Also by Elliott Sober - Joel Velasco

251 Pages·2011·34.87 MB·English

Also by Elliott Sober
Simplicity
The Nature of Selection:
Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus
Reconstructing the Past:
Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference
Core Questions in Philosophy
Reconstructing Marxism:
Explanation and the Theory of History
(with Erik Wright and Andrew Levine)
From a Biological Point of View:
Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy
Unto Others:
The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior
(with David Sloan Wilson)
PHILOSOPHY
OF BIOLOGY
SECOND EDITION
Elliott Sober
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
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f Mill
^^_^ A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Dimensions of Philosophy Series
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Published in 2000 in the United States of America by Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicarion Data
Sober, Elliott.
Philosophy of biology / Elliott Sober. 2nd ed.
p. cm. — (Dimensions of philosophy series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-9126-1 (pbk.)
1. Evolution (Biology)—Philosophy. 2. Creationism. 3. Natural selection—Philosophy.
4. Evolution (Biology)—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title. !I. Series.
QH360.5.S63 1999
578'.01 —dc21 99-049091
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Perma
nence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-I984.
PERSEUS
POD
ON DEMAND 10
For Sam
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CONTENTS
List of Boxes and Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 What Is Evolutionary Theory?
1.1 What Is Evolution? 1
1.2 The Place of Evolutionary Theory in Biology, 5
1.3 Pattern and Process, 7
1.4 Historical Particulars and General Laws, 14
1.5 The Causes of Evolution, 18
1.6 The Domains of Biology and Physics, 22
1.7 Biological Explanations and Physical Explanations,
Suggestions for Further Reading, 26
2 Creationism
2.1 The Danger of Anachronism, 27
2.2 Paley's Watch and the Likelihood Principle, 30
2.3 Hume's Critique, 33
2.4 Why Natural Selection Isn't a Random Process, 36
2.5 Two Kinds of Similarity, 39
2.6 The Problem of Predictive Equivalence, 42
2.7 Is the Design Hypothesis Unscientific? 46
2.8 The Incompleteness of Science, 55
Suggestions for Further Reading, 57
3 Fitness
3.1 An Idealized Life Cycle, 58
3.2 The Interpretation of Probability, 61
3.3 Two Ways to Find Out About Fitness, 68
3.4 The Tautology Problem, 70
3.5 Supervenience, 74
3.6 Advantageousness and Fitness, 78
X Contents
3.7 Teleology Naturalized, 83
Suggestions for Further Reading, 88
4 The Units of Selection Problem 89
4.1 Hierarchy, 89
4.2 Adaptation and Fortuitous Benefit, 96
4.3 Decoupling Parts and Wholes, 100
4.4 Red Herrings, 102
4.5 Examples, 108
4.6 Correlation, Cost, and Benefit, 111
Suggestions for Further Reading, 119
5 Adaptationism 121
5.1 What Is Adaptationism? 121
5.2 How Genetics Can Get in the Way, 125
5.3 Is Adaptationism Untestable? 130
5.4 The Argument from Complex Traits, 132
5.5 If Optimality Models Are Too Easy to Produce,
Let's Make Them Harder, 133
5.6 Game Theory, 138
Suggestions for Further Reading, 145
6 Systematics 146
6.1 The Death of Essentialism, 148
6.2 Individuality and the Species Problem, 152
6.3 Three Systematic Philosophies, 162
6.4 Internal Coherence, 169
6.5 Phylogenetic Inference Based on Overall Similarity, 172
6.6 Parsimony and Phylogenetic Inference, 176
Suggestions for Further Reading, 187
7 Sociobiology and the Extension of Evolutionary Theory 188
7.1 Biological Determinism, 189
7.2 Does Sociobiology Have an Ideological Function? 198
7.3 Anthropomorphism Versus Linguistic Puritanism, 201
7.4 Ethics, 206
7.5 Models of Cultural Evolution, 213
Suggestions for Further Reading, 220
References 221
Index
BOXES AND FIGURES
Boxes
1.1 Definitions 6
1.2 How Versus Why 8
1.3 Fisher's Sex Ratio Argument 17
2.1 Popper's Asymmetry 50
2.2 The Virtue of Vulnerability 52
3.1 Quine on A Priori Truth 72
3.2 Reduction 80
3.3 Correlation 81
3.4 Hitchhiking and Intelligence 82
4.1 Simpson's Paradox 103
4.2 JunkDNA 109
4.3 The Prisoners'Dilemma 113
4.4 Kin Selection with a Dominant Gene for Altruism 114
5.1 The Two-Horn Rhinoceros Problem 125
5.2 The Flagpole Problem 139
6.1 Monophvlv and the Species Problem 166
6.2 "Defining" Monophyletic Groups 182
6.3 Pattern Cladism 186
7.1 The Ought-lmplies-Can Principle 199
7.2 Incest 204
Figures
1.1 Heritability 10
1.2 Anagenesis and cladogenesis 12
a
m Boxes and Figures
1.3 A double heterozygote undergoing recombination
by crossing over 19
1.4 Gamete formation without recombination 20
1.5 Sources and causes in evolutionary theory 22
1.6 Physicalism, vitalism, dualism 23
4.1 A case of evolution in which average fitness increases 97
4.2 A case of evolution in which average fitness remains constant 98
4.3 A case of evolution in which average fitness declines 99
4.4 The Weismann doctrine 104
4.5 Tit-for-Tat versus Always Defect 119
5.1 A case in which the fittest genotype must evolve 127
5.2 A case in which the fittest genotype cannot evolve 128
5.3 A case in which the fittest genotype can evolve 129
5.4 Size differences between the sexes and sex ratios in
breeding groups 135
5.5 An optimality model for dung fly copulation time 137
5.6 The HaiMDove game 141
6.1 A pure branching process 164
6.2 A reticulating process 165
6.3 Examples of conflict between phenetic and cladisric principles 166
6.4 Homology and homoplasy 167
6.5 The assumption of uniform rates 173
6.6 Sparrows and robins: homology and homoplasy 177
6.7 Sparrows and robins: derived similarity 178
6.8 Lizards and crocodiles: ancestral similarity 180
6.9 The method of outgroup comparison 181
6.10 Transition probabilities for character change in a
phylogenetic tree 185
7.1 Possible differences between the sexes concerning time
devoted to child care 196
7.2 Incest avoidance 203
7.3 Homology, functionally similar homoplasy, and
functionally dissimilar homoplasy 205
7.4 Cultural and biological evolution: three models 215
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Robert Boyd, Robert Brandon, David Hull, Robert Jeanne, Philip Kitchcr, John
Maynard Smith, Robert O'Hara, Steven Hecht Orzack, Peter Richerson, Louise
Robbins, Robert Rossi, Michael Ruse, Kim Sterelny, and David Sloan Wilson gave
me plenty of useful advice on how earlier drafts of this book could be improved. I
am very grateful to them for their help. I also want to thank Peter Godfrey-Smith,
Richard Lewontin, Mohan Matthen, Anthony Peressini, Chris Stephens, and Steve
Wykstra for their helpful suggestions for this second edition.
I have reprinted material in Chapter 5 from an article I coauthored with Steven
Hecht Orzack, "Optimality Models and the Long-Run Test of Adaptationism"
{American Naturalist, 1994, 143: 361—380). Chapter 4 contains passages from my
essay "The Evolution of Altruism: Correlation, Cost, and Benefit" (Biology and Phi
losophy, 1992, 7: 177-187, copyright © 1992 by Kluwer Academic Publishers;
reprinted by permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers). In Chapter 7, I have used
portions of my essays "Models of Cultural Evolution" (in P. Griffiths, ed., Trees of
Life, 1991, pp. 17-39, copyright © 1991 by Kluwer Academic Publishers; reprinted
by permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers) and "When Biology and Culture
Conflict" (in H. Rolston III, ed., Biology, Ethics, and the Origins of Life, forthcom
ing). I thank my coauthor and the editors and publishers for permitting me to use
diese passages.
Elliott Sober
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