{ "model": { "rank": 2251, "code": "thing-q43478", "model_id": "vr.tr.natural-selection", "name": "natural selection", "purpose": "Let an agent explain natural selection accurately, with examples, evidence and common misconceptions, and separate it from social misuse of the idea.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Activities and processes", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "ACT", "domain": "ACT.PRC", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q43478/", "tier": 2, "score": 111, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "mate choice", "Mate choice in humans", "cryptic female choice", "struggle for existence", "sexual selection", "Intragenomic conflict", "Directional selection", "Mate Compatibility", "Sexual selection in lizards", "Sexual selection in mammals", "Sexual selection in birds", "Sexual selection in frogs", "Sexual selection in snakes", "Sexual selection in social insects", "Sexual selection in spiders", "Sexual selection in Urodela", "human sperm competition", "Sexual selection in Arabidopsis thaliana", "Sexual selection in flowering plants", "assortative mating", "sexual selection in human evolution", "assortative marriage" ], "aliasCount": 22, "merged": 22, "knownIn": 111, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q43478", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43478", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-11T10:00:33Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 1, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q43478", "registryId": "vr.tr.natural-selection", "name": "natural selection", "version": "0.2.0-wave.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "ACT.PRC" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q43478/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.natural-selection", "name": "natural selection", "purpose": "Let an agent explain natural selection accurately, with examples, evidence and common misconceptions, and separate it from social misuse of the idea.", "definition": "The process by which heritable traits that improve survival and reproduction become more common in a population over generations, a central mechanism of evolution described by Darwin and Wallace; sexual selection is a related form.", "what_it_is_for": "Explaining adaptation and evolutionary change.", "affordances": [ "explain the conditions for natural selection", "give well-documented examples", "correct common misconceptions", "distinguish selection from drift" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Acts on heritable variation", "Non-random with respect to fitness", "Produces adaptation", "Works alongside drift, mutation and gene flow" ], "appearance": "Not directly visible; seen in changes in populations over time.", "visual_identification": [ "Variation, inheritance and differential reproduction", "Examples such as antibiotic resistance", "Artificial selection is directed by humans" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "directional selection", "stabilising selection", "disruptive selection", "sexual selection", "kin selection" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "biological selection", "why": "category" }, { "relation": "drives", "target": "evolution and adaptation", "why": "result" }, { "relation": "is contrasted with", "target": "genetic drift", "why": "mechanism" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "artificial selection", "why": "human-directed" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Survival of the fittest misread as moral justification", "Teleological explanations", "Misuse in social Darwinism" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "mechanism", "name": "Mechanism", "description": "How it works.", "rationale": "Conditions must hold.", "layers": [ { "id": "conditions", "name": "Conditions", "description": "Variation and inheritance.", "findings": [ { "id": "conditions-finding", "name": "Conditions", "description": "Conditions.", "questions": [ { "text": "Do the conditions for selection hold here?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Which trait and environment are involved?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "forms", "name": "Forms", "description": "Directional and others.", "findings": [ { "id": "forms-finding", "name": "Forms", "description": "Forms of selection.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which form of selection is acting?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "How is it measured?", "kind": "measurement" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence", "name": "Evidence", "description": "Examples.", "rationale": "Evidence is extensive.", "layers": [ { "id": "examples", "name": "Examples", "description": "Case studies.", "findings": [ { "id": "examples-finding", "name": "Examples", "description": "Examples.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which well-documented examples illustrate it?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which studies support them?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "resistance", "name": "Resistance", "description": "Antibiotics and pesticides.", "findings": [ { "id": "resistance-finding", "name": "Resistance", "description": "Resistance evolution.", "questions": [ { "text": "How does selection explain antibiotic resistance?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "What do health authorities recommend to slow it?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "misconceptions", "name": "Misconceptions", "description": "Errors.", "rationale": "Misconceptions are common.", "layers": [ { "id": "teleology", "name": "Teleology", "description": "Purpose.", "findings": [ { "id": "teleology-finding", "name": "Teleology", "description": "Teleology.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is the explanation wrongly saying organisms evolve in order to adapt?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "How can it be corrected?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "social", "name": "Social misuse", "description": "Social Darwinism.", "findings": [ { "id": "social-finding", "name": "Social misuse", "description": "Social misuse.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is the idea being misused to justify discrimination?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "How do scientists and historians address this?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "teaching", "name": "Teaching", "description": "Learning.", "rationale": "Clear teaching helps.", "layers": [ { "id": "explain", "name": "Explain", "description": "Simple terms.", "findings": [ { "id": "explain-finding", "name": "Explain", "description": "Explanation.", "questions": [ { "text": "How can natural selection be explained simply and accurately?", "kind": "action" }, { "text": "Which activities help?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "Darwin and Wallace.", "findings": [ { "id": "history-finding", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "questions": [ { "text": "How did Darwin and Wallace develop the idea?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How has the theory developed since?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should forms of selection be separate entries?", "How should classic examples be sourced?", "How should misuse be flagged?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a natural selection, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent explain natural selection accurately, with examples, evidence and common misconceptions, and separate it from social misuse of the idea.", "characteristics": { "substance": "activity", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: mate choice, Mate choice in humans, cryptic female choice, struggle for existence, sexual selection, Intragenomic conflict, Directional selection, Mate Compatibility, Sexual selection in lizards, Sexual selection in mammals, Sexual selection in birds, Sexual selection in frogs.", "22 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 111 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a natural selection, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "something that happens over time", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "mate choice", "Mate choice in humans", "cryptic female choice", "struggle for existence", "sexual selection", "Intragenomic conflict", "Directional selection", "Mate Compatibility", "Sexual selection in lizards", "Sexual selection in mammals", "Sexual selection in birds", "Sexual selection in frogs" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 111 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 22 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one natural selection from another, and a natural selection from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a natural selection sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a natural selection from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a natural selection passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a natural selection between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a natural selection, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a natural selection is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "process-and-outcome", "name": "Process, inputs and outcome", "description": "How a natural selection proceeds, what it needs and what it leaves behind.", "rationale": "An activity is known by its steps and its results, and both have to be recordable while it is still running.", "layers": [ { "id": "steps-and-sequence", "name": "Steps and sequence", "description": "The steps of a natural selection, their order and what may run in parallel.", "findings": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions", "name": "Steps, preconditions and completion", "description": "What has to be true before each step of a natural selection and what marks it done.", "questions": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a step of a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a step of a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a step of a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-results", "name": "Inputs, resources and results", "description": "What a natural selection consumes and what it produces.", "findings": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs", "name": "Inputs, outputs and side effects", "description": "The resources a natural selection takes and the results it leaves, wanted or not.", "questions": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the inputs and results of a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the inputs and results of a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the inputs and results of a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What natural selection is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of natural selection are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is natural selection operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of natural selection and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of natural selection?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as natural selection?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a natural selection came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a natural selection and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a natural selection is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a natural selection, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a natural selection, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a natural selection is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }