Sober Elliott,2024-The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory Concepts Inferences and Probabilities

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 1, §1.1, s. 1 (PDF: 21). “Universal Common Ancestry: All the organisms now on earth descended from a single common ancestor. This thesis does not mean that life evolved from non-living materials only once. Universal common ancestry is compatible with numerous start-ups.”

“In fact, the observed features of fossils, by themselves, don’t entail that evolution has occurred. However, universal common ancestry plus the fact that current organisms differ in their inherited traits suffices for evolution to have occurred. Fossils are icing on the cake.”

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 1, §1.4, s. 6 (PDF: 26). “There is no such thing as the one and only phenotype that “tends” to evolve when there is natural selection. [...] Natural selection is opportunistic. Which traits are fitter than which others almost always depends on accidental features of the environment. The opportunism of evolution by natural selection contrasts starkly with the idea that evolution is pre-programmed.”

“Artificial selection involves conscious choosing; natural selection, in contrast, can be mindless. [...] The weather is not a conscious agent.”

“Mutations are random: Mutations have their causes, but they do not occur because they would be useful to the organisms in which they occur.”

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 4, §4.3, s. 81 (PDF: 101). “Observation O favors hypothesis H1 over hypothesis H2 if and only if Pr(O | H1) > Pr(O | H2). [...] The degree to which O favors H1 over H2 is given by the likelihood ratio Pr(O | H1) / Pr(O | H2).”

“Your observations don’t guarantee that H1 is true and that H2 is false. In fact, they don’t even guarantee that H1 is more probable than H2.”

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 4, §4.3, s. 82 (PDF: 102). “Your observations don’t guarantee that H1 is true and that H2 is false. In fact, they don’t even guarantee that H1 is more probable than H2.”

“When two objects have trait T, this matching favors the hypothesis that they have a common cause over the hypothesis that they do not. [...] There are examples in which the matching of two individuals fails to be evidence for the existence of a common cause.”

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 6, §6.1, s. 144 (PDF: 164). “Although the random/nonrandom distinction and the mindless/mindful distinction were linked historically, they need to be disentangled. [...] We can and should consider whether nonrandom mutations exist without assuming that nonrandom mutations must be guided by an intelligent designer.”

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 5, §5.4-5.5, s. 124-125 (PDF: 144-145). “Testing hypotheses is a contrastive activity. Instead of setting out to test theory T, you should test T against one or more competitors. [...] No model is innocent until proven guilty.”

“What natural selection can achieve is always constrained by the available variation.”

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 8, §8.6, s. 226 (PDF: 246; wprowadzenie testu na s. 225 / PDF 245). “The lineage leading to current mammals had skull sutures long before live birth evolved. This means that it is false that skull sutures are adaptations for parturition.”

“Even if organisms are made of matter and nothing else, it does not follow that the laws of biology reduce to the laws of physics. The result is that biology has a kind of autonomy.”

E. Sober, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, rozdz. 9, §9.6, s. 249 (PDF: 269). “According to the law of likelihood, this means that the present state of the system strongly favors one hypothesis about the recent past over the other, but the favoring attenuates as the past becomes more and more remote.”