Persona: Vecchi, Davide
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dvecchi@fsof.uned.es
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0000-0002-6339-7370
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Vecchi
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Davide
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Publicación Beyond blindness: On the role of organism and environment in trial generation(Elsevier, 2016-09-30) Baravalle, Lorenzo; Vecchi, Davide; Fundação para a Ciência e a TecnologiaIn this paper we aim to amend the traditional analogy at the heart of evolutionary epistemologies. We shall first argue, contrary to what has been frequently done, that both hypothesis generation and the processes of generation of genetic and phenotypic change are often directed as well as environmentally conditioned. Secondly, we shall argue that environmental influence does not affect trial generation directly but that environmental information is processed by the epistemic agent and by the biological organism respectively. Thirdly, we suggest conceiving hypothesis generation as a process of manipulative abduction and the generation of biological variation as a process mediated by phenotypic plasticity. Finally, we argue that manipulative abduction and environmentally-induced biological variation modulated by plasticity are analogous because they both involve a conjectural response to environmental cues. Our analysis thus vindicates a revised version of evolutionary epistemology ascribing a fundamental role to both organism and environment in trial generation. This perspective, in our opinion, offers support to the thesis, inspired by the theory of embodied cognition, that hypothesis generation is sometimes explained by an appeal to phenotypic plasticity.Publicación The Trouble with Natural Genetic Engineering(Springer, 2012-04-27) Vecchi, Davide; Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo. ChileIn Evolution: A View from the twenty-first Century, Jim Shapiro (JS henceforth) argues in uncompromising fashion that neo-Darwinism is a theory in crisis in urgent need of replacement. He also believes that biology as a whole is experiencing a process of profound conceptual transformation. In this review I evaluate JS’s two main arguments. The first is directed against the dominant evolutionary position, viz., neo-Darwinism; the second against the dominant philosophy of evolutionary and molecular biology (what JS calls the ‘‘mechanistic view of living organisms’’). JS believes that an ‘‘informatic’’ (informational) view of organisms based on the concept of natural genetic engineering will revolutionize biology. His ambition is to show that knowledge about the genomic capabilities of cells must be incorporated in the new emerging biology, and that such incorporation will not only reshape our understanding of the evolutionary process, but also promote the emergence of a new philosophy of life. I argue that while the first argument is persuasive, the second is much more problematic.Publicación Species are, at the same time, kinds and individuals: a causal argument based on an empirical approach to species identity(Springer, 2019-04-05) Casetta, Elena; Vecchi, Davide; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal)After having reconstructed a minimal biological characterisation of species, we endorse an “empirical approach” based on the idea that it is the peculiar evolutionary history of the species at issue—its peculiar origination process, its peculiar metapopulation structure and the peculiar mixture and strength of homeostatic processes vis à vis heterostatic ones—that determines species’ identity at a time and through time. We then explore the consequences of the acceptance of the empirical approach in settling the individuals versus kinds dispute. In particular, while conceptual arguments have been proposed to show that species can be equally treated as individuals and kinds because mereology’s and set-theory’s languages are inter-translatable, we advance instead a causal argument to sustain the claim that each species is both a kind (i.e., a class whose members share some properties included in a cluster) and an individual (i.e., a whole made of parts).Publicación Epigénesis y preformacionismo: radiografía de una antinomía inconclusa(Universidade de São Paulo, 2015-07-01) Vecchi, Davide; Hernández, IsaacEl desarrollo embriológico es un fenómeno que ha inspirado la especulación filosófica desde temprano en la historia del pensamiento. Desde los tiempos de Aristóteles dos modelos conceptuales antitéticos se han utilizado tradicionalmente para comprender la embriogénesis: o el embrión posee ya una forma o estructura, o ésta se forma de nuevo en cada generación. Nuestro objetivo en este artículo es mostrar que el contraste entre la posición preformacionista y epigenética persiste a pesar de los formidables avances teóricos y experimentales de la biología del desarrollo contemporánea. El preformacionismo y la epigénesis han perfeccionado constantemente sus posiciones en el curso de la historia con el fin de responder a los retos conceptuales de la época. Este continuo proceso de transformación ha dado lugar a una convergencia parcial entre las dos posiciones. Sin embargo, vamos a argumentar que, a pesar de los esfuerzos por conciliar ambas posturas, esta antinomia, que se erige como una de las más fundamentales de la biología, no será fácil de superar.Publicación From Biological Determination to Entangled Causation(Springer, 2018-09-04) Vecchi, Davide; Miquel, Paul Antoine; Hernández, Isaac; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal); Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico, FONDECYT REGULAR (Chile)Biologists and philosophers often use the language of determination in order to describe the nature of developmental phenomena. Accounts in terms of determination have often been reductionist. One common idea is that DNA is supposed to play a special explanatory role in developmental explanations, namely, that DNA is a developmental determinant. In this article we try to make sense of determination claims in developmental biology. Adopting a manipulationist approach, we shall first argue that the notion of developmental determinant is causal. We suggest that two different theses concerning developmental determination can be articulated: determination of occurrence and structural determination. We shall argue that, while the first thesis is problematic, the second, opportunely qualified, is feasible. Finally, we shall argue that an analysis of biological causation in terms of determination cannot account for entangled dynamics. Characterising causal entanglement as a particular kind of interactive causation whereby difference-making causes ascribable to different levels of biological organisation influence a particular ontogenetic outcome, we shall, via two illustrative examples, diagnose some potential limits of a reductionist, molecular and intra-level understanding of biological causation.Publicación Entrenchment implies that physiological and developmental processes are not organism-bound but still organism-centric(SAGE Publications, 2019-03-26) Vecchi, Davide; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal)Villalobos and Razeto-Barry argue that all living beings possess discrete bodies and that, as a consequence, embodied living beings are merely embedded in the environment surrounding them. The upshot of their analysis is that an extended conception of life is misguided. I fundamentally agree with their argument. The authors make their case by clarifying the conceptual scaffolding of the theory of autopoiesis that supposedly engenders the extended approach. I think the critical argument can be supported in a more straightforward way by showing that the biological fact of entrenchment (West-Eberhard 2003, pp. 500-503) does not imply an extension of the physical boundaries of the organism.Publicación DNA is not an ontologically distinctive developmental cause(ELSEVIER, 2020-06-01) Vecchi, Davide; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal); Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico, FONDECYT REGULAR (Chile)In this article I critically evaluate the thesis that DNA is an ontologically distinctive developmental cause. I shall critically analyse different versions of the latter thesis by taking into consideration concrete developmental cases. I shall argue that DNA is neither a developmental determinant nor an ontologically distinctive developmental cause. Instead, I shall argue that mechanistic analysis shows that DNA's causal role in development depends on the higher robustness of the developmental processes in which it exerts its causal capacities. The focus on process and developmental system implies a metaphysical shift: rather than attributing to DNA molecules biochemically unique properties, I suggest that it might be better to think about DNA's causal role in development in terms of the causal capacities that DNA molecules manifest in a rich developmental milieu. I shall also suggest that my position is distinct both from the view advocating the instrumental primacy of DNA-centric biology and developmental constructionism. It is different from the former because it provides a substantial answer to the question of what makes DNA causally central in developmental processes. Finally, I argue that evolutionary considerations pose an important challenge to developmental constructionism.Publicación Molecular evolutionary models and mechanistic explanation(Springer, 2026-02-04) Vecchi, DavideMolecular approaches have revolutionised evolutionary biology since the late 50s. Today, molecular evolutionary biology is an integrated hybrid of mechanistic, mathematical and datafied research. I aim to show that the molecular conceptualisation of evolutionary dynamics provided by this hybrid has a significant mechanistic foundation. I shall first outline the biochemical roots of this foundation. Then, I shall illustrate how evolutionary causal chains are conceptualised in contemporary molecular evolution research. I shall finally argue that a fundamental innovation of molecular evolutionary models is dependent on the mechanistic understanding of the mutational and developmental processes causing the origin of traits. Thus, molecular evolutionary biology integrates proximate and ultimate causes, providing a variety of how-possibly and how-actually explanations.Publicación A soul of truth in things erroneous: Popper’s ‘‘amateurish’’ evolutionary philosophy in light of contemporary biology(Springer, 2014-12-03) Vecchi, Davide; Baravalle, Lorenzo; Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo. ChileThis paper will critically assess Popper’s evolutionary philosophy. There exists a rich literature on the topic with which we have many reservations. We believe that Popper’s evolutionary philosophy should be assessed in light of the intriguing theoretical insights offered, during the last 10 years or so, by the philosophy of biology, evolutionary biology and molecular biology. We will argue that, when analysed in this manner, Popper’s ideas concerning the nature of selection, Lamarckism and the theoretical limits of neoDarwinism can be appreciated in their full biological and philosophical value.Publicación Mutational randomness as conditional independence and the experimental vindication of mutational Lamarckism(WILEY, 2016-01-29) Razeto Barry, Pablo; Vecchi, Davide; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal)The Modern Synthesis enshrined natural selection as the driver of adaptive evolution mainly by eliminating competing explanations. One of the eliminated competitors was Lamarckism, particularly ‘mutational Lamarckism’, a hypothesis according to which mutations may be directed towards producing phenotypes that improve the performance of the organism in a particular environment. Contrary to this hypothesis, the Modern Synthesis' view claims that mutations are ‘random’, even though the precise meaning of the term was never formally explicated. Current evidence seemingly in favour of the existence of legitimate cases of mutational Lamarckism has revitalized interest to seek a clarification of the meaning of the term ‘random’ in this context. Herein we analyse previous definitions of random mutations and show that they are deficient in three ways: either they are too wide, or too narrow, or dyadic. We argue that the linguistic expression ‘random mutation’ refers to a triadic rather than a dyadic relationship, propose a new, formal and precise definition based on the probabilistic concept of conditional independence, and finally provide examples of its application. One important consequence of our analysis is that the genomic specificity of the mutational process is not a necessary condition for the existence of mutational Lamarckism.