Evolutionary game theory was originally developed as an alternative to the hypothesis of group selection; now it is clear that game theory… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
"Methodological naturalism" and "metaphysical naturalism" are terms that often surface in the continuing battle between evolutionary biology and creationism/intelligent design. The methodological… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
If the organisms in a species now have trait T, and this trait now helps those organisms to survive and reproduce because… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Another way to test hypotheses about adaptation is to consider trait variation across a group of species instead of focusing on the… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Evolutionary theory, properly understood, does not conflict with the idea that God occasionally intervenes in nature - for example, by once or… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Evolutionary biologists often appeal to parsimony when they seek to explain why organisms "match" with respect to a given trait. For example,… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Darwin repeatedly used the hypothesis of common ancestry as a platform on which to build his various ideas about testing hypotheses concerning… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
One influential philosophical position about the use of probability in science holds that probabilities are objective only if they are based on… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Current organisms have a higher probability of sharing a single code if the common ancestry hypothesis is true than they'd have if… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
The more evolutionary theory gets called an atheistic theory, the greater the risk that it will lose its place in public school… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
The indispensability argument says (roughly) that if you have ample reason to accept an empirical scientific theory that makes indispensable use of… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
If you have evidence that C1 is a cause of E, and no evidence as to whether C2 is also a cause… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Trait X is fitter than trait Y in a population of organisms if those organisms have other biological traits T and live… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
From the fact that E is evidence for T and the fact that T entails M, it doesn't follow that E is evidence for… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Evolutionary game theory was originally developed as an alternative to the hypothesis of group selection; now it is clear that game theory models postulate… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Earlier attempts to show that simpler theories always have higher prior probabilities have failed, but there is a restricted circumstance in which the claim… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
"Methodological naturalism" and "metaphysical naturalism" are terms that often surface in the continuing battle between evolutionary biology and creationism/intelligent design. The methodological thesis says… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
The big picture, I think, is that common ancestry is evidentially prior to natural selection in Darwin's theory and in contemporary evolutionary biology as… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
This is not to deny that there are versions of theism that do conflict with evolutionary biology. Young Earth Creationism is an example; it… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Some philosophical arguments (e.g., in connection with the mind/body problem) look pretty good, while others (e.g., those that criticize moral realism) do not. — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
I have spent a lot of time arguing that the theory of group selection is not the stupid, pernicious doctrine that many biologists once… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Group selection and individual selection are just two of the selection processes that have played important roles in evolution. There also is selection within… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
Instead of thinking of the question of race genealogically, and leaving it open whether vernacular races are genealogical units, the interest in biomedicine has… — Elliott Sober Copy Share Image
