Practice-oriented controversies and borrowed epistemic credibility in current evolutionary biology: phylogeography as a case study

Although there is increasing recognition that theory and practice in science are intimately intertwined, philosophy of science perspectives on scientific controversies have been historically focused on theory rather than practice. As a step in the construction of frameworks for understanding controversies linked to scientific practices, here we introduce the notion of borrowed epistemic credibility (BEC), to describe the situation in which scientists, in order to garner support for their own stances, exploit similarities between tenets in their own field and accepted statements or positions properly developed within other areas of expertise. We illustrate the scope of application of our proposal with the analysis of a heavily methods-grounded, recent controversy in phylogeography, a biological subdiscipline concerned with the study of the historical causes of biogeographical variation through population genetics- and phylogenetics-based computer analyses of diversity in DNA sequences, both within species and between closely related taxa. Toward this end, we briefly summarize the arguments proposed by selected authors representing each side of the controversy: the ‘nested clade analysis’ school versus the ‘statistical phylogeography’ orientation. We claim that whereas both phylogeographic ‘research styles’ borrow epistemic credibility from sources such as formal logic, the familiarity of results from other scientific areas, the authority of prominent scientists, or the presumed superiority of quantitative vs. verbal reasoning, ‘theory’ plays essentially no role as a foundation of the controversy. Besides underscoring the importance of strictly methodological and other non-theoretical aspects of controversies in current evolutionary biology, our analysis suggests a perspective with potential usefulness for the re-examination of more general philosophy of biology issues, such as the nature of historical inference, rationality, justification, and objectivity

Vulnerability in Developing Countries

The first Millennium Development Goal aims to halve the number of people in the world living in extreme poverty. In this Research Brief, emanating from the UNU-WIDER project on .Fragility and Development., the premise is that we should also be concerned about households who are vulnerable to poverty. This includes those who have little likelihood of escaping from poverty and who are at risk of falling into poverty in the future. Household vulnerability to poverty is affected by, and affects, vulnerability in other dimensions and levels, such as the vulnerability of a country or region to natural hazards and macro-economic shocks. To address household vulnerability in developing countries requires an understanding of the concept and nature of vulnerability, its measurement and its application. Therefore, this Research Brief asks: what is vulnerability? How can vulnerability be measured? How should households, governments and development agencies respond to vulnerability?vulnerability, poverty, households, hazards, shocks

The Challenge of Small Island Developing States

Small Island Developing States, Vulnerability

Fragile States

Many of the world.s poorest countries can be described as .fragile states. wherein governments cannot or will not provide an environment for households to reduce, mitigate, or cope with poverty and other risks to wellbeing. Many of these states are in conflict or just emerging from conflict. The UNU-WIDER project .Fragility and Development. explored state fragility and its relationship to household vulnerability, noting that there is a lack of research on the economic dimensions of conflict, aid, and development in fragile states. This Research Brief provides a summary of the various contributions made by this project, including case studies on Iraq, Kosovo, Palestine, and Somalia. It also addresses a number of pertinent questions such as; when are states fragile? What are the costs that fragile states impose on their people and the international community? Should the sovereignty of fragile states be reconsidered? And how can aid flows to fragile states be made more effective?vulnerability, poverty, households, hazards, shocks

Facing alternative futures: prospects for and paths to food security in Africa

"Food security in Africa has substantially worsened since 1970. Although the proportion of malnourished individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained in the range of 33–35 percent since around 1970, the absolute number of malnourished people in Africa has increased substantially with population growth, from around 88 million in 1970 to an estimate of over 200 million in 1999–2001. Yet this discouraging trend need not be a blueprint for the future. New research from IFPRI shows that the policy and investment choices of African policymakers and the international development community can make an enormous difference for Africa's future agricultural production and food security. By modeling the results of a number of different policy scenarios in Africa through the year 2025, we show that the number of malnourished children, one important indicator of food security, could rise as high as 41.9 million or fall as low as 9.4 million. These scenarios, therefore, shed light on the effectiveness of various policies and investments in assuring a food-secure future for Africa.' from TextFood insecurity, Forecasting, Agricultural productivity, Human capital, Malnutrition in children, Impact model,

How to study adaptation (and why to do it that way)

Some adaptationist explanations are regarded as maximally solid and others fanciful just-so stories. Just-so stories are explanations based on very little evidence. Lack of evidence leads to circular-sounding reasoning: “this trait was shaped by selection in unseen ancestral populations and this selection must have occurred because the trait is present.” Well-supported adaptationist explanations include evidence that is not only abundant but selected from comparative, populational, and optimality perspectives, the three adaptationist subdisciplines. Each subdiscipline obtains its broad relevance in evolutionary biology via assumptions that can only be tested with the methods of the other subdisciplines. However, even in the best-supported explanations, assumptions regarding variation, heritability, and fitness in unseen ancestral populations are always present. These assumptions are accepted given how well they would explain the data if they were true. This means that some degree of “circularity” is present in all evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary explanation corresponds not to a deductive structure, as biologists usually assert, but instead to ones such as abduction or induction. With these structures in mind, we show the way to a healthier view of “circularity” in evolutionary biology, and why integration across the comparative, populational, and optimality approaches is necessary

Is Fish Brain Food or Brain Poison? Sea Surface Temperature, Methyl-mercury and Child Cognitive Development

We exploit variation in the composition of local fish catches around the time of birth using largescale administrative and census data on adult cognitive test scores, schooling attainment, and occupation among coastal populations in Colombia to estimate the distinct causal effects of methylmercury (MeHg) and DHA, elements contained in fish, on cognitive development. Using an IV strategy based on an equilibrium model of fish supply that exploits time-series variation in oceanic SST anomalies on both coasts of Colombia from 1950 to 2014 as instruments, we find that net of cohort and municipality fixed effects increases in high-MeHg fish catches around a cohort’s birth, net of rainfall variation in the same interval, negatively affect the cohort’s verbal and math test scores upon exiting high school and their likelihood of continuing their schooling, while increasing the likelihood the cohort is disproportionally represented in manual-labor occupations. In contrast, for given levels of early-life high-MeHg fish supply, increases in early-life catch sizes of low-MeHg fish raise verbal and math test scores and educational attainment and lower the likelihood of being a manual laborer

Looking ahead: long-term prospects for Africa's agricultural development and food security

"Sub-Saharan Africa is the only developing region in the world where food insecurity has worsened instead of improved in recent decades. In this discussion paper, Mark W. Rosegrant, Sarah A. Cline, Weibo Li, Timothy B. Sulser, and Rowena A. Valmonte-Santos show that this discouraging trend need not be a blueprint for the future. The research contained in this discussion paper was conducted in preparation for the IFPRI 2020 Africa conference “Assuring Food and Nutrition Security in Africa by 2020: Prioritizing Actions, Strengthening Actors, and Facilitating Partnerships,” held in Kampala, Uganda, April 1–3, 2004. The authors examine the implications of several different policy scenarios based on IFPRI's International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT). This model, developed at IFPRI in the early 1990s, has been continually updated to incorporate more food sectors and geographic regions. In this paper, the authors use IMPACT to assess the consequences of a wide range of policy and investment choices for Africa, including a business as usual scenario (continuation of current policy and investment trends through 2025), a pessimistic scenario (declining trends in key investments and in agricultural productivity), and a vision scenario (improving trends in investments and hence in agricultural productivity and human capital), as well as scenarios for more effective use of rainfall in agriculture, reduced marketing margins, and three different scenarios for trade liberalization. The wide variation in results reveals how much these choices will matter. For example, the number of malnourished children under five years old in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2025 is projected to be 38.3 million under business as usual, 55.1 million under the pessimistic scenario, and 9.4 million under the vision scenario. It is our hope that this research will clarify the steps needed to help stimulate the actions contributing to approaching the vision scenario. " From Foreword by Joachim von BraunImpact model, Food insecurity, Forecasting, Agricultural productivity, Human capital, Malnutrition in children,

Achieving growth in the Pacific islands : an introduction

The Small Island Developing States (SIDS)1 in the Pacific, spread out over an area of 30 million square kilometres of ocean, and home to over 9 million people, face a complex and unique set of development challenges. As small, highly open economies they are particularly susceptible to external shocks, including fluctuations in import prices and export earnings in particular. Remoteness from major ports and export markets, low levels of connectivity with the outside world and susceptibility to natural hazards further complicate matters and have resulted in the Pacific islands being amongst the most vulnerable economies in the world. In spite of their increasing integration into global markets, most face further challenges owing to very limited absorptive capacities, limited resources, inadequate technology, lack of infrastructure and poor economic management and institutional capabilities. As a consequence, economic growth and related outcomes in most remain heavily reliant on external resources, typically including at least one of aid, migrant remittances, and foreign direct investment (FDI) (AusAID 2008 and McGillivray et al. 2008). The particular constraints and growth challenges of Pacific SIDS are too often overlooked in the development research literature. Moreover, the policy debate on how to promote and achieve growth in the Pacific islands can benefit from a deeper understanding of the nature and consequences of these often unique, combination of constraints. This Focus is devoted to development challenges facing these islands, specifically relating to the achievement of economic growth, and draws on five papers that were presented or tabled at the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) &lsquo;Fragility and Development&rsquo; research project meeting held in Fiji in December 2006.<br /