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Elliott Sober Biography

Elliott Sober (born 6 June 1948, Baltimore) is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science.

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Elliott Sober Quotes

Darwin repeatedly used the hypothesis of common ancestry as a platform on which to build his various ideas about testing hypotheses concerning natural selection. He also argued that adaptive similarities provide little or no evidence for common ancestry. Although this second claim needs to be fine-tuned, Darwin was right that ample evidence for common ancestry can exist even if none of the characteristics we observe were caused to evolve by natural selection.

Although, Ancestry, Claim, Ideas, Needs, Selection

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.

Arguments, Connections, Good, Mind, Philosophical

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).

Dualism, Experiments, False, Shows, True, Vitalism

I think that some "interventionist theisms" are compatible with evolutionary theory. (By "intervention," I don't mean that God violates laws of nature; I mean that God affects what happens in nature in ways that are additional to the ones that deism recognizes. )

God, Interventionist, Law, Mean, Thinking, Violates

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.

Leaving, Open, Question, Race, Thinking, Treatment

If the organisms in a species now have trait T, and this trait now helps those organisms to survive and reproduce because the trait has effect E, a natural hypothesis to consider is that T evolved in the lineage leading to those current organisms because T had effect E. This hypothesis is "natural," but it often isn't true!

Helping, Helps, Hypothesis, Lineage, Natural, Trait

Darwin and his successors have railed against the fallacy of confusing the current utility of a trait with the reason the trait evolved. For example, Darwin argued that skull sutures in mammals did not evolve because they facilitate live birth; the sutures were in place well before live birth evolved. Checking the chronological order in which different traits evolved in a lineage is one way to test an adaptive hypothesis; the fact of common ancestry is what makes that checking possible.

Skulls, Order, Confusing, Argued, Against, Fallacy

Scientists often seek predictively accurate models, rather than models that are true.

Accurate, Models, Predictively, Scientist, Scientists, Seek

This is not to deny that there are versions of theism that do conflict with evolutionary biology. Young Earth Creationism is an example; it claims that God created life on earth within the past 10,000 to 50,000 years. But other types of theism are different.

Past, Years, Example, Theism, 10000, Evolutionary

Evolutionary biologists often appeal to parsimony when they seek to explain why organisms "match" with respect to a given trait. For example, why do almost all the organisms that are alive today on our planet use the same genetic code? If they share a common ancestor, the code could have evolved just once and then been inherited from the most recent common ancestor that present organisms share. On the other hand, if organisms in different species share no common ancestors, the code must have evolved repeatedly.

Appeal, Example, Given, Hands, Planet, Today

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.

Entails, Evidence, Fact, Facts, Follow

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.

Ample, Believe, Numbers, Reason, Roughly, Use

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.

Biology, Kind, Philosopher, Relation, Taken

I have spent a lot of time arguing that the theory of group selection is not the stupid, pernicious doctrine that many biologists once claimed it to be. The theory is not just conceptually coherent; there are adaptations out there in nature (like reduced virulence in some viruses) that evolved because there was group selection.

Coherent, Groups, Nature, Pernicious, Stupid, Viruses

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.

Judging, Lose, School, Surprised, Teaching, Thought

I think that the existence of Beethoven is remarkable, but I do not bristle at the suggestion that this event had a low probability given the initial state of the universe.

Events, Low, State, Suggestions, Thinking, Universe

"Simpler is always better" is an overstatement.

Overstatement, Simpler

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).

Assuming, Conceptual, Different, Mind, Pain, Supervene

Our own species evolved under the influence of group selection, as Darwin emphasized when he discussed the evolution of altruism.

Altruism, Discussed, Evolution, Groups, Influence, Selection

Evolutionary game theory was originally developed as an alternative to the hypothesis of group selection; now it is clear that game theory models postulate group selection, even if they do not use the g-word.

Alternatives, Game, Games, Groups, Originally, Selection

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