Ultimate Explanation Research Articles

Collective anti-predator escape manoeuvres through optimal attack and avoidance strategies

The collective dynamics of self-organised systems emerge from the decision rules agents use to respond to each other and to external forces. This is evident in groups of animals under attack from predators, where understanding collective escape patterns requires evaluating the risks and rewards associated with particular social rules, prey escape behaviour, and predator attack strategies. Here, we find that the emergence of the ‘fountain effect’, a common collective pattern observed when animal groups evade predators, is the outcome of rules designed to maximise individual survival chances given predator hunting decisions. Using drone-based empirical observations of schooling sardine prey (Sardinops sagax caerulea) attacked by striped marlin (Kajikia audax), we first find the majority of attacks produce fountain effects, with the dynamics of these escapes dependent on the predator’s attack direction. Then, using a spatially-explicit agent-based model of predator-prey dynamics, we show that fountain manoeuvres can emerge from combining an optimal individual prey escape angle with social interactions. The escape rule appears to prioritise maximising the distance to the predator and creates conflict in the effectiveness of predators’ attacks and the prey’s avoidance, explaining the empirically observed predators’ attack strategies and the fountain evasions produced by prey. Overall, we identify the proximate and ultimate explanations for fountain effects and more generally highlight that the collective patterns of self-organised predatory-prey systems can be understood by considering both social escape rules and attack strategies.

Evolutionary origins of temporal discounting: Modeling how time and uncertainty constrain optimal decision-making strategies across taxa.

The propensity of humans and non-human animals to discount future returns for short-term benefits is well established. This contrasts with the ability of organisms to unfold complex developmental sequences over months or years efficiently. Research has focused on various descriptive and predictive parameters of 'temporal discounting' in behavior, and researchers have proposed models to explain temporal preference in terms of fitness-maximizing outcomes. Still, the underlying ultimate cause of this phenomenon has not been deeply explored across taxa. Here, we propose an ultimate (i.e., evolutionary) causal explanation for the selection of temporal discounting largely conserved across taxa. We propose that preference for a short-term reward (e.g., heightened impulsivity) often is less than optimal and likely is the product of constraints imposed on natural selection with respect to predicting events in a temporal framework in the context of future uncertainty. Using a simple Newtonian model for time across a fitness landscape in which movement by organisms is only possible in one direction, we examine several factors that influence the ability of an organism to choose a distant reward over a more temporally proximate reward: including the temporal distance of the far reward, the relative value of the distant reward, and the effect of uncertainty about the value and presence of the distant reward. Our results indicate that an organism may choose a more distant reward, but only if it is not too far into the future and has a substantially higher-value fitness payoff relative to the short-term reward. Notably, any uncertainty about the distant reward made it extremely unlikely for an organism to choose the delayed reward strategy compared to choosing a closer reward, even if the distant reward had a much higher payoff because events that are uncertain are only partially visible to natural selection pressures. The results help explain why natural selection is constrained to promote more optimal behavioral strategies and why it has difficulty selecting a distant reward over a lower-value short-term reward. The degree of uncertainty is an especially salient ecological variable in promoting and preferencing short-term behavioral strategies across taxa. These results further help illustrate why, from an ultimate causal perspective, human and non-human taxa have difficulty making more optimal long-term decisions.

Can pantheism explain the existence of the universe?

Abstract Many traditional theists maintain that God is the ultimate explanation of the universe, for why anything exists at all. For the traditional theist, only a being who is fundamental and transcendent can provide an ultimate ground and explanation of the universe. This requirement that God transcend the universe in order to ultimately explain it poses a challenge for pantheism, the view that God is numerically identical with the universe. If God is identical with the universe, and God is supposed to be the ultimate explanation of the universe, the result is an instance of circular explanation. And circular explanations are allegedly illegitimate. In this article, I develop two explanatory models in an attempt to show that pantheism is consistent with non-circular explanations of the universe. All else being equal, I argue that pantheism is not explanatorily deficient in comparison to traditional theism.

Naturalism Versus Theism In Explaining History

Questioning the ultimate explanation of existence is human nature. However, not all people have the same perspective on this issue. This study deals with naturalism and theism, which are the two opposite poles of humankind's desire to reach the ultimate explanation. There are many contemporary philosophers who defend the superiority of the explanatory power of theism compared to alternative views. The views of these philosophers are generally a continuation of the views before them. The extent to which these theistic defenses, which have only a few original aspects, are truly successful against non-theistic views requires philosophical analysis. Kenneth L. Pearce, who has been frequently mentioned recently in philosophy of religion and has been in discussions with the leading names of atheism, has produced many studies with the idea that he has made positive contributions to theism. Pearce defends this idea with a contemporary version of the contingency argument, a member of the family of cosmological arguments. In this version, the basis of Pearce's argument is the concept of 'History'. History is the total sequence of causes and effects, past, present and future. The question of how theism is more successful than naturalism in explaining History is a subject worth examining. Therefore, this study analyzes philosophically the internal consistency, truth value, validity and persuasive power of the claim that theism explains existence and facts better than naturalism. The analysis shows that Pearce could not defend theism strongly enough against naturalism with the contingency argument. I hope that through this article I can contribute to preventing such weak arguments in favor of theism from becoming more prominent in the coming years. I think that this will contribute to putting forward stronger arguments and thus conducting more meaningful and worthwhile philosophical discussions.

Leveraging Evolutionary Psychology for Tourism Research: Identifying and Addressing Key Challenges

Evolutionary psychology has led to an increasing number of important and novel findings on tourist and resident attitudes and behaviors. However, in parallel with such advances, several challenges hinder the further application of evolutionary psychology in tourism studies. In this letter to the editor, we therefore identify and address six key challenges to the use of evolutionary psychology in tourism. These challenges are: (1) a difficulty in distinguishing proximate from ultimate explanations, (2) a belief that evolutionary psychology focuses on nature, and ignores nurture, (3) a belief in human exceptionalism, (4) an impression that evolutionary psychology overemphasizes gender differences, (5) a view of evolutionary psychology as a single, unified theory, and (6) a belief that evolutionary psychology can be used to justify genetic determinism, sexism, and racism. In identifying and responding to these challenges, we hope to inspire scholars to consider adopting an evolutionary psychology lens in their future research.

Characterization of the GLONASS-K1+ atomic frequency standard

The fifth GLONASS-K1 satellite with space vehicle number R807 was launched in October 2022. It represents the first spacecraft of the K1+ generation, which offers various technical innovations. Compared to previous K1 satellites, R807 also transmits a code-division multiple access (CDMA) signal in the L2 frequency band in addition to L1 and L2 frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) and L3 CDMA signals. Thus, R807 is the first spacecraft of the K1+ generation. A geometry- and ionosphere-free triple carrier combination is used to analyze the GLONASS R807 clock consistency at different frequencies. Significant inconsistencies were found showing up as variations with a peak-to-peak amplitude of up to 40 cm and periods between 15 min and a few days. Whereas the ultimate explanation for these variations is not known, it is likely that they originate from cross-talk of two oscillators with similar frequency. A short-term clock analysis for integration times up to 100 s based on the one-way carrier phase (OWCP) method shows a superior stability of the R807 clock compared to all other GLONASS satellites including the new K2 generation. The Allan deviation computed from 5 s clock estimates confirms this finding for integration times up to 600 s but shows a significant bump at longer integration times due to the periodic variations mentioned above. Single-frequency OWCP processing confirms consistency of the L1 and L2 FDMA signals whereas the L3 CDMA signal shows a slight phase shift. Although the spurious variations mask the true performance of the K1+ atomic frequency standard, its behavior at short integration times points at a new type of GLONASS satellite clock.

An Evolutionary Psychological Approach Toward BDSM Interest and Behavior

Bondage/discipline, Dominance/submission, and Sadism/Masochism (BDSM) have gained increased attention and discussion in recent years. This prevalence is accompanied by a shift in perceptions of BDSM, including the declassification of sadomasochism as a paraphilic disorder. Evolutionary psychology offers a unique perspective of why some individuals are interested in BDSM and why some prefer certain elements of BDSM over others (e.g., dominance versus submission). In this paper, we examine BDSM from an evolutionary standpoint, examining biopsychosocial factors that underlie the BDSM interests and practice. We articulate this perspective via an exploration of: proximate processes, such as the role of childhood experiences, sexual conditioning, and physiological factors; as well as ultimate explanations for power play and pain play dimensions of BDSM, highlighting the potential adaptive advantages of each. While BDSM may not be adaptive in itself, we examine the literature of sex differences in BDSM role preferences and argue that these preferences may stem from the extreme forms of behaviors which enhance reproductive success. In the realm of pain play, we explore the intersection of pain and pleasure from both physiological and psychological perspectives, highlighting the crucial role of psychological and play partner factors in modulating the experience of pain. Finally, we encourage future research in social sciences to utilize evolutionary frameworks to further explore the subject and help alleviate the mystification surrounding BDSM. This multifaceted exploration of BDSM provides valuable insights for clinicians, kink-identified individuals, and scholars seeking to understand the evolutionary perspectives of human sexual behavior and preferences.

Why ask why? Toward coordinating knowledge of proximate and ultimate explanations in physiology.

In physiology education, students must learn to recognize and construct causal explanations. This challenges students, in part, because causal explanations in biology manifest in different varieties. Unlike other natural sciences, causal mechanisms in physiology support physiological functions and reflect biological adaptations. Therefore, students must distinguish between questions that prompt a proximate or an ultimate explanation. In the present investigation, we aimed to determine how these different varieties of student knowledge coordinate within students' written explanations. Prior research in science education demonstrates that students present specific challenges when distinguishing between proximate and ultimate explanations: students appear to conflate the two or construct other nonmechanistic explanations. This investigation, however, demonstrates that analytic frameworks can distinguish between students' proximate and ultimate explanations when they are provided explanatory scaffolds that contextualize questions. Moreover, these scaffolds and prompts help students distinguish between physiological functions and the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underpin them. Together, these findings deliver insight into the context-sensitive nature of student knowledge in physiology education and offer an analytic framework for identifying and characterizing student knowledge in physiology.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Why ask why? How questions posed in physiology task students with developing their mechanistic reasoning. Why questions sometimes undermine this reasoning. Prior research, however, also illustrates that framing the context of a question explicitly supports students in distinguishing between question types. We further illustrate how providing such context in the form of explanatory scaffolds and prompts allows students to tap different and useful varieties of knowledge when constructing written explanations.

Variational propensities: development and ultimate causes

This paper applies philosophical tools from the causalists/statisticalists debate to the evo-devo idea of variational tendencies as propensities biasing phenotypic change. It contends that variational properties are present in a statistical sense in some population dynamics models, particularly quantitative genetics ones, providing ultimate variational explanations. It further argues that these properties, contrary to some recent views, cannot be subsumed under natural selection. Finally, it advocates for a causalist interpretation of these explanations, where variational statistical properties indirectly refer to evo-devo’s variational propensities.

Intertroop kidnapping of a young infant in wild olive baboons (Papio anubis)

On June 16, 2023, a juvenile female olive baboon (Papio anubis) in our study troop at the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project in Kenya grabbed a ~3-week-old infant from another troop and released him near a high-ranking adult female in the study troop. This female, who was already pregnant, took the infant and treated him as her own, allowing him nipple access. The infant survived for over a month, which suggests the female produced some milk, at least initially, but he eventually died on July 24. Here, we describe the behaviours of all individuals involved in this rare event, and present possible proximate mechanisms and ultimate explanations for the behaviours observed. Rare events can reveal a species’ behavioural and physiological flexibility, and this one sheds light on the potential for infant stacking in baboons and the use of infants as a commodity within the social market of the troop.

A processing advantage in favor of animate entities in incidental word learning in young children

Because of their evolutionary importance, it has been proposed that animate entities would be better remembered than inanimate entities. Although a growing body of evidence supports this hypothesis, it is still unclear whether the animacy effect persists under incidental learning conditions. Furthermore, few studies have tested the robustness of this effect in young children, with conflicting results. Using an incidental learning paradigm, we investigated whether young children (4- and 5-year-olds) would be better at learning words that refer to either human or animal entities rather than vehicle entities using pictures as stimuli. A sample of 79 children were asked to play digital Memory games while associations between pictures and words were presented incidentally. Consistent with the adaptive view of memory, the results showed that words associated with human and animal entities were better learned incidentally than words associated with vehicle entities. The visual complexity of the pictures did not influence this animacy effect. In addition, the more exposure to the pictures, the more incidental learning occurred. Overall, the results confirm the robustness of the animacy effect and show that this processing advantage can be found in an incidental learning task in children as young as 4 or 5 years. Furthermore, it is the first study to show that this effect can be obtained with pictures in children. The demonstration of the animacy effect with pictures, and not just words, is a prerequisite for an ultimate explanation of this effect in terms of survival.

An Integrated General Theory of Psychopathology and Suicide

This article presents biological meta-theory that is intended to serve as a shared key to progress in psychiatry and suicidology. It argues that diverse forms of psychopathology, widely believed to cause suicide, may instead manifest the organism’s last-ditch efforts to avoid that lethal outcome. The analysis elaborates on the pain-brain theory, which views suicide as a costly by-product of human sapience, with the cost managed by serial lines of evolved anti-suicide defenses. The last of these, emergency interventions that function to block the enacting of suicidal ideas, are hypothesized to display in an array of psychiatric phenomena, including mood disorders, substance and behavioral addictions, and psychoses.The etiology of psychiatric syndromes is explained in three parts. First, psychopathology associates with suicidal ideation because the two outcomes share a causal root: the individual’s experience of chronic psychological pain (psychache), subject to a threshold of intellectual maturation. An evolved system utilizes these inputs to evaluate the risk of suicide and to release commensurately severe countermeasures, which manifest non-specifically as psychopathology. Second, the configuration of symptoms is determined by other aspects of individual differences: reflecting contextual needs, individualized blends of motivational and/or cognitive modifications seek to make lethal escape unnecessary and/or impracticable. Third, psychiatric syndromes can be understood as often-observed, heterogeneous clusters of anti-suicide symptoms, combined with psychache and side effects.The model integrates ultimate and proximate explanation, aligns with the epidemiological record, and yields testable predictions. It offers foundations for advancing research, policy, and clinical practice in suicide prevention and mental health.

Paternity share predicts sons’ fetal testosterone

Multiple paternity is common in many species. While its benefits for males are obvious, for females they are less clear. Female indirect benefits may include acquiring ‘good genes’ for offspring or increasing litter genetic diversity. The nutria (Myocastor coypus) is a successful invasive species. In its native habitat, it is polygynous, with larger and more aggressive males monopolizing paternity. Here, using culled nutria we genetically examined multiple paternity in-utero and found a high incidence of multiple paternity and maintenance of the number of fathers throughout gestation. Moreover, male fetuses sired by the prominent male have higher testosterone levels. Despite being retained, male fetuses of ‘rare’ fathers, siring commonly only one of the fetuses in the litter, have lower testosterone levels. Considering the reproductive skew of nutria males, if females are selected for sons with higher future reproductive success, low testosterone male fetuses are expected to be selected against. A possible ultimate explanation for maintaining multiple paternity could be that nutria females select for litter genetic diversity e.g., a bet-hedging strategy, even at the possible cost of reducing the reproductive success of some of their sons. Reproductive strategies that maintain genetic diversity may be especially beneficial for invasive species, as they often invade through a genetic bottleneck.

Theoretical morphological analysis of differential morphospace occupation patterns for terrestrial and aquatic gastropods.

Despite the morphological diversity of organisms, they only occupy a fraction of the theoretically possible spectrum (i.e., morphospace) and have been studied on several taxa. Such morphospace occupation patterns are formed through evolutionary processes under multiple constraints. In this study, we discovered a differential morphospace occupation pattern between terrestrial and aquatic gastropods, and subsequently attempted to quantitatively understand these differences through morphospace analysis. These differential occupation patterns between terrestrial and aquatic species were observed in the morphospace of spire height and aperture inclination, including a bimodal distribution of shell height in terrestrial species alongside an absence of high-spired shells with high aperture inclination. Although terrestrial species were distributed along optimal lines of shell instability and shell hindrance to locomotion, aquatic species were distributed not only along this line but also within a suboptimal region of the low spire with low inclination. Based on numerical simulation and biometric analysis, here we propose the hypothesis that this difference was caused by the aquatic species being able to adopt a posture with the growth direction perpendicular to the substrate due to reduced functional demands. Our results provided an ultimate explanation for the differential occupation patterns between habitats alongside an overview of the morphospace.

No Signs of Inclusive Fitness or Reciprocal Altruism in Advantageous Inequity Aversion.

Advantageous inequity aversion (i.e., the tendency to respond negatively to unfairness that benefits oneself) usually develops in 6-8-year-olds. However, little is known about the selection pressures that might have shaped this phenomenon. Using data collected from 120 4-8-year-old Finnish children, we tested two evolutionary explanations for the development of advantageous inequity aversion: reciprocal altruism (i.e., benefiting from sharing when the roles are likely reversed in the future) and inclusive fitness (i.e., benefiting from sharing with biological relatives that carry the same alleles). We first successfully replicated a previous experiment, showing that 6-8-year-olds display advantageous inequity aversion by preferring to throw away a resource rather than keep it for themselves. Here, this behavior was also displayed in 5-year-olds. Using a novel experiment, we then asked children to distribute five erasers between themselves, a sibling, a peer, and a stranger. That is, an equal distribution was only possible if throwing away one eraser. We found no support for advantageous inequity aversion being shaped by either inclusive fitness or reciprocal altruism. Future studies could investigate costly signaling and adherence to social norms to avoid negative consequences as ultimate explanations for advantageous inequity aversion.

Is collective nest site selection in ants influenced by the anchoring effect?

Evolutionary theory predicts that animals make decisions that maximize fitness. If so, they are expected to adhere to principles of rational choice, which a decision-maker must follow to reliably maximize net benefit. For example, evaluation of an option should not be influenced by the quality of other unchosen options. However, humans and other animals are known to evaluate a mediocre option more favorably after encountering poor options than after encountering no options, a phenomenon known as the ‘anchoring effect’. Rationality is also expected in the consensus decisions of animal societies, but the anchoring effect has not previously been tested in that context. Here we show that colonies of the rock ant, Temnothorax rugatulus, demonstrate the anchoring effect during nest site selection — colonies moved more readily from a mediocre nest to a good nest when exposed to poor nests than when exposed to mediocre nests. This effect depended on both current conditions and past experience; movement probability was affected only when colonies were exposed to surrounding nests before and during the emigration. The effect was small, reaching statistical significance in only one of two experimental replicates. We discuss possible mechanisms and ultimate explanations for why colonies show this seemingly suboptimal behavior.

Typical diet and type of economy do not predict food-sharing behaviors in three Tanzanian societies

Food sharing behavior is a widely observed phenomenon, and it draws attention of scholars interested in finding both proximate and ultimate explanations of such practices. In the current study, we focused on possible socio-economic and environmental food-sharing predictors: type of economy (i.e., immediate-return vs. delayed-return) and typical diet composition (i.e., proportion of proteins and carbohydrates in typical daily caloric intake). We investigated whether members of three societies from Tanzania (N = 177), namely hunter-gatherers (Hadza), pastoralists (Datoga), and agriculturalists (Iraqw) differ with regard to food-sharing patterns in the Dictator Game and reactions to violations of the food-sharing norms in the Ultimatum Game. We found that neither the type of economy nor the typical diet influenced our outcomes. The results indicated, however, that food sharing behavior was positively predicted by certain individual-level characteristics: people of higher strength and lower body fat shared more food, and women were more willing to share food than men.

Songs in the Key of Life

Songs in the Key of Life

Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context

Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context

Teleology in Natural Theology and Theology of Nature: Classical Theism, Science-Oriented Panentheism, and Process Theism

Teleology in Natural Theology and Theology of Nature:Classical Theism, Science-Oriented Panentheism, and Process Theism Mariusz Tabaczek, O.P. Introduction The world is full of teleological dimensions. When we search for them, we can easily see that virtually any of the main aspects of our world can be taken as a particular case of teleology. Although this holds especially for living beings, the physicochemical world also exhibits many directional features that acquire a special meaning when seen as necessary conditions for the existence of living beings. Directionality indicates the existence of tendencies toward goals, which is the hallmark of natural teleology. . . . It is not difficult to find examples of directionality and cooperativity. If we begin with the most elementary components of the world, we find out that subatomic particles and the four basic interactions behave according to well-known specific patterns and collaborate to build up successive levels of organization—atoms, molecules, macromolecules, and the bigger inorganic and organic beings. The entire construction of our world is the result of the deployment of tendencies that collaborate to make up unitary systems.1 If Mariano Artigas is right in his assertion—and many seem to agree that he is2—it seems reasonable to ask about the ways in which the notion of [End Page 1179] teleology may inspire theology, especially in the context of the ongoing dialogue between science and theology. We may think about at least two possible answers to this question, in reference to two related, yet distinctive strategies pursued in theological reflection, (1) the approach of natural theology and (2) the approach of theology of nature. What brings them together is their close attention to nature and our attempts to understand it. Avoiding theological and spiritual escapism and dismissive detachment from nature and natural phenomena, both natural theology and theology of nature point toward their ultimate grounding in God. While doing so, both approaches strive to remain free from the errors of panpsychism, vitalism, and pantheism, thus enabling nature to be natural, available to a thorough and meaningful analysis and description at the level of the research pursued by natural sciences and philosophy of nature and of science. What differentiates these theological approaches are their starting and ending points. Natural theology departs from the observation of natural phenomena. In a search for their ultimate explanation, in reference to philosophy of nature and metaphysics, it arrives at the theological conclusion that only the existence of God offers a satisfying and conclusive answer to the human search for understanding and meaning of the reality that surrounds us. Consequently, one may say that natural phenomena, or at least some of their most fundamental aspects such as teleology, can be used as a basis for arguing in favor of the existence of God. The advantage of such an approach—notes Ian Barbour—is that "it starts from scientific data on which we might expect agreement despite cultural and religious differences."3 However, taken alone, it may reduce the notion of God to the God of philosophers, the unmoved mover, [End Page 1180] or even a deistic Creator, remote and not engaged in his relation to the created reality. Moreover, although we know many examples of people who actually did go through a conversion and discovered the existence of God following the path of natural theology, one might ask whether at least some of the arguments developed within it do not presuppose God's existence as rhetorical exercises for the expression of religious faith, compromising thus its principal commitment. In contrast to natural theology, theology of nature begins with a firm belief in God, based on historical revelation—codified in the Scriptures and reflected upon within theological Tradition—and religious experience (personal and communal). It applies this perspective as an explanatory tool, providing a definitive answer to the questions of origin and ultimate fulfillment of natural phenomena observed in the universe. Hence, while it would be rather strange to claim that the existence of God proves the existence of the natural world—which is better known to us (quoad nos) than the principles of theology—we may still argue that, from the point of view of theology of nature, our knowledge...