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Niche construction in evolutionary theory: the construction of an academic niche?

Manan Gupta, N. G. Prasad, Sutirth Dey, Amitabh Joshi, T. N. C. Vidya
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/109793
Manan Gupta
1Evolutionary Biology Laboratory, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur P.O., Bengaluru 560 064, India.
2Animal Behaviour and Sociogenetics Laboratory, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur P.O., Bengaluru 560 064, India.
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N. G. Prasad
3Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Knowledge City, Sector 81, SAS Nagar, P.O. Manauli, Mohali, Punjab140 306, India.
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Sutirth Dey
4Population Biology Laboratory, Biology Division, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pune 411 008, India.
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Amitabh Joshi
1Evolutionary Biology Laboratory, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur P.O., Bengaluru 560 064, India.
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T. N. C. Vidya
2Animal Behaviour and Sociogenetics Laboratory, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur P.O., Bengaluru 560 064, India.
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  • For correspondence: tncvidya@jncasr.ac.in tncvidya@gmail.com
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Abstract

In recent years, fairly far-reaching claims have been repeatedly made about how niche construction, the modification by organisms of their environment, and that of other organisms, represents a vastly neglected phenomenon in ecological and evolutionary thought. The proponents of this view claim that the niche construction perspective greatly expands the scope of standard evolutionary theory and that niche construction deserves to be treated as a significant evolutionary process in its own right, almost at par with natural selection. Claims have also been advanced about how niche construction theory represents a substantial extension to, and re-orientation of, standard evolutionary theory, which is criticized as being narrowly gene-centric and ignoring the rich complexity and reciprocity of organism-environment interactions. We examine these claims in some detail and show that they do not stand up to scrutiny. We suggest that the manner in which niche construction theory is sought to be pushed in the literature is better viewed as an exercise in academic niche construction whereby, through incessant repetition of largely untenable claims, and the deployment of rhetorically appealing but logically dubious analogies, a receptive climate for a certain sub-discipline is sought to be manufactured within the scientific community. We see this as an unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable, nascent post-truth tendency within science.

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Posted February 19, 2017.
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Niche construction in evolutionary theory: the construction of an academic niche?
Manan Gupta, N. G. Prasad, Sutirth Dey, Amitabh Joshi, T. N. C. Vidya
bioRxiv 109793; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/109793
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Niche construction in evolutionary theory: the construction of an academic niche?
Manan Gupta, N. G. Prasad, Sutirth Dey, Amitabh Joshi, T. N. C. Vidya
bioRxiv 109793; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/109793

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