The rabid opposition to group selection has now considerably subsided. In the process, the conceptual structure of evolutionary theory has become clearer, as have the relationships that connect different theoretical approaches. Elliott Sober More Quotes by Elliott Sober More Quotes From Elliott Sober I don't endorse deism or interventionist theism. My point is just that evolutionary biology is logically compatible with the former and with some versions of the latter. Elliott Sober latter theism biology Methodological naturalism gives advice to scientists about what they should include in their theories. There is a second type of methodological naturalism that gives advice to philosophers, which I call "methodological naturalismp." It says that the methods that philosophers should use in assessing philosophical theories are limited to the methods that scientists ought to use in assessing scientific theories. Elliott Sober philosophical advice giving The more evolutionary theory gets called an atheistic theory, the greater the risk that it will lose its place in public school biology courses in the United States. If the theory is thought of in this way, one should not be surprised if a judge at some point decides that teaching evolutionary theory violates the Constitutional principle of neutrality with respect to religion. Elliott Sober teaching judging school Deism is compatible with evolutionary theory. Elliott Sober compatible deism theory Just as thought experiments can't show that vitalism is true (or that it is false), they also can't show that dualism is true (or that it is false). Elliott Sober dualism experiments shows The upshot is that most philosophers of biology now hold that biological properties supervene on physical properties (where supervenience is taken to include some kind of "in virtue of" relation), and that fitness and other biological properties are not identical with physical properties. Elliott Sober philosopher kind taken Philosophers of biology generally recognize that evolutionary fitness (roughly, an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment) is multiply realizable. Elliott Sober philosopher biology environment Biologists now pretty universally regard vitalism as a vestige of a bygone age. Elliott Sober biologist regard age It can be a necessary conceptual truth that pains are painful without this ruling out the physicalist thesis that immaterial minds are impossible or the thesis that conscious states supervene on physical states. The necessity involved in these claims is nomological necessity, not metaphysical necessity (assuming that these are different). Elliott Sober pain different mind I disagree with the widely held view that it is metaphysical necessity, not nomological, that matters in the mind/body problem. Elliott Sober body views mind "Tiger is a natural kind" and "Tiger is a historical particular" are incompatible with each other, and evolutionary biology provides a reason for favoring the latter over the former. Elliott Sober biology historical kind The racial categories that are used in a given society (for example, in contemporary America) are biologically meaningless, but sometimes it turns out that a vernacular racial category has biological reality. Elliott Sober example reality america The indispensability argument seeks to assimilate the epistemology of metaphysical statements to the epistemology of statements that are obviously empirical. I think it fails to achieve this goal. The argument does not refute the Carnapian thesis that scientific theories and metaphysical claims differ epistemologically - observations can provide evidence for the former, but not for the latter. Elliott Sober goal doe thinking Instead of thinking of the question of race genealogically, and leaving it open whether vernacular races are genealogical units, the interest in biomedicine has been to determine whether vernacular racial categories are medically useful in diagnosis and treatment. There is on-going debate about this. Elliott Sober leaving race thinking 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 M. Elliott Sober evidence facts The indispensability argument says (roughly) that if you have ample reason to accept an empirical scientific theory that makes indispensable use of mathematics, and that theory entails that numbers exist, then you have ample reason to accept that numbers exist. The argument affirms the antecedent of this conditional, and concludes that you have ample reason to believe that numbers exist. What is striking about this argument is that it seems to show that the empirical reasons that suffice for accepting a scientific theory also suffice for accepting a metaphysical claim. Elliott Sober use numbers believe Trait X is fitter than trait Y in a population of organisms if those organisms have other biological traits T and live in an environment that has properties E. The theory of natural selection is filled with statements of this form. Elliott Sober population environment natural In many contexts, simplicity is not an aesthetic frill. Elliott Sober frills aesthetic simplicity It is an interesting fact about model selection that the evidence at hand can indicate that a model known to be false will be more predictively accurate than a model known to be true. This opens the door to a kind of instrumentalism. Elliott Sober doors hands interesting Scientists often seek predictively accurate models, rather than models that are true. Elliott Sober accurate scientist models
