Daniel W McShea
Associate Professor

919-660-7342 office, 660-7343 lab

242/223 Bio Sci

McShea Lab Webpage

Research Interests: Macroevolution, paleobiology, philosophy of biology

I am interested in large-scale evolutionary trends, that is, trends that include a number of higher taxa and span a large portion of the history of life. Features that have been said to show such trends include complexity, size, fitness, and others. In my research, I have been developing operational measures of these features, devising methods for testing empirically whether trends have occurred, and studying the causes and correlates of trends. My major work so far has been on trends in complexity. I am also interested in: 1. The relationships among the various evolutionary forces acting on animal form -- functional, formal, and phylogenetic. 2. Theoretical aspects of animal psychology. 3. The philosophy of biology.

Current projects: 1)Theory of the evolution of complexity, 2) Theory of feeling and motivation

Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1. D.W. McShea, The evolution of complexity without natural selection (or, a possible large-scale trend of the fourth kind), Paleobiology, vol. 31 (Supplement) (2005), pp. 146-156 .
2. D.W. McShea, A universal generative tendency toward increased organismal complexity, in Variation: A Central Concept in Biology, edited by B. Hallgrimsson and B. Hall (2005), pp. 435-453, Academic Press .
3. D.W. McShea and C. Anderson, The remodularization of the organism, in Modularity: Understanding the Development and Evolution of Natural Complex Systems, edited by W. Callebaut and D. Rasskin-Gutman (2005), pp. 185-206, The MIT Press .
4. L. Marino, D.W. McShea, and M.D. Uhen, Origin and evolution of large brains in toothed whales, Anatomical Record, vol. 281A (2004), pp. 1247-1255 .
5. D.W. McShea and M.A. Changizi, Three puzzles in hierarchical evolution, Integrative and Comparative Biology, vol. 43 (2003), pp. 74-81 .
6. D.W. McShea, A complexity drain on cells in the evolution of multicellularity, Evolution, vol. 56 no. 3 (2002), pp. 441-452 .
7. D.W. McShea and E.P. Venit, Testing for bias in the evolution of coloniality: A demonstration in cyclostome bryozoans, Paleobiology, vol. 28 no. 3 (2002), pp. 308-327 .
8. D.W. McShea, The "minor transitions" in hierarchial evolution and the question of directional bias, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, vol. 14 (2001), pp. 502-518 .
9. D.W. McShea, The hierarchical structure of organisms: a scale and documentation of a trend in the maximum, Paleobiology, vol. 27 (2001), pp. 405-423 .
10. Anderson, C and DW McShea, Individual versus social complexity, with particular reference to ant colonies, Biological Reviews (of the Cambridge Philosophical Society), vol. 76 (2001), pp. 211-237 .
11. D.W. McShea and E.P. Venit, What is a part?, in The Character Concept in Evolutionary Biology, edited by G.P. Wagner (2001) .
12. D.W. McShea, Functional complexity in organisms: parts as proxies, Biology and Philosophy, vol. 15 (2000), pp. 641-668 .
13. D.W. McShea, Feelings as the proximate cause of behavior, in Where Psychology Meets Biology: Philosophical Essays, edited by V.G. Hardcastle (1999), Cambridge University Press .
14. D.W. McShea, Possible largest-scale trends in organismal evolution: eight "live hypotheses", Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, vol. 29 (1998), pp. 293-318 .