic molecular chance and extrinsic adaptive pressures as the only causally relevant factors in the process of evolution, the theoretical perspective of the Modern Synthesis had a major impact on the perceived tenability of an ontology of dispositional properties. However, since the late 1970s, an increasing number of evolutionary biologists have challenged the descriptive and explanatory adequacy of this chance alone, extrinsic-only understanding of evolutionary change. Because morphological studies of homology, convergence, and teratology have revealed a space of possible forms and phylogenetic trajectories that is considerably more restricted than expected, evo-devo has focused on the causal contribution of intrinsic developmental processes to the course of evolution. Evo-devo’s investigation into the developmental structure of the modality of morphology – including both the possibility and impossibility of organismal form – has led to the utilization of a number of dispositional concepts that emphasize the tendency of the evolutionary process to change along certain routes. In this sense, and in contrast to the perspective of the Modern Synthesis, evo-devo can be described as a science of dispositions. This chapter discusses the recent philosophical literature on dispositional properties in evo-devo, exploring debates about both the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of the central dispositional concepts utilized in contemporary evo-devo (e.g., variability, modularity, robustness, plasticity, and evolvability) and addressing the epistemological question of how dispositional properties challenge existing explanatory models in evolutionary biology.Item A history of evolvability: reconstructing and explaining the origination of a research agenda(Evolvability: a unifying concept in evolutionary biology?, 2023) Nuño De La Rosa García, Laura; Hansen, Thomas; Houle, David; Pavličev, Mihaela; Pélabon, CristopheThis chapter addresses the origination of evolvability research with the aim of contributing more generally to the reconstruction and explanation of the recent history of evolutionary biology. I combine co-citation analysis and first-person reconstructions of the history of the field obtained from a series of interviews with evolutionary biologists who were and/or are currently active in evolvability studies. After a preliminary methodological reflection, I present a reconstruction of the multiple origins of evolvability research. In the last section of the chapter, I make use of cultural evolution theory to discuss two kinds of explanations that might account for this pattern: “Selectionist” explanations highlight aspects of the methodological and intellectual landscape that promoted the acceptability and diffusion of the evolvability perspective; “evolvability” explanations address the role of internal, theoretical developments involved in the origination and diversification of evolvability research. Although selectionist explanations have been largely explored, internal factors accounting for the evolvability of scientific concepts and theories remain relatively neglected. I argue that explaining the recent history of evolvability research from this perspective provides promising insights to our understanding of science dynamics.Item Chances and Propensitiesin Evo-Devo(The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2022) Nuño De La Rosa García, Laura; Villegas Cerredo, CristinaWhile the notion of chance has been central in discussions over the probabilistic nature of natural selection and genetic drift, its role in the production of variants on which populational sampling takes place has received much less philosophical attention. This article discusses the concept of chance in evolution in the light of contemporary work in evo-devo. We distinguish different levels at which randomness and chance can be defined in this context, and argue that recent research on variability and evolvability demands a causal understanding of variational probabilities under which development acquires a creative, rather than a constraining role in evolution. We then provide a propensity interpretation of variational probabilities that solves a conceptual confusion between causal properties, variational probabilities and extant variation present in the literature, and explore some metaphysical consequences that follow from our interpretation, specifically with regards to the nature of developmental types.Item Agency in Reproduction(Evolution & Development, 2023) Nuño De La Rosa García, LauraWhile niche construction theory and developmental approaches to evolution have brought to the front the active role of organisms as ecological and developmental agents, respectively, the role of agents in reproduction has been widely neglected by organismal perspectives of evolution. This paper addresses this problem by proposing an agential view of reproduction and shows that such a perspective has implications for the explanation of the origin of modes of reproduction, the evolvability of reproductive modes, and the coevolution between reproduction and social behavior. After introducing the two prevalent views of agency in evolutionary biology, namely those of organismal agency and selective agency, I contrast these two perspectives as applied to the evolution of animal reproduction. Taking eutherian pregnancy as a case study, I wonder whether organismal approaches to agency forged in the frame of niche construction and developmental plasticity theories can account for the goal-directed activities involved in reproductive processes. I conclude that the agential role of organisms in reproduction is irreducible to developmental and ecological agency, and that reproductive goals need to be included into our definitions of organismal agency. I then explore the evolutionary consequences of endorsing an agential approach to reproduction, showing how such an approach might illuminate our understanding of the evolutionary origination and developmental evolvability of reproductive modes. Finally, I analyze recent studies on the coevolution between viviparity and social behavior in vertebrates to suggest that an agential notion of reproduction can provide unforeseen links between developmental and ecological agency.Item A world of opportunity within constraint: Pere Alberch’s early Evo-Devo(Pere Alberch: the creative trajectory of an evo-devo biologist, 2009) Etxeberria, Arantza; Nuño De La Rosa García, Laura; Rasskin-Gutman, Diego; De Renzi, Miquel