This paper argues that evolutionary models based on selection validate, under appropriate conditions, the relevance of optimality as an explanatory mechanism in rational choice theory. The reason is that these frameworks ...

Evolutionary transitions between quadrupedal and bipedal postures are pivotal to the diversification of amniotes on land, including in our own lineage (Hominini). Heterochrony is suggested as a macroevolutionary mechanism ...

The biological evolution topic guides the understanding of the interaction of living beings with the environment. The explanatory power of evolutionary theory through the mechanism of natural selection is recognized by ...

In this thesis we aim to examine the epistemological perspectives of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn on the progress of scientific theories in order to analyze their metaphorical or analogical understandings of Darwin's 'natural ...

A long-standing hypothesis is that many European plants invade temperate grasslands globally because they are introduced simultaneously with pastoralism and cultivation, to which they are ‘preadapted’ after millennia of ...

Successful exotic plant invasions are likely to be caused by multiple, non-mutually exclusive mechanisms, and it is exceptionally difficult to weight the relative importance of these mechanisms identified in different ...

This study aims to bring together the insights of two strands of literature regarding urban development: urban economics originally considered in a monocentric spatial-economic framework and self-organizing systems and ...