Earlier attempts to show that simpler theories always have higher prior probabilities have failed, but there is a restricted circumstance in which th…

- Elliott Sober

Darwin repeatedly used the hypothesis of common ancestry as a platform on which to build his various ideas about testing hypotheses concerning natura…

- Elliott Sober

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…

- Elliott Sober

When one theory is simpler than its competitor, this fact is relevant to saying what the world is like.

- Elliott Sober

Biologists now pretty universally regard vitalism as a vestige of a bygone age.

- Elliott Sober

I think that some "interventionist theisms" are compatible with evolutionary theory. (By "intervention," I don't mean that God violates laws of natur…

- Elliott Sober

Evolutionary biologists often avoid using the term "race" because there is so much racist baggage that comes with the term. However, they are often o…

- Elliott Sober

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

- Elliott Sober

The rabid opposition to group selection has now considerably subsided. In the process, the conceptual structure of evolutionary theory has become cle…

- Elliott Sober