Richerson Peter J
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California-Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.
Behav Processes. 2019 Apr;161:54-64. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2018.02.002. Epub 2018 Feb 8.
Phenotypic flexibility includes systems such as individual learning, social learning, and the adaptive immune system. Since the evolution of genes by natural selection is a relatively slow process, mechanisms of phenotypic flexibility are evolved to adapt to contingencies on the time scales ranging from a few hundred milliseconds (e.g. avoidance of immediate physical threats) to a few millennia (e.g. cultural adaptations to local environmental variation in the Holocene). Because environmental variation is non-stationary and fat tailed, systems of phenotypic flexibility sometimes have to be creative. They do this by means of random innovation, or exploration, and selective retention. The canonically rational way to deal with variable, uncertain environments is the Bayesian process of using new data to update priors based on past experience. Organic evolution updates the gene frequencies of populations based upon the fitness of alleles. Learning updates behavioral priors based upon the reinforcement of alternate behaviors. Genes and mechanisms of phenotypic flexibility are not isolated but richly interact. Classically, genes are said to code for the reinforcers that shape behavior in individual learning, for example. It is currently controversial whether or not these interactions include a role for the products phenotypic flexibility directly shaping selection on genes.
表型灵活性包括个体学习、社会学习和适应性免疫系统等机制。由于自然选择导致的基因进化是一个相对缓慢的过程，表型灵活性机制得以进化，以适应从几百毫秒（例如躲避即时身体威胁）到几千年（例如全新世对当地环境变化的文化适应）的时间尺度上的偶发情况。由于环境变化是不稳定且具有厚尾分布的，表型灵活性机制有时必须具有创造性。它们通过随机创新或探索以及选择性保留来实现这一点。处理多变、不确定环境的典型理性方式是贝叶斯过程，即利用新数据根据过去经验更新先验概率。有机进化根据等位基因的适应性更新种群的基因频率。学习根据替代行为的强化更新行为先验概率。基因和表型灵活性机制并非孤立存在，而是相互作用丰富。例如，传统上认为基因编码在个体学习中塑造行为的强化物。目前，这些相互作用是否包括表型灵活性产物直接塑造基因选择的作用仍存在争议。
