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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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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Gardner, Andy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2020
Materias:
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
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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’.
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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
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