Biological Notion Research Articles

QUANDO O POEMA NÃO SE QUER POÉTICO E QUANDO O CORPO NÃO SE QUER CARTESIANO

O objetivo deste artigo é problematizar a relação poema e corpo em uma chave de leitura que não contradiz o poema poético e o corpo iluminista, mas revisita esses dois conceitos à luz do conceito de literatura pós-autônoma de Josefina Ludmer e da sexualidade plástica de Paul Beatriz Preciado. O poema pode não querer passar pelo crivo da crítica e teoria literárias e o corpo, em constante processo de mudança, pode não querer reiterar a noção estática e essencial da biologia.

Cosmopolitan Tourism and Host-Guest exchanges in the Nakanai Range, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea

MacLeod’s (2013) notion of 'cultural realignment' relates directly to the power of the tourism industry to affect the transformation of the lived environment. This paper posits that the ideal visitation involves the transformation of the visitor experience to conform to the cultural landscape and the social dynamics of place. Extending Robbin's(2015)biological notion of resilient island environments as sites of cosmopolitan engagement to the sacred geographies of island Melanesia (Bainton, Ballard and Gillespie 2012), I argue that multicultural dimensions of island livelihoods in Papua New Guinea that link trading partners and social relations, such as men’s houses, walking tracks, gardens and spirit tracks, provide social infrastructure for managing the opportunities and impositions of tourist encounters. Drawing upon anthropological fieldwork experiences with a colleague in a remote village in the Nakanai Mountain Range of New Britain Island, I situate the idea of cosmopolitan tourism within a mutual concern for the other in the spatial politics of the village. Such cosmopolitan tourisms are not simply products of state or marketbased imperatives but outcomes of intercultural negotiations between visitors and host communities, involving the reconciliation of the goals of visitor with those of the local people. In these spatiotemporal encounters, cosmopolitan tourism can generate reciprocal interdependence and obligation - relationships that are both material and semiotic.It is in this regard that suppressing the distinction between kin and visitor is of central import in defining cosmopolitan tourism in the village context. Papua New Guineans have long negotiated multiple types of social relations within networks of hospitality that have included local visitors, and more distinctly, colonial visitors such as missionaries, patrol officers and researchers. Cosmopolitan hospitality, based upon a mutual ethics of care and concern can help define more equitable forms of tourism in New Britain's ongoing integration into a global tourist economy.

How causal analysis can reveal autonomy in models of biological systems.

Standard techniques for studying biological systems largely focus on their dynamical or, more recently, their informational properties, usually taking either a reductionist or holistic perspective. Yet, studying only individual system elements or the dynamics of the system as a whole disregards the organizational structure of the system-whether there are subsets of elements with joint causes or effects, and whether the system is strongly integrated or composed of several loosely interacting components. Integrated information theory offers a theoretical framework to (1) investigate the compositional cause-effect structure of a system and to (2) identify causal borders of highly integrated elements comprising local maxima of intrinsic cause-effect power. Here we apply this comprehensive causal analysis to a Boolean network model of the fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) cell cycle. We demonstrate that this biological model features a non-trivial causal architecture, whose discovery may provide insights about the real cell cycle that could not be gained from holistic or reductionist approaches. We also show how some specific properties of this underlying causal architecture relate to the biological notion of autonomy. Ultimately, we suggest that analysing the causal organization of a system, including key features like intrinsic control and stable causal borders, should prove relevant for distinguishing life from non-life, and thus could also illuminate the origin of life problem.This article is part of the themed issue 'Reconceptualizing the origins of life'.

To err is human: Biography vs. biopolitics in Michel Foucault

This article suggests a new approach to understanding the self-formation of subjectivity in the work of Michel Foucault that emphasizes the influence of his mentor, the philosopher and historian of science Georges Canguilhem (1904–1995). I argue that Foucault adapts Canguilhem’s biological–epistemological notion of ‘error’ in order to achieve two things: (1) to provide a notion of subjective self-formation compatible with the claims of his ‘archaeology of knowledge’ and ‘genealogy of power’, and (2) to provide an alternative to the phenomenological theory of the subject. The notion of ‘error’ accomplishes these goals because it posits that experience is the result of knowledge, not vice versa. To illustrate the notion of ‘erroneous’ subjectivity, I turn to two volumes edited by Foucault: I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister and my brother… and Herculine Barbin; Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth- Century French Hermaphrodite. Both juxtapose ‘subjective’ accounts of ‘abnormal’ individuals with ‘objective’ documents written by judges, psychiatrists and medical professionals in order to show how ‘erroneous subjectivities’ may transgress epistemological limits and form new concepts.

Young children’s environmental judgement and its relationship with their understanding of the concept of living things

Abstract Do young children think that plants deserve morally-based respect or, on the contrary, do they feel that respect for plant life is nothing more than another behavioural norm similar to, for instance, one that states that you should not pick your nose in public? This study examines how dilemmas involving environmental, moral and socio-conventional situations are comprehended in early childhood so as to investigate the issue of whether young children attach a significant degree of severity to transgressions against plant life in comparison with disregarding socially accepted rules. Additionally, young children’s judgements are put into perspective alongside their understanding of the concept of living things in order to shed light on the role that grasping essential biological notions might play in the emergence of young children’s assessments of actions that pose a threat to the environment. The sample of the study consists of 328 children (162 girls and 166 boys) who attend Early Years Education or Primary Education and the data examined comes from the individual interviews conducted with the children. The results are discussed in connection with the current understanding of the source of ethical judgements which emphasises the importance that emotions seem to play in the construction of moral thinking.

Gregory Bateson’s Ecology of Mind and the Understanding of Human Knowledge

<p>Departing from the biological notion of ecology that pertains to mutual relationships between organisms and their environments, this paper discusses theoretical foundations of research on the nature of human mind in relation to knowledge, cognition and communication conducted in a broader context of social sciences. It exposes the view, explicitly formulated by Gregory Bateson, that the mind is the way in which ideas are created, or just the systemic device for transmitting information in the world of all living species. In consequence, some crucial points of Bateson’s reasoning are accentuated, such as the recognition of the biological unity of organism and environment, the conviction of the necessity to study the ecology in terms of the economics of energy and material and/or the economy of information, the belief that consciousness distorts information coming to the organism from the inside and outside, which is the cause of its functional disadaptation, and the like. The conception of the ecology of an overall mind, as the sets of ideas, notions or thoughts in the whole world, is presented against the background of theoretical and empirical achievements of botany and zoology, anthropology, ethology and psychiatry, sociology and communication studies in connection with the development of cybernetics, systems theory and information theory.</p>

Comparing and Integrating Biological and Cultural Moral Progress

Moral progress may be a matter of time scale. If intuitive measures of moral progress like the degree of physical violence within a society are taken as empirical markers, then most human societies have experienced moral progress in the last few centuries. However, if the development of the human species is taken as relevant time scale, there is evidence that humanity has experienced a global moral decline compared to a small-band hunter-gatherer (SBHG) baseline that represents a lifestyle presumed to largely account for 99% of human history. A counter-argument to such a diagnosis of moral decline is the fact that the living conditions of the modern world that emerged since sedentariness and the beginning of agriculture are completely different compared to those of SBHG due to cultural and technological developments. We therefore suggest that two notions of moral progress should be distinguished: a “biological notion” referring to the inherited capacities typical of the evolutionary niche of mammals and that unfold in a specific way in the human species; and a “cultural notion” that relates moral progress to dealing with an increasing diversity of temptations and possible wrongdoings in a human social world whose complexity accumulates in time. In our contribution, we describe these two different notions of moral progress, we discuss how they interact, how this interaction impacts the standards by which we measure moral progress, and we provide suggestions and justifications for re-aligning biological and cultural moral progress.

From neuroleptics to neuroscience and from Pavlov to psychotherapy: more than just the "emperor's new treatments" for mental illnesses?

“The drugs don't work” was one of the hit singles from The Verve's album Urban Hymns , released in 1997. The song was written by lead singer Richard Ashcroft relating to his drug abuse, but it might well relate to the modern treatments for mental illnesses. More than half a century after neuroleptics, antidepressants, benzodiazepines, antipsychotics, behavior therapy, and cognitive treatment were introduced, it is prudent to ask whether “the drugs don't work”. During the past 50 years, the industrialized world has seen a dichotomy between loudly proclaimed therapeutic breakthroughs and rapidly rising numbers of people on disability payments because of mental illness. We hear that antipsychotic, antidepressant, and anti‐anxiety drugs as well as behavior therapy and newer treatments have radically improved what was described as a dismal fate of people suffering from mental disorders. Simultaneously, the percentage of disabled mentally ill patients in the USA has risen by more than 600% since the 1950s (Whitaker, 2010) and similar rates are seen in European countries. Most epidemiologists agree that this “epidemic” is not caused by increased incidence. Moreover, the once rapid succession of new therapeutic developments seems to have halted, at least in pharmacology, as big companies are withdrawing from research on mental disorders. How can this apparent contradiction be explained? Could it be that therapeutic progress is much less than we think or are being told? Could it be that the course of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, or ADHD has been altered for the worse? Could it be that we cannot make therapeutic progress because the concept of mental illness and its treatment is deeply flawed? There are strong reasons to assume that all three suspicions are in fact true. So, what do we know about the efficiency of pharmacological and psychological treatments? In regard to short‐term outcomes, pharmacotherapy is clearly …

Theoretical considerations on cognitive niche construction

Cognitive niche theories consist in a theoretical framework that is proving extremely profitable in bridging evolutionary biology, philosophy, cognitive science, and anthropology by offering an inter-disciplinary ground, laden with novel approaches and debates. At the same time, cognitive niche theories are multiple, and differently related to niche theories in theoretical and evolutionary biology. The aim of this paper is to clarify the theoretical and epistemological relationships between cognitive and ecological niche theories. Also, by adopting a constructionist approach (namely by referring principally to ecological and cognitive niche construction theories) we will try to explain the shift from ecological to cognitive niches and their actual and theoretical overlaps. In order to do so, we will take two concepts expressing loose forms of causation in the interaction between organisms and their environment: the biological notion of “enablement” and the psycho-cognitive one of “affordance”.

Translating basic research in cancer patient care

With the advent of molecular targeted therapies and the development of high-throughput biotechnologies, it has become evident that progress in cancer research is largely due to the creation of multidisciplinary teams able to plan clinical trials supported by appropriate molecular hypotheses. These efforts have culminated in the identification and validation of biomarkers predictive of response, as well as in the generation of more accurate prognostic tools. The identification of cancer stem cells has provided further insights into mechanisms of cancer, and many studies have tried to translate this biological notion into prognostic and predictive information. In this regard, new agents targeting key stemness-related pathways have entered the clinical development, and preliminary data suggested an encouraging antitumor activity.

Tractarian Form as the Precursor to Forms of Life

Interpreters are divided on the question of whether the phrase ‘form of life’ is used univocally in Wittgenstein’s later writings. Some univocal interpreters suggest that, for Wittgenstein, ‘form of life’ captures a uniquely biological notion: the biologically human form of life. Others suggest that it captures a cultural notion: the notion of differently enculturated forms of human life. Non-univocal interpreters, in contrast, argue that Wittgenstein does not use ‘form of life’ univocally, but that he uses it sometimes to highlight a cluster of biological notions and sometimes a cluster of cultural ones. The debate between univocal and non-univocal readers has generated a raft of intricate, illuminating literature on both sides. If it remains to an extent open, it is partly as a result of the fact that the textual evidence available on this matter, in Wittgenstein’s later published and unpublished writings, is so limited. In this paper, I argue that considering Wittgenstein’s earlier treatment of ‘form’ can help to shed light on his later treatment of ‘form of life’. More specifically I argue that revisiting the Tractatus’ treatment of ‘form’ gives us – perhaps surprisingly – reasons to support a non-univocal later reading of ‘forms of life’.

Race and ethnicity in the construction of the nation in Spain: the case of the Maragatos

ABSTRACTNationalism and its counterpart, modernism, are projects that involve the attempt to homogenize and incorporate the masses through the creation of a majority identity that usually leads to the classification of certain deviant groups as ‘others’. In Spain, civic and ethnic nationalisms driven by the state have historically drawn on cultural and biological notions of ethnicity and race to construct a representation of the Maragatos as ‘cursed peoples’, while at the same time homogenizing and incorporating them into the nation in practice. By tracing a genealogy of the origins and evolution of the representations of Maragato otherness created during the Enlightenment era, the Franco dictatorship and the current super-modern period, this paper argues that representations of otherness significantly influence current research agendas and understandings of identity well beyond the disappearance of the actual subjects described as others.

Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus by Steven D. Smith (review)

Reviewed by: Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus by Steven D. Smith Fabio Tutrone Steven D. Smith. Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus. Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 308pp. $99. When Otto Keller published his meticulous work Die Antike Tierwelt (1909–13), classical scholars still conceived of ancient zoological knowledge as an astonishingly labyrinthine corpus of tales. One felt the need to separate objective truths and fabulous accounts on the basis of a modern-oriented comparatist approach which was especially suspicious of Aelian’s De Natura Animalium and the so-called paradoxographic tradition. At that time, classicists were also keen to [End Page 532] see Severan literature as a scarcely original (and relatively uninteresting) digest of earlier writings—a faithful mirror of the beginning of the end. Steven Smith’s book on Aelian’s “literary imagination” and its culturally embedded use of animal figures is paradigmatic of the notable progress of scholarship in both such fields of research—the role of animals as revealing symbolic constructs and the intellectual life of Severan Rome. Throughout his well-structured survey, Smith offers new insights into Aelian’s worldview as a profoundly Hellenized Roman writer creatively combining biological notions and literary mirabilia, socio-political patterns, and sophistic aesthetics. On the one hand, the book clearly situates itself in the flourishing area of cultural and animal studies, making the most of both well-known and newly emerging theoretical frameworks (from Michel Foucault to Donna Haraway, from Derrida and Deleuze to Giorgio Agamben). Of course, the purpose of Smith as well as of other contemporary scholars interested in the ancient representation of animals is no longer to identify reliable “scientific” data as distinct from ancient folklore. Rather, it is the intersection of rhetorical, historical, and anthropological factors which seems to characterize most properly the Graeco-Roman discourse on animal life. On the other hand, however, Smith engages in an ambitious reconfiguration of Aelian’s (admittedly enigmatic) profile as an exponent of the Second Sophistic, at the same time indebted and alien to the milieu of the third century c.e. The multifaceted textual construction of Aelian’s animal narratives is shown to entail a critical (and at times ambiguous) reflection on such different issues as gender, religion, ethnicity, natural philosophy, and kingship. The book is composed of ten chapters, each one investigating a specific aspect of Aelian’s Weltanschauung on the basis of thematically connected passages. While the main focus is on De Natura Animalium (and thus on animal-related topics), two chapters (2 and 10, respectively) extend the scope of the inquiry to Aelian’s Rustic Letters and Varia Historia (VH). The monograph as a whole is framed by an introductory overview (starting with a fictional first-person speech by Aelian) and a conclusive note which sums up Smith’s most relevant theses. In addition, a more “philological” appendix discusses seventeen short fragments possibly pertaining to Aelian’s lost Katēgoria tou gunnidos (“The Indictment of the Little Woman”), a bitter invective against Elagabalus prudently written after the emperor’s death (cf. Philostr. Vit. Soph. 625). The question of Aelian’s elusive literary persona figures prominently in the general introduction and is the core subject of chapter 1. By qualifying the author of the De Natura Animalium (NA) as “independent” and “countercultural,” Smith does not mean to remove him from his social and political context. On the contrary, the evidence drawn from the NA itself (especially from the impressionistic self-portrait of the preface and the epilogue), together with the biographical sketches in Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists and in the Byzantine Souda lexicon, is used to demonstrate that, though “inextricably bound up with and perhaps even unwittingly celebratory of urban Roman culture of the early third century c.e., Aelian nevertheless also fashions a literary persona that is critical of that same [End Page 533] cultural milieu” (16). In Smith’s view, such a fascinatingly ambivalent effect is made possible by the overwhelming stylistic variety (poikilia) of the NA, which appears as an “open” work (in Umberto Eco’s terms) intentionally lacking any large-scale...

Race unmasked: biology and race in the twentieth century

Race Unmasked: Biology and Race in Twentieth Century By Michael Yudell (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2014) (274 pages; $40.00 cloth)In Race Unmasked: Biology and Race in Twentieth Century, historian Mike Yudell analyzes race concept and role that scientists have played in c ontributing to idea of race over twentieth century. He explores assumptions of racial science, defined as the use of science, both by scientists and laypersons alike ... as part of a greater arsenal of oppression (p. 115). Using primary sources of books, research studies, and other writings by prominent eugenicists, geneticists, and evolutionary biologists, he argues that racial rooted in biological notions of difference did not die out after World War II and, in fact, has persisted into twenty-first century. As well, has played a critical role in formulations of ideas about race and America's changing views of African Americans. Although people have tried to use to justify racial difference, science they used was no more real than saying that race is real. Science was only real to extent that scientists said it was so.Yudell traces idea of race back to eighteenth century when Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus established racial classification systems based on biological traits such as skin color or hair texture. His categories of Asiaticus, Africanus, Europeaeus, and Americanus were infused with distinct physical and behavioral characteristics. Yudell's primary interest is twentieth century, however, and his first chapters explore thinking of eugenicists such as Francis Galton and Charles Davenport. Galton examined hereditary traits both within and between humans, and he had a significant impact on formation of race as a biological concept. Supported by his Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Davenport applied Galton's eugenic doctrines to immigration policies and Black/White differences. By rooting human differences and perceived inferiorities in blood relationships, these eugenicists used scientific method to preserve White supremacy.Significantly, Yudell contextualizes this early twentieth-century work within push to formulate new immigration policies and activities of anti-Black groups such as Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in 1920s. Eugenicist Lothrop Stoddard, for example, actually advised KKK, while other eugenicists disseminated their ideas that were used to enforce segregation for some and exclusion for others based on inferior traits. Ideas about racial difference also were put on public display through American Museum of Natural History meeting in 1921. Models, diagrams, and research presentations in 131 exhibits asserted subtle but distinct differences between Blacks and Whites that reinforced immutability of bodily characteristics. Yet some biologists, geneticists, and anthropologists challenged assumptions of racial science. Columbia University anthropologist Franz Boas, for example, rebuked White supremacists and eugenicists at museum gathering. The National Association for Advancement of Colored People, formed in 1909, became more vocal in 1920s, with W.E.B. duBois attacking racial even as genetics began to replace eugenics as authority on race concept.Yudell continues thesis that biological assumptions in racial drove researchers in twentieth century by focusing on National Research Council studies that investigated impact of interbreeding between Blacks and Whites (p. 60). Contextualized in lieu of demographic shift of Blacks from South to northern cities after World War 1, studies included human intelligence testing and mechanical aptitude tests to develop an approach to organic differences regarding pathology. For example, in hopes of using intelligence testing to help people adjust better and thereby serve a positive social function, Joseph Peterson's study on Blacks was a 'gentleman's' way of articulating racism (p. …

Neuroesthetics is Not Just about Art.

Neuroesthetics is Not Just about Art.

L'Hybride à l'Épreuve du Corps Dansant: étude de créations de la scène contemporaine anglo-saxonne

RÉSUMÉ Prenant comme point de départ l'expérience des artistes de la diaspora indienne en Angleterre, l'article propose de repenser le rôle et la signification du terme hybride dans le champ de la danse et de la création contemporaine. Appliqué sans distinction à toute sorte de création artistique à caractère multiculturel, ce terme véhicule une pluralité de sens parfois contradictoires. Le recours à des notions de biologie contemporaine fournira les outils théoriques nécessaires à une analyse des processus de création hybrides, permettant une lecture diversifiée d'expériences souvent perçues comme homogènes.

The "contemporary synthesis": when politically inclusive genomic science relies on biological notions of race.

This essay outlines the emergence of a contemporary synthesis regarding racial thinking in genetic science and in society more broadly. A departure from what Julian Huxley in 1942 termed the "modern synthesis," the contemporary version does not purport to leave race thinking behind in favor of evolution, population genetics, and population-based accounts of natural selection and human diversity. Specifically, the contemporary synthesis blends old concepts (such as that of pure human "types," located within continental land masses) with new attitudes (democratic inclusion, multicultural diversity, and anti-racism). Through various examples, the essay shows how this new synthesis combines ideas about human biological difference that draw on measures of physical characteristics and human genetic material that are both race and population based, yet conflated. This specific amalgam allows old notions of racial types to thrive through conceptual framings that comprise ideas that were once imagined to have the potential to liberate society from racial thinking--and that today remain attached to ideas of progress. As an emergent dynamic, the contemporary synthesis holds the possibility of reinvigorating racism, while simultaneously possessing the potential to promote antiracist science education, disease awareness, and social justice efforts.

The Structural Role of Cholesterol in Cell Membranes: From Condensed Bilayers to Lipid Rafts

CONSPECTUS: Defining the two-dimensional structure of cell membranes represents one of the most daunting challenges currently facing chemists, biochemists, and biophysicists. In particular, the time-averaged lateral organization of the lipids and proteins that make up these natural enclosures has yet to be established. As the classic Singer-Nicolson model of cell membranes has evolved over the past 40 years, special attention has focused on the structural role played by cholesterol, a key component that represents ca. 30% of the total lipids that are present. Despite extensive studies with model membranes, two fundamental issues have remained a mystery: (i) the mechanism by which cholesterol condenses low-melting lipids by uncoiling their acyl chains and (ii) the thermodynamics of the interaction between cholesterol and high- and low-melting lipids. The latter bears directly on one of the most popular notions in modern cell biology, that is, the lipid raft hypothesis, whereby cholesterol is thought to combine with high-melting lipids to form "lipid rafts" that float in a "sea" of low-melting lipids. In this Account, we first describe a chemical approach that we have developed in our laboratories that has allowed us to quantify the interactions between exchangeable mimics of cholesterol and low- and high-melting lipids in model membranes. In essence, this "nearest-neighbor recognition" (NNR) method involves the synthesis of dimeric forms of these lipids that contain a disulfide moiety as a linker. By means of thiolate-disulfide interchange reactions, equilibrium mixtures of dimers are then formed. These exchange reactions are initiated either by adding dithiothreitol to a liposomal dispersion to generate a small amount of thiol monomer or by including a small amount of thiol monomer in the liposomes at pH 5.0 and then raising the pH to 7.4. We then show how such NNR measurements have allowed us to distinguish between two very different mechanisms that have been proposed for cholesterol's condensing effect: (i) an umbrella mechanism in which the acyl chains and cholesterol become more tightly packed as cholesterol content increases because they share limited space under phospholipid headgroups and (ii) a template mechanism whereby cholesterol functions as a planar hydrophobic template at the membrane surface, thereby maximizing hydrophobic interactions and the hydrophobic effect. Specifically, our NNR experiments rule out the umbrella mechanism and provide strong support for the template mechanism. Similar NNR measurements have also allowed us to address the question of whether the interactions between low-melting kinked phospholipids and cholesterol can play a significant role in the formation of lipid rafts. Specifically, these NNR measurements have led to our discovery of a new physical principle in the lipids and membranes area that must be operating in biological membranes, that is, a "push-pull" mechanism, whereby cholesterol is pushed away from low-melting phospholipids and pulled toward high-melting lipids. Thus, to the extent that lipid rafts play a role in the functioning of cell membranes, low-melting phospholipids must be active participants.

Radioactive Decay and Penetration Depth – Why Should There Be an e?

When students are first introduced to the idea of radioactive decay, a large conceptual hurdle must be overcome. The thought that an object's age has no bearing on the chance it will “die” (decay in this case) on a particular day is completely at odds with biological notions of life and death. Through the use of a simple spreadsheet, students are shown that something analogous to coin flips will yield the exponential curve describing decay. A similar spreadsheet is then used to show that the exponential curve associated with the penetration depth of radiation is produced through the use of the same kind of random process applied to slices of matter rather than slices of time. The spreadsheets model two common introductory laboratory experiments but avoid the need for Geiger counters, radioactive sources, and sheets of absorbing material.

Niche construction, adaptive preferences, and the differences between fitness and utility

A number of scholars have recently defended the claim that there is a close connection between the evolutionary biological notion of fitness and the economic notion of utility: both are said to refer to an organism’s success in dealing with its environment, and both are said to play the same theoretical roles in their respective sciences. However, an analysis of two seemingly disparate but in fact structurally related phenomena—‘niche construction’ (the case where organisms change their environment to make it fit to their needs) and ‘adaptive preferences’ (the case where agents change their wants to make them fit to what the world has given them)—shows that one needs to be very careful about the postulation of this sort of fitness–utility connection. Specifically, I here use the analysis of these two phenomena to establish when connecting fitness and utility is and is not possible.