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Price's equation made clear
Price's equation provides a very simple—and very general—encapsulation of evolutionary change. It forms the mathematical foundations of several topics in evolutionary biology, and has also been applied outwith evolutionary biology to a wide range of other scientific disciplines. However, the eq...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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The Royal Society
2020
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7133504/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32146889 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0361 |
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author | Gardner, Andy |
author_facet | Gardner, Andy |
author_sort | Gardner, Andy |
collection | PubMed |
description | Price's equation provides a very simple—and very general—encapsulation of evolutionary change. It forms the mathematical foundations of several topics in evolutionary biology, and has also been applied outwith evolutionary biology to a wide range of other scientific disciplines. However, the equation's combination of simplicity and generality has led to a number of misapprehensions as to what it is saying and how it is supposed to be used. Here, I give a simple account of what Price's equation is, how it is derived, what it is saying and why this is useful. In particular, I suggest that Price's equation is useful not primarily as a predictor of evolutionary change but because it provides a general theory of selection. As an illustration, I discuss some of the insights Price's equation has brought to the study of social evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Fifty years of the Price equation’. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7133504 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-71335042020-04-06 Price's equation made clear Gardner, Andy Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Price's equation provides a very simple—and very general—encapsulation of evolutionary change. It forms the mathematical foundations of several topics in evolutionary biology, and has also been applied outwith evolutionary biology to a wide range of other scientific disciplines. However, the equation's combination of simplicity and generality has led to a number of misapprehensions as to what it is saying and how it is supposed to be used. Here, I give a simple account of what Price's equation is, how it is derived, what it is saying and why this is useful. In particular, I suggest that Price's equation is useful not primarily as a predictor of evolutionary change but because it provides a general theory of selection. As an illustration, I discuss some of the insights Price's equation has brought to the study of social evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Fifty years of the Price equation’. The Royal Society 2020-04-27 2020-03-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7133504/ /pubmed/32146889 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0361 Text en © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Articles Gardner, Andy Price's equation made clear |
title | Price's equation made clear |
title_full | Price's equation made clear |
title_fullStr | Price's equation made clear |
title_full_unstemmed | Price's equation made clear |
title_short | Price's equation made clear |
title_sort | price's equation made clear |
topic | Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7133504/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32146889 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0361 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT gardnerandy pricesequationmadeclear |