Entropy Explains Aging, Genetic Determinism Explains Longevity, and Undefined Terminology Explains Misunderstanding Both

Entropy Explains Aging, Genetic Determinism Explains Longevity, and Undefined Terminology Explains Misunderstanding Both

Communication in the field of biogerontology is a minefield because all of the commonly used terms have no universally accepted definitions. In a series of five annual meetings that I chaired recently in an attempt to define common terms, the dozen or more experts who attended could not agree on the definition of almost all of them, including ‘‘aging.’’ The committee was disbanded and the commu...

Information gain explains relevance which explains the selection task.

Genetic Representation Explains the Cluster ofInnatenessRelated Properties

The concept of innateness is used to make inferences between various better-understood properties, like developmental canalization, evolutionary adaptation, heritability, species-typicality, and so on (‘innateness-related properties’). This article uses a recently-developed account of the representational content carried by inheritance systems like the genome to explain why innateness-related p...

What Explains Patrilineal Cooperation?

Evolutionary anthropologists have proposed that unilineal kinship promotes collective action and that patriliny occurs when the reproductive payoff from passing wealth to sons is greater than that for daughters. We assess both of these theoretical perspectives as well as indirect reciprocity and kin selection as possible contributors to patrilineal cooperation in the Dogon of Mali. The mean coe...

How evolution explains reasoning