IHPST Colloquium First Session | Fall 2025

You are cordially invited to attend the Fall 2025 Colloquium series of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. This session is organized by Professor Denis Walsh

Elliott Sober will present Darwin's Reasoning About Common Ancestry

In-person Event

Abstract

I will discuss three of Darwin's guiding assumptions about common ancestry: (1) Similarity is evidence for common ancestry.   (2) Adaptive similarities provide meager evidence for common ancestry while nonadaptive similarities provide stronger evidence. (3) The fact of common ancestry can be used to infer characteristics of ancestors and thereby test hypotheses about natural selection.  I'll use the Law of Likelihood (so named by Ian Hacking) to analyze these assumptions.

Short Bio

Elliott Sober is the Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. His scholarly work in the general philosophy of science focuses on key themes such as probabilistic reasoning, explanation, reductionism, causality, and parsimony.

In the realm of the philosophy of evolutionary biology, Professor Sober explores fundamental concepts including common ancestry, random mutations, drift, gradualism, and the units of selection.

Thursday, October 9 from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Emmanuel College (75 Queen's Park Cres E) Room: EM119