Mimicry and Semiotic Evolution

Abstract

Mimicry has historically been used as one of the main arguments for supporting Darwin’s theory of evolution. This was the original emphasis of Henry W. Bates when he wrote: “I believe the case offers a most beautiful proof of the truth of the theory of natural selection” (Bates 1862: 513). The chronicler of evolutionary biology, Ernst Mayr , has written that Darwin’s “On the origin of species” was easily attackable as it was mostly based on deductive reasoning and included little proof except the analogy between artificial selection and natural selection. Bates’s discovery that allowed for demonstrating the mechanisms of natural selection in nature turned out to be a good argument against such criticism (Mayr 1982: 522–523). In later discussions, evolutionary adaptations, fitness landscapes and other conceptual tools of Neo-Darwinism have been used for interpreting mimicry: e.g. for determining the positions of the mimic and the model in mimicry systems (in Mertensian mimicry, Wickler 1968: 111–121), as criteria in mimicry typologies (Starrett 1993), or for theorising about specific mimicry cases. There have also been some alternative attempts to describe mimicry (e.g. Theodor Eimer’s (1897) orthogenesis, Franz Heikertinger ’s (1954) non-adaptationist view, Stanislav Komárek ’s (2003) historical interpretation), but these have been met with critical objections or have been marginalised in academic debate. In this chapter, I will discuss the connection between mimicry and semiotic evolution, whereas the general focus of this book still lies in the structural aspects of mimicry and horizontal communicative processes therein.