Cause and effect in biology revisited: is Mayr's proximate-ultimate dichotomy still useful?
Fifty years ago, Ernst Mayr published a hugely influential paper on the nature of causation in biology, in which he distinguished between proximate and ultimate causes. Mayr equated proximate causation with immediate factors (for example, physiology) and ultimate causation with evolutionary explanat...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2011
|