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1Three differences between deliberation and evolutionIn Peter Danielson (ed.), Modeling rationality, morality, and evolution, Oxford University Press. 1998.In this paper, I'll explore three contexts in which the heuristic of personification yields the wrong answer. They all come from game theoretic discussion of altruism and the Prisoner's Dilemma. Whether it is applied to evolution or to rational deliberation, game theory models situations that involve frequency dependence. In the evolutionary case, how fit a trait is, and whether it is more or less fit than the alternatives, depends on the composition of the population (Maynard Smith 1982). In th…Read more
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268Betting against Pascal's WagerNoûs 28 (3): 382-395. 1994.Only one traditional objection to Pascal's wager is telling: Pascal assumes a particular theology, but without justification. We produce two new objections that go deeper. We show that even if Pascal's theology is assumed to be probable, Pascal's argument does not go through. In addition, we describe a wager that Pascal never considered, which leads away from Pascal's conclusion. We then consider the impact of these considerations on other prudential arguments concerning what one should believe,…Read more
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330Parsimony and models of animal mindsIn Robert W. Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds, Cambridge University Press. pp. 237. 2009.The chapter discusses the principle of conservatism and traces how the general principle is related to the specific one. This tracing suggests that the principle of conservatism needs to be refined. Connecting the principle in cognitive science to more general questions about scientific inference also allows us to revisit the question of realism versus instrumentalism. The framework deployed in model selection theory is very general; it is not specific to the subject matter of science. The chapt…Read more
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32What would happen if everyone did it? A reply to Collier and Giere on frequency dependent causationPhilosophy of Science 52 (1): 141-150. 1985.In a recent article (Sober 1982), I criticized an account of causation proposed by Giere (1979, 1980) by describing a series of examples concerning natural selection. Collier (1983) has criticized my criticisms, saying that I misapplied Giere's proposal and misconstrued the biology. More recently, Giere (1984) has defended his theory against my criticisms. Here I argue that my criticisms still stand
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81Contrastive empiricismIn C. Wade Savage (ed.), Scientific Theories, University of Minnesota Press. pp. 392--410. 1990.Realism and empiricism have always been contradictory tendencies in the philosophy of science. The view I will sketch is a synthesis, which I call Contrastive Empiricism. Realism and empiricism are incompatible, so a synthesis that merely conjoined them would be a contradiction. Rather, I propose to isolate important elements in each and show that they combine harmoniously. I will leave behind what I regard as confusions and excesses. The result, I hope, will be neither contradiction nor mishmas…Read more
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48Reply to Rosenberg on genic selectionismPhilosophy of Science 50 (4): 648-650. 1983.Rosenberg (1983), in his comments on our article (Sober and Lewontin 1982) concerning the units of selection controversy, has matters precisely backwards. We suggest Rosenberg alludes to a quite different view of the units of selection controversy, one that he never shows to have mattered to any biologists engaged in the dispute. We also reject Rosenberg's remark that the hypothesis of genic selection is currently predictively vacuous.
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1Force and disposition in evolutionary theoryIn Christopher Hookway (ed.), Minds, Machines, and Evolution: Philosophical Studies, Cambridge University Press. 1984.
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13Book reviews : Sociobiology and the preemption of social science. By Alexander Rosenberg. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins university press, 1980; oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. Pp. XI + 227. $20.00 (review)Philosophy of the Social Sciences 15 (1): 89-93. 1985.
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94Modus DarwinBiology and Philosophy 14 (2): 253-278. 1999.Modus Darwin is a principle of inference that licenses the conclusion that two species have a common ancestor, based on the observation that they are similar. The present paper investigates the principle's probabilistic foundations.
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28What Is Evolutionary Altruism?Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 14 (n/a): 75-99. 1988.In this paper I want to clarify what biologists are talking about when they talk about the evolution of altruism. I'll begin by saying something about the common sense concept. This familiar idea I'll call 'vernacular altruism.' One point of doing this is to make it devastatingly obvious that the common sense concept is very different from the concept as it's used in evolutionary theory. After that preliminary, I'll describe some features of the evolutionary concept. Then I'll conclude by brief…Read more
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316Black box inference: When should intervening variables be postulated?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (3): 469-498. 1998.An empirical procedure is suggested for testing a model that postulates variables that intervene between observed causes and abserved effects against a model that includes no such postulate. The procedure is applied to two experiments in psychology. One involves a conditioning regimen that leads to response generalization; the other concerns the question of whether chimpanzees have a theory of mind.
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15Review of E xplanation and Causation (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (2). 1987.
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43Explanatory presuppositionAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (2). 1986.This Article does not have an abstract
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44Old problems for a new theory: Mayo on Giere's theory of causationPhilosophical Studies 52 (3). 1987.
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631Absence of evidence and evidence of absence: evidential transitivity in connection with fossils, fishing, fine-tuning, and firing squadsPhilosophical Studies 143 (1): 63-90. 2009.“Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence” is a slogan that is popular among scientists and nonscientists alike. This article assesses its truth by using a probabilistic tool, the Law of Likelihood. Qualitative questions (“Is E evidence about H ?”) and quantitative questions (“How much evidence does E provide about H ?”) are both considered. The article discusses the example of fossil intermediates. If finding a fossil that is phenotypically intermediate between two extant species provides …Read more
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37I_– _Elliott SoberAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74 (1): 237-280. 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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1Kindness and Cruelty in EvolutionIn Richard J. Davidson & Anne Harrington (eds.), Visions of Compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature, Oxford University Press. pp. 46-65. 2002.Human nature is intriguing in such that it can express both negative and positive emotions, as in kindness and cruelty. The question is whether both are a natural part of our nature as human beings, or is one produced to serve as the alternate of the other. Another question that is brought to the table in this chapter is how does one determine what is natural and what is not, being its true definition? The chapter attempts to answer these questions based on evolution theory, whether events earli…Read more
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80The Illusory Riches of Sober's MonismJournal of Philosophy 87 (3): 158-161. 1990.In a recent article, Kim Sterelny and Philip Kitcher5 defend a version of genic selectionism and attempt to refute the criticisms I made of that doctrine. Their defense has two components. First, they find fault with the account I gave of the units-of-selection controversy-an account which uses the idea of probabilistic causality as a tool of explication. Second, they provide a positive account of their own of what that controversy concerns, one which they think allows genic selectionism to emer…Read more
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151The causal efficacy of contentPhilosophical Studies 63 (July): 1-30. 1991.Several philosophers have argued recently that semantic properties do play a causal role. 1 It is our view that none of these arguments are satisfactory. Our aim is to reveal some of the deficiencies of these arguments, and to reassess the question in our own way. In section 1, we shall explain in more detail what is involved in the pretheoretical idea of a causally efficacious property and so provide a fuller sense of the issue. In section 2 we shall discuss Fodor's and Kim's arguments that the…Read more
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24Précis of Evidence and Evolution: The Logic behind the SciencePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 83 (3): 661-665. 2011.Evidence and Evolution has four chapters: (1) Evidence, (2) Intelligent Design, (3) Natural Selection, and (4) Common Ancestry. The first chapter develops tools that are used in the rest of the book, though more ideas about evidence are added. In Chapter 1, I endorse a pluralistic outlook—Bayesianism is fine in some inference problems, likelihoodism in others, and AIC in still others. In Chapter Two, on intelligent design, I try to develop the strongest possible formulation of the design argumen…Read more
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7Does "Fitness" Fit the Facts?Journal of Philosophy 84 (4): 220-223. 1987.My critical remarks' on Alexander Rosenberg’s article on fitness have elicited a rejoinder from Mary Williams and Rosenberg himself. They charge that my criticisms are a “tissue of misunderstandings” (738); since they misunderstand my own position in fundamental ways, it may help to try to clarify the points that divide us. In the interest of brevity, I will ignore technical issues concerning the internal correctness of Williams’s axiomatization and will focus on questions of broader philosophic…Read more
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236Temporally asymmetric inference in a Markov processPhilosophy of Science 58 (3): 398-410. 1991.A model of a Markov process is presented in which observing the present state of a system is asymmetrically related to inferring the system's future and inferring its past. A likelihood inference about the system's past state, based on observing its present state, is justified no matter what the parameter values in the model happen to be. In contrast, a probability inference of the system's future state, based on observing its present state, requires further information about the parameter value…Read more
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43Independent evidence about a common causePhilosophy of Science 56 (2): 275-287. 1989.To infer the state of a cause from the states of its effects, independent lines of evidence are preferable to dependent ones. This familiar idea is here investigated, the goal being to identify its presuppositions. Connections are drawn with Reichenbach's (1956) and Salmon's (1984) discussions of the principle of the common cause
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165To give a surprise exam, use game theorySynthese 115 (3): 355-373. 1998.This paper proposes a game-theoretic solution of the surprise examination problem. It is argued that the game of “matching pennies” provides a useful model for the interaction of a teacher who wants her exam to be surprising and students who want to avoid being surprised. A distinction is drawn between prudential and evidential versions of the problem. In both, the teacher should not assign a probability of zero to giving the exam on the last day. This representation of the problem provides a di…Read more
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167Panglossian functionalism and the philosophy of mindSynthese 64 (August): 165-93. 1985.I want to explore what happens to two philosophical issues when we assume that the mind, a functional device, is to be understood by the same sort of functional analysis that guides biological investigation of other organismic systems and characteristics. The first problem area concerns the concept of rationality, its connection with reliability and reproductive success, and the status of rationality hypotheses in attribution of beliefs. It has been argued that ascribing beliefs to someone requi…Read more
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55Multilevel selection and the return of group-level functionalismBehavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (2): 305-306. 1998.We reinforce Thompson's points by providing a second example of the paradox that makes group selection appear counterintuitive and by discussing the wider implications of multilevel selection theory.
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10Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, 3rd ed. (edited book)MIT Press. 2006.These essays by leading scientists and philosophers address conceptual issues that arise in the theory and practice of evolutionary biology. The third edition of this widely used anthology has been substantially revised and updated. Four new sections have been added: on women in the evolutionary process, evolutionary psychology, laws in evolutionary theory, and race as social construction or biological reality. Other sections treat fitness, units of selection, adaptationism, reductionism, essent…Read more
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6Book Reviews : Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science. BY ALEXANDER ROSENBERG. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. Pp. xi + 227. $20.00 (review)Philosophy of the Social Sciences 15 (1): 89-93. 1985.
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18Fact, Fiction, and FitnessJournal of Philosophy 81 (7): 372-383. 1984.Alexander Rosenberg began 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 need to be overcome. But Rosenberg repeats some of the old mistakes and invents epicycles on others. In this comment I will not be able to circumscribe fully the range of the topics that an adequate treatment of this cluster of problems demands. A few critical comments …Read more
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