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39Reconstructing The Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and InferenceMIT Press. 1988.Reconstructing the Past seeks to clarify and help resolve the vexing methodological issues that arise when biologists try to answer such questions as whether human beings are more closely related to chimps than they are to gorillas. It explores the case for considering the philosophical idea of simplicity/parsimony as a useful principle for evaluating taxonomic theories of evolutionary relationships. For the past two decades, evolutionists have been vigorously debating the appropriate methods th…Read more
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94Common causes and decision theoryPhilosophy of Science 53 (2): 223-245. 1986.One of us (Eells 1982) has defended traditional evidential decision theory against prima facie Newcomb counterexamples by assuming that a common cause forms a conjunctive fork with its joint effects. In this paper, the evidential theory is defended without this assumption. The suggested rationale shows that the theory's assumptions are not about the nature of causality, but about the nature of rational deliberation. These presuppositions are weak enough for the argument to count as a strong just…Read more
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84Morality and ‘Unto Others': Response to commentary discussionJournal of Consciousness Studies 7 (1-2): 257-268. 2000.We address the following issues raised by the commentators of our target article and book: (1) the problem of multiple perspectives; (2) how to define group selection; (3) distinguishing between the concepts of altruism and organism; (4) genetic versus cultural group selection; (5) the dark side of group selection; (6) the relationship between psychological and evolutionary altruism; (7) the question of whether the psychological questions can be answered; (8) psychological experiments. We thank …Read more
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94Trait fitness is not a propensity, but fitness variation isStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (3): 336-341. 2013.The propensity interpretation of fitness draws on the propensity interpretation of probability, but advocates of the former have not attended sufficiently to problems with the latter. The causal power of C to bring about E is not well-represented by the conditional probability Pr. Since the viability fitness of trait T is the conditional probability Pr, the viability fitness of the trait does not represent the degree to which having the trait causally promotes surviving. The same point holds for…Read more
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32Reichenbach’s cubical universe and the problem of the external worldSynthese 181 (1): 3-21. 2011.This paper is a sympathetic critique of the argument that Reichenbach develops in Chap. 2 of Experience and Prediction for the thesis that sense experience justifies belief in the existence of an external world. After discussing his attack on the positivist theory of meaning, I describe the probability ideas that Reichenbach presents. I argue that Reichenbach begins with an argument grounded in the Law of Likelihood but that he then endorses a different argument that involves prior probabilities…Read more
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345Marxism and methodological individualismIn Derek Matravers & Jonathan Pike (eds.), Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology, Routledge, in Association With the Open University. 2002.
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35Explanation in Biology: Let's Razor Ockham's RazorRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 27 73-93. 1990.When philosophers discuss the topic of explanation, they usually have in mind the following question: given the beliefs one has and some proposition that one wishes to explain, which subset of the beliefs constitutes an explanation of the target proposition? That is, the philosophical ‘problem of explanation’ typically has bracketed the issue of how one obtains the beliefs; they are taken as given. The problem of explanation has been the problem of understanding the relation ‘x explains y’. Sinc…Read more
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55Is the mind an adaptation for coping with environmental complexity?Biology and Philosophy 12 (4): 539-550. 1997.
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186The contest between parsimony and likelihoodSystematic Biology 53 (4): 644-653. 2004.Maximum Parsimony (MP) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) are two methods for evaluating which phlogenetic tree is best supported by data on the characteristics of leaf objects (which may be species, populations, or individual organisms). MP has been criticized for assuming that evolution proceeds parsimoniously -- that if a lineage begins in state i and ends in state j, the way it got from i to j is by the smallest number of changes. MP has been criticized for needing to assume some model or other …Read more
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86A Modest Proposal (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (2): 487-494. 2004.This paper is an essay review of John Earman's book,\nHume's Abject Failure--the Argument against Miracles\n(Oxford University Press, New York, 2000). Earman is very\ncritical of Hume's famous argument about miracles, I am\nmore sympathetic, though I grant that Earman makes many\ngood critical points. Earman's method of analysis is\nBayesian, as is mine
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434Quine, IAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74 (1). 2000.In 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', Quine attacks the analytic/synthetic distinction and defends a doctrine that I call epistemological holism. Now, almost fifty years after the article's appearance, what are we to make of these ideas? I suggest that the philosophical naturalism that Quine did so much to promote should lead us to reject Quine's brief against the analytic/synthetic distinction; I also argue that Quine misunderstood Carnap's views on analyticity. As for epistemological holism, I claim …Read more
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79Group selection: The theory replaces the bogey manBehavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4): 639-654. 1994.In both biology and the human sciences, social groups are sometimes treated as adaptive units whose organization cannot be reduced to individual interactions. This group-level view is opposed by a more individualistic one that treats social organization as a byproduct of self-interest. According to biologists, group-level adaptations can evolve only by a process of natural selection at the group level. Most biologists rejected group selection as an important evolutionary force during the 1960s a…Read more
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227Evolution and the problem of other mindsJournal of Philosophy 97 (7): 365-387. 2000.We learned from Good that there is no saying whether a black raven confirms the generalization that all ravens are black unless one is prepared to make substantive background assumptions. The same point, applied to the problem of other minds, is that the mere observation that Self and Other share certain behaviors and that Self has a mind is not enough. The problem of other minds turns into the problem of searching out common causes. This paper presents a probabilistic representation of the prob…Read more
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219Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, and Minds—a Reply to John BeaudoinFaith and Philosophy 25 (4): 443-446. 2008.In my paper “Intelligent Design Theory and the Supernatural—the ‘God or Extra-Terrestrial’ Reply,” I argued that Intelligent Design (ID) Theory, when coupled with independently plausible further assumptions, leads to the conclusion that a supernatural intelligent designer exists. ID theory is therefore not neutral on the question of whether there are supernatural agents. In this respect, it differs from the Darwinian theory of evolution. John Beaudoin replies to my paper in his “Sober on Intelli…Read more
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690Explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant, or inference to the best explanation meets Bayesian confirmation theoryAnalysis 73 (4): 659-668. 2013.In the world of philosophy of science, the dominant theory of confirmation is Bayesian. In the wider philosophical world, the idea of inference to the best explanation exerts a considerable influence. Here we place the two worlds in collision, using Bayesian confirmation theory to argue that explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant
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48Précis of Evidence and Evolution: The Logic behind the Science (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 83 (3): 661-665. 2011.
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878What is wrong with intelligent design?Quarterly Review of Biology 82 (1): 3-8. 2007.This article reviews two standard criticisms of creationism/intelligent design (ID): it is unfalsifiable, and it is refuted by the many imperfect adaptations found in nature. Problems with both criticisms are discussed. A conception of testability is described that avoids the defects in Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion. Although ID comes in multiple forms, which call for different criticisms, it emerges that ID fails to constitute a serious alternative to evolutionary theory.
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30Does "fitness" fit the facts?: A reply to Williams and Rosenberg's rejoinderJournal of Philosophy 84 (4): 220-223. 1987.
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20The design argumentIn Neil A. Manson (ed.), God and design: the teleological argument and modern science, Routledge. pp. 25--53. 2003.The design argument is one of three main arguments for the existence of God; the others are the ontological argument and the cosmological argument. Unlike the ontological argument, the design argument and the cosmological argument are a posteriori. And whereas the cosmological argument could focus on any present event to get the ball rolling (arguing that it must trace back to a first cause, namely God), design theorists are usually more selective.
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53Fact, fiction, and FitnessJournal of Philosophy 81 (7): 372-384. 1984.Alexander Rosenberg begins his recent article on the concept of fitness with the remark that "debates about the cognitive status of the Darwinian theory of natural selection should have ended long ago." I agree that this obsession needs to be overcome. But Rosenberg repeats some of the old mis- takes and invents epicycles on others. In this comment I will not be able to circumscribe fully the range of topics that an adequate treatment of this cluster of problems demands. A few critical re marks …Read more
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82Are human beings part of the rest of nature?Biology and Philosophy 17 (5): 661-671. 2002.Unified explanations seek to situate the traits of human beings in a causal framework that also explains the trait values found in nonhuman species. Disunified explanations claim that the traits of human beings are due to causal processes not at work in the rest of nature. This paper outlines a methodology for testing hypotheses of these two types. Implications are drawn concerning evolutionary psychology, adaptationism, and anti-adaptationism.
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Parsimony and the units of selectionIn Nancy J. Nersessian (ed.), The Process of Science: Contemporary Philosophical Approaches to Understanding Scientific Practice, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1987.
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119Two Uses of UnificationVienna Circle Institute Yearbook 10 205-216. 2003.Carl Hempel1 set the tone for subsequent philosophical work on scientific explanation by resolutely locating the problem he wanted to address outside of epistemology. “Hempel’s problem,” as I will call it, was not to say what counts as evidence that X is the explanation of Y. Rather, the question was what it means for X to explain Y. Hempel’s theory of explanation and its successors don’t tell you what to believe; instead, they tell you which of your beliefs (if any) can be said to explain a giv…Read more
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50Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology (edited book)The Mit Press. Bradford Books. 1994.Changes and additions in the new edition reflect the ways in which the subject has broadened and deepened on several fronts; more than half of the-chapters are ...
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78Screening-off and the units of selectionPhilosophy of Science 59 (1): 142-152. 1992.Brandon ([1982] 1984, 1990) has argued that Salmon's (1971) concept of screening-off can be used to characterize (i) the idea that natural selection acts directly on an organism's phenotype, only indirectly on its genotype, and (ii) the biological problem of the levels of selection. Brandon also suggests (iii) that screening-off events in a causal chain are better explanations than the events they screen off. This paper critically evaluates Brandon's proposals
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235Cartwright on explanation and idealizationErkenntnis 57 (3). 2002.Nancy Cartwright (1983, 1999) argues that (1) the fundamental laws of physics are true when and only when appropriate ceteris paribus modifiers are attached and that (2) ceteris paribus modifiers describe conditions that are almost never satisfied. She concludes that when the fundamental laws of physics are true, they don't apply in the real world, but only in highly idealized counterfactual situations. In this paper, we argue that (1) and (2) together with an assumption about contraposition ent…Read more
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510Natural selection, causality, and laws: What Fodor and piatelli-palmarini got wrongPhilosophy of Science 77 (4): 594-607. 2010.In their book What Darwin Got Wrong, Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini construct an a priori philosophical argument and an empirical biological argument. The biological argument aims to show that natural selection is much less important in the evolutionary process than many biologists maintain. The a priori argument begins with the claim that there cannot be selection for one but not the other of two traits that are perfectly correlated in a population; it concludes that there cannot b…Read more
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101Temporally oriented lawsSynthese 94 (2). 1993.A system whose expected state changes with time cannot have both a forward-directed translationally invariant probabilistic law and a backward-directed translationally invariant law. When faced with this choice, science seems to favor the former. An asymmetry between cause and effect may help to explain why temporally oriented laws are usually forward-directed.
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116Coincidences and how to reason about themIn Henk W. De Regt, Stephan Hartmann & Samir Okasha (eds.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009, Springer. pp. 355-374. 2012.The naïve see causal connections everywhere. Consider the fact that Evelyn Marie Adams won the New Jersey lottery twice. The naïve find it irresistible to think that this cannot be a coincidence. Maybe the lottery was rigged or perhaps some uncanny higher power placed its hand upon her brow. Sophisticates respond with an indulgent smile and ask the naïve to view Adams’ double win within a larger perspective. Given all the lotteries there have been, it isn’t at all surprising that someone would w…Read more
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