Beanbag Holobionts
Abstract
In this paper, I consider two arguments concerning the status of holobionts as evolutionary individuals—one rejects the thesis by privileging the “stability of lineages” (sensu Godfrey-Smith 2009) and the other supports the thesis by privileging the “stability of traits” (sensu Veigl et al. 2022). I argue that the tension between these two arguments arises from two fundamentally different accounts of natural selection. I suggest that each account of selection corresponds to a unique account of evolutionary individuality. This strategy entitles us to a modest pluralism: holobionts are evolutionary individuals on one account of selection but not on the other.
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Hazelwood, Caleb Charles (2025). Beanbag Holobionts. Master's thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/32955.
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