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How vs. why questions: Proximate view How an individual organism's structures function Ontogeny (development) Developmental explanations for changes in individuals, from DNA to their current form Mechanism (causation) Mechanistic explanations for how an organism's structures work Ultimate (evolutionary) view
A functional characteristic is known in evolutionary biology as an adaptation, and the research strategy for investigating whether a character is adaptive is known as adaptationism. Although assuming that a character is functional may be helpful in research, some characteristics of organisms are non-functional, formed as accidental spandrels ...
Biological processes are regulated by many means; examples include the control of gene expression, protein modification or interaction with a protein or substrate molecule. Homeostasis: regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature
Thymus atrophy during early human development (childhood) is an example of physiologic atrophy. Skeletal muscle atrophy is a common pathologic adaptation to skeletal muscle disuse (commonly called "disuse atrophy"). Tissue and organs especially susceptible to atrophy include skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, secondary sex organs, and the brain ...
Cell metabolism is the process by which individual cells process nutrient molecules. Metabolism has two distinct divisions: catabolism , in which the cell breaks down complex molecules to produce energy and reducing power , and anabolism , in which the cell uses energy and reducing power to construct complex molecules and perform other ...
On the organ and tissue scale in mammals and other animals, examples include the circulatory system, the respiratory system, and the nervous system. On the micro to the nanoscopic scale, examples of biological systems are cells, organelles, macromolecular complexes and regulatory pathways.
In these examples, the source of selection on a trait coevolves with the trait itself, therefore causation is reciprocal and developmental processes potentially become relevant to evolutionary accounts. For instance, a peacock’s tail evolves through mating preferences in peahens, and those preferences coevolve with the male trait.
Developmental systems theory, by contrast, assumes that the process/data distinction is at best misleading and at worst completely false, and that while it may be helpful for very specific pragmatic or theoretical reasons to treat a structure now as a process and now as a datum, there is always a risk (to which reductionists routinely succumb ...