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Quote by Elliott Sober

“Some philosophical arguments (e.g., in connection with the mind/body problem) look pretty good, while others (e.g., those that criticize moral realism) do not.”

Quote by Elliott Sober

Author

Elliott Sober is a renowned American philosopher known for his work in the fields of scientific philosophy and epistemology. His research focuses on scientific reasoning, probability interpretation, and philosophical methodology. Born on June 6, 1948, Sober has made significant contributions to the field of philosophy, particularly in scientific philosophy. more

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

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“Earlier attempts to show that simpler theories always have higher prior probabilities have failed, but there is a restricted circumstance in which the claim is right.”

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“If you have evidence that C1 is a cause of E, and no evidence as to whether C2 is also a cause of E, then C1 seems to be a better explanation of E than C1&C2 is, since C1 is more parsimonious. I call the version of Ockham's razor used here "the razor of silence." The better explanation of E is silent about C2; it does not deny that C2 was a cause. The problem changes if you consider two conjunctive hypotheses.”

Ifs Doe Two Problem Seems Used Causes Silence Evidence Silent Deny Versions Explanation Hypothesis Razors

Author:Elliott Sober

“Evolutionary biologists often appeal to parsimony when they seek to explain why organisms "match" with respect to a given trait. For example, why do almost all the organisms that are alive today on our planet use the same genetic code? If they share a common ancestor, the code could have evolved just once and then been inherited from the most recent common ancestor that present organisms share. On the other hand, if organisms in different species share no common ancestors, the code must have evolved repeatedly.”

Ifs Different Use Hands Today Given Common Alive Share Example Planets Species Appeals Code Ancestor Traits Organisms Our Planet Live For Today Biologist Parsimony

Author:Elliott Sober

“Current organisms have a higher probability of sharing a single code if the common ancestry hypothesis is true than they'd have if the hypothesis of separate ancestry were true. That is, the simpler hypothesis has the higher likelihood in the technical sense of "likelihood" used in statistics.”

Ifs Used Common Higher Currents Code Statistics Organisms Probability Hypothesis Ancestry Likelihood

Author:Elliott Sober

“"Simpler is always better" is an overstatement.”

Author:Elliott Sober

“In many contexts, simplicity is not an aesthetic frill.”

Simplicity Aesthetic Frills

Author:Elliott Sober

“It is an interesting fact about model selection that the evidence at hand can indicate that a model known to be false will be more predictively accurate than a model known to be true. This opens the door to a kind of instrumentalism.”

Kind Facts Hands Interesting Known Doors Models Evidence Being True Accurate Selection Interesting Fact

Author:Elliott Sober

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

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Author:Elliott Sober

“Unfortunately, philosophers of science usually regard scientific realism and scientific anti-realism as monistic doctrines. The assumption is that there is one goal of all scientific inference - finding propositions that are true, or finding propositions that are predictively accurate. In fact, there are multiple goals. Sometimes realism is the right interpretation of a scientific problem, while at other times instrumentalism is.”

Sometimes Facts Problem Goal Findings Regard Philosopher Doctrine Assumption Interpretation Accurate Realism Multiple Propositions Inference

Author:Elliott Sober