James R. Griesemer (2000). “Development, Culture, and the Units of Inheritance.” Philosophy of Science 67 (Proceedings): S348–S368. DOI-10.1086/392831.
Key takeaways
From the abstract (Crossref), not read. Developmental systems theory widens the unit of replication to the whole system of developmental resources, but keeps the classical gene and so achieves “only a nominal reunification of heredity and development”. An alternative conception of inheritance yields “a new unit—the reproducer—which genuinely integrates genetic and developmental perspectives”, articulating “the non-separability of ‘genetic’ and ‘developmental’ roles”. Reformulated in reproducers, the theory keeps a distinction between cultural and biological evolution. Griesemer and Shavit (LIT-188, §3) take from it that inheritance is propagation by sampling of parental material parts into propagules that carry developmental capacities.
Standing in the record
Registered on 2026-11-01 from the re-reading of LIT-188 (NOTE-173). The reproducer is the unit Griesemer’s view uses in place of units of selection, and it is how LIT-188 can speak of a group as a candidate reproducer before it is an individual (§2). LIT-157 (Bourrat on reproducees, reproducers and Darwinian individuals) descends from it.