What Selection Can and Cannot Explain: A Reply to Nanay’s Critique of Sober

Philosophy of Science 80 (1):155-159 (2013)
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Abstract

In The Nature of Selection, Elliott Sober argued that natural selection is in principle powerless to explain why any individual organism has the traits it does rather than the very same individual having different traits. In this note, I argue that in a recent and prominent critique of Sober’s position, Bence Nanay talks past that position rather than addressing it

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10.1086/668880

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Casey Helgeson
Pennsylvania State University

Citations of this work

Natural Selection and Contrastive Explanation.Joeri Witteveen - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (3):412-430.
Selection Explanations of Token Traits.Brian McLoone - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (3):342-346.
Selection explanations of token traits.Brian McLoone - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (3):342-346.

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References found in this work

The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus.Elliott Sober - 1987 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (3):397-399.
Contrastive statements.Fred I. Dretske - 1972 - Philosophical Review 81 (4):411-437.
Contrastive Explanation.Peter Lipton - 1990 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 27:247-266.
Can Cumulative Selection Explain Adaptation?Bence Nanay - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (5):1099-1112.
Natural selection and the limited nature of environmental resources.Bence Nanay - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (4):418-419.

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