Science has had a successful history of using abstract models. The purpose of such abstractions is to help us to understand key features of complex systems, not to provide an exact description of the process being studied. For example, Fisher's geometric model of adaptation01 helps us to understand why mutations of large effect are unlikely to be adaptive, but no one would argue that it is a precise description of reality. The idea that evolution by natural selection can be thought of as a hill-climbing process on an adaptive landscape is another abstraction that evolutionary biologists have found useful/2"61 It allows many different evolutionary scenarios to be represented within a single framework, and can help to provide important insight into how factors such as genetic interactions or environmental change will affect the process of adaptation. Even Fisher's view of the adaptive process/11 encapsulated in the quotes from the Genetical Theory provided by Edwards, can be viewed within this framework whether or not Fisher described them as such himself.
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