Did Darwin write the Origin backwards?
Subtitle: philosophical essays on Darwin's theory
By: Elliott Sober
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Amherst, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 230
ISBN-13: 9781616142308
Subjects: Evolution (Biology); Philosophy; Natural selection
Description: In his latest book, Elliott Sober argues that Darwin's theory is best described not as evolution by natural selection but as common ancestry plus natural selection."-John Hedley Brooke, Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion and director of the Ian Ramsey Centre, University of Oxford.

"In these essays, Elliott Sober offers analyses of the logical structure of evolutionary theory, natural selection, and the confrontation between naturalism and creationism."-Douglas J. Futuyma, Distinguished Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University.

Elliott Sober offers a reassessment of a number of aspects of Darwin's arguments in the Origin of Species. The book integrates historical material with contemporary evolutionary ideas.-Samir Okasha, Professor of philosophy of science, University of Bristol. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: -- 1.1.; title: What Is Darwin's Theory? -- -- 1.2.; title: Common Ancestry -- -- 1.3.; title: Darwin's Principle -- -- 1.4.; title: Exceptions to Darwin's Principle -- -- 1.5.; title: Causal and Evidential Orderings -- -- 1.6.; title: Using Common Ancestry to Think about Natural Selection -- -- 1.7.; title: Tree Thinking -- -- 2.1.; title: Back to the 60's -- -- 2.2.; title: Human Morality -- -- 2.3.; title: The Honeybee's Barbed Stinger -- -- 2.4.; title: The Risk of Anachronism -- -- 2.5.; title: More on Darwin on Morality -- -- 2.6.; title: Sterile Workers in the Social Insects -- -- 2.7.; title: Darwin's Disagreement with Wallace about Hybrid Sterility -- -- 2.8.; title: Darwin's General View of Group Selection -- -- 3.1.; title: Arbuthnot on "the exact balance that is maintained between the numbers of men and women...that the Species may never fail, nor perish" -- -- 3.2.; title: Bernoulli on 18/35 -- -- 3.3.; title: DeMoivre[ -- ]"if we blind not ourselves with metaphysical dust"; title: 3.4.; title: Darwin's Argument from Monogamy, and His Retraction -- -- 3.5.; title: Düsing's Model[ -- ]Monogamy Drops Out -- -- 3.6.; title: Fisher and Parental Expenditure -- -- 3.7.; title: Hamilton[ -- ]Group and Individual Selection -- -- 3.8.; title: Sex Ratio as a Test Case --; title: Appendix: An Example of Hamiltonian Sex Ratio Evolution in Group with Two Foundresses -- -- 4.1.; title: Darwin's Discussions of God -- -- 4.2.; title: Refining Methodological Naturalism -- -- 4.3.; title: Why Evolutionary Theory Does Not Rule Out an Intervening God -- -- 4.4.; title: Should Scientific Theories Talk Only about What Exists in Nature? -- -- 4.5.; title: Are All Claims about the Supernatural Untestable? -- -- 4.6.; title: Is Violating Methodological Naturalism a Science-Stopper? -- -- 4.7.; title: If Numbers, Why Not God? -- -- 4.8.; title: Concluding Comments -- -- 5.1.; title: Second Thoughts about Cladistic Parsimony and the Test of Adaptive Hypotheses -- -- 5.2.; title: More on Units of Selection -- -- 5.3.; title: Evolutionary Theory and the Reality of Macroprobabilities.