"Two Rules of Speciation" revisited
"Two Rules of Speciation" revisited
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DOI：
10.1111/mec.14790
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发表时间：
2018-10-01
影响因子：
4.9
通讯作者：
Coyne, Jerry A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Coyne, Jerry A.
在《物种起源》著名的最后一段中，达尔文将导致地球绕太阳运行的“固定万有引力定律”与自然选择导致的物种进化进行了比较。这可能是生物学中第一个有记录的“物理学嫉妒”案例：认为生命科学的正确任务——在达尔文的例子中，进化生物学——是通过建立一般定律并计算出其后果来模拟物理学。尽管我们不谈论生物学中的“法则”，但我们确实有类似法则的概括，包括遗传密码的近乎普遍性以及将DNA和RNA翻译成蛋白质的机制。但在群体生物学（进化论和生态学）中，这种普遍性更为罕见，因为环境和历史的独特和局部方面以及碰巧存在的物种的身份产生了违反规则的例外情况。尽管如此，生物学家通常更喜欢研究可能广泛适用的原理。毕竟，辉煌的职业生涯不是通过不相关的研究或轶事观察的积累而形成的，而是通过发现或测试跨越许多物种的原理而形成的。事实上，过去 75 年进化论和生态学的主要推动力就是寻找这些原则。人们会想到费雪的自然选择基本定理、麦克阿瑟的数学生态学（例如岛屿生物地理学）、斯蒂芬·杰伊·古尔德关于间断平衡的著作等等。
In the famous last paragraph of On the Origin of Species, Darwin compared the “fixed law of gravity,” which causes the Earth to orbit the Sun, with the evolution of species by natural selection. This may be the first recorded case in biology of “physics envy”: the view that the proper task of the life sciences—in Darwin's case, evolutionary biology—is to emulate physics by establishing general laws and working out their consequences. Although we do not speak of “laws” in biology, we do have lawlike generalizations, including the near universality of the genetic code and the mechanism for translating DNA and RNA into proteins.But in population biology—evolution and ecology—such generalities are rarer, for rule‐breaking exceptions are produced by unique and local aspects of the environment and history, and the identity of species that happen to be around. Still, biologists often prefer to study principles that might apply widely. Illustrious careers, after all, are forged not from an accumulation of unrelated studies or anecdotal observations, but from finding or testing principles that cut across many species. Indeed, the main thrust of both evolution and ecology over the last 75 years has been a search for such principles. One thinks of Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, MacArthur's mathematical ecology (eg, island biogeography), Stephen Jay Gould's work on punctuated equilibrium and so on.