Inclusive fitness: 50 years on

摘要

The cardinal problem of evolutionary biology is to explain adaptation, or the appearance of design in the living world [1,2]. Darwin [3] convincingly argued that the process of adaptation is driven by natural selection: those heritable variations-i.e. genes-that are associated with greater individual reproductive success are those that will tend to accumulate in natural populations. To the extent that the individual's genes are causally responsible for her improved fitness, natural selection leads to the individual appearing designed as if to maximize her fitness. Thus, Darwinism is a theory of both the process and the purpose of adaptation.