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Issues concerning the scope and viability of reductionistic explanations in biology have come recently to be discussed under the rubric of controversies over the "units' or "levels' of selection; that is, over the level or levels at which natural selection is properly said to operate. As critics have pointed out, some of the more a priori defenses of genic selectionism, the view that the sole unit of selection is the gene, have failed to demonstrate that genic selectionism provides an adequate explanatory theory. These same critics have concluded that the context dependence of genic effects due to linkage and interaction, and the resulting misrepresentation of underlying causal processes, are the cause of this deficiency. This is incorrect. Advocates of genic selectionism have not denied interaction at any variety of levels. Furthermore, to press that context dependence is sufficient grounds to impugn the explanatory adequacy of genic selectionism is untenable. Recent biological work on the coevolution of traits and historical controversies over the importance of "linkage effects' on the expression of genes suffice to press the point that context dependence is consistent with retaining lower levels of organization. Controversies over the units or levels of selection will be resolved only with due attention to the details of biological models which purport to explain evolution in terms of forces acting on lower level units and to the substantial methodological problems attendant to applying these models to actual biological systems.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-5370-3_7

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