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Inverse View
It is not the case that Drift refers to causal influences over a population that are non-interactive, non-pervasive, and indiscriminate (NINPICs)
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Reasons For
2 perspectives
Reason for 1 of 2
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1.
Millikan and Fodor's teleosemantic traditions show that biological concepts derive meaning from causal-historical lineages, not intrinsic property clusters.
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2.
If 'drift' is defined by a conjunction of negative properties (non-X, non-Y, non-Z), it picks out a heterogeneous residual category rather than a natural kind.
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3.
A residual category defined by the absence of selection's features cannot serve as a genuine causal explanation, only as an explanatory placeholder.
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Reason for 2 of 2
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1.
Matthen and Ariew (2002) argue that drift is a population-level statistical outcome, not itself a cause acting on populations.
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2.
If drift is a statistical description of sampling error rather than a force, then characterizing it as a class of 'causal influences' commits a category mistake.
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3.
The NINPIC account therefore misdescribes the ontological status of drift by reifying a mathematical abstraction into a causal agent.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
The term 'drift' picks out a specific class of causal influences in population biology
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2.
These causal influences share the three features of being non-interactive, non-pervasive, and indiscriminate
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