Explanation by Constraint in Evolutionary Biology

胚胎学和发育生物学在现代进化生物学中日益突出。许多主张发展重要性的人认为，有机生长的过程对适应性进化产生了限制。这种方法与“适应主义”形成对比，“适应主义”是新达尔文进化论的主流特征，强调自然选择及其产生的对环境的特殊适应。适应主义的批评者认为，它忽视了大型生物群体共同的结构发展过程，这些过程产生了非适应性的相似性。阿蒙森博士正在从历史的角度研究适应与约束之争的方法论基础。在达尔文之前的英国生物学家之间，自然神学家、大陆形态学家和比较解剖学家之间也发生了非常相似的争论。对这两种争论的比较表明，适应生物学解释和结构生物学解释之间的对比根本不是进化生物学的特点。方法上的相似性将有助于更好地理解当前的争论和更好地理解生物科学中使用的各种解释策略。

Embryology and developmental biology are increasingly prominent in modern evolutionary biology. Many advocates of the importance of development argue that the processes of organic growth produce constraints on adaptive evolution. This approach contrasts with "adaptationism," a feature of mainstream neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology that emphasizes natural selection and the particular adaptations-to-environment it produces. Adaptationism is said by its critics to ignore the structural processes of development which are common to large groups of organisms and which produce non-adaptational similarities. Dr. Amundson is examining the methodological basis of the adaptation- versus-constraint debates from an historical perspective. A remarkably similar debate occurred among pre-Darwinian British biologists, between natural theologians and continental style morphologists and comparative anatomists. Comparisons between the two debates suggest that the contrast between adaptational and structural biological explanation is not a special feature of evolutionary biology at all. The methodological similarities will contribute to a better understanding of the current debates and a better understanding of the diverse explanatory strategies used in biological science.