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This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Elliott Sober and Mehmet Elgin. They speak about Karl Popper's analysis of evolutionary theory, how it changed over time, what he saw in the theory which made it less than scientific, and what he got wrong. Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin—Madison. Mehmet Elgin is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Muğla – Turkey. *** Popper's Shifting Appraisal of Evolutionary Theory (PDF) Popper's Shifting Appraisal of Evolutionary Theory (researchgate.net) The Popperian Podcast is non-profit. I am not looking to make a profit or earn a salary, and never will. But if you are interested in helping to cover the ongoing costs of the podcast – hosting fees, storage fees, recording fees, etc.: approximately $100 per month (keep an eye on the total donations and don't contribute anything that takes us substantially over that amount) – please do so at the links below. Thank you for the help! Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa
fWotD Episode 2390: Quine–Putnam indispensability argument.Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.The featured article for Monday, 20 November 2023 is Quine–Putnam indispensability argument.The Quine–Putnam indispensability argument is an argument in the philosophy of mathematics for the existence of abstract mathematical objects such as numbers and sets, a position known as mathematical platonism. It was named after the philosophers Willard Quine and Hilary Putnam, and is one of the most important arguments in the philosophy of mathematics.Although elements of the indispensability argument may have originated with thinkers such as Gottlob Frege and Kurt Gödel, Quine's development of the argument was unique for introducing to it a number of his philosophical positions such as naturalism, confirmational holism, and the criterion of ontological commitment. Putnam gave Quine's argument its first detailed formulation in his 1971 book Philosophy of Logic. He later came to disagree with various aspects of Quine's thinking, however, and formulated his own indispensability argument based on the no miracles argument in the philosophy of science. A standard form of the argument in contemporary philosophy is credited to Mark Colyvan; whilst being influenced by both Quine and Putnam, it differs in important ways from their formulations. It is presented in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:We ought to have ontological commitment to all and only the entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.Mathematical entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories.Therefore, we ought to have ontological commitment to mathematical entities. Nominalists, philosophers who reject the existence of abstract objects, have argued against both premises of this argument. An influential argument by Hartry Field claims that mathematical entities are dispensable to science. This argument has been supported by attempts to demonstrate that scientific and mathematical theories can be reformulated to remove all references to mathematical entities. Other philosophers, including Penelope Maddy, Elliott Sober, and Joseph Melia, have argued that we do not need to believe in all of the entities that are indispensable to science. The arguments of these writers inspired a new explanatory version of the argument, which Alan Baker and Mark Colyvan support, that argues mathematics is indispensable to specific scientific explanations as well as whole theories.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:43 UTC on Monday, 20 November 2023.For the full current version of the article, see Quine–Putnam indispensability argument on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Kendra Neural.
This week, we meet our first philosopher guest - Thomas Pradeu tells us what scientist can learn from philosophers Thomas shares his journey navigating from philosophy to immunology and biologyHe explains the difference between ‘philosophy IN biology' compared to ‘philosophy OF biology'He mentions ‘mutual ignorance' - that scientists often don't know about philosophers who would be interested in their scienceThomas argues that philosophers should be brought in at the beginning of a project rather than at the end. He describes his model for embedding philosophers within a biology research environmentHe gives lots of specific examples, from immunology and beyond, where philosophers made an impact on science by intervening upstreamThomas stresses the importance of challenging the foundations (in the lab and at home)He also stresses the importance of reading every dayThomas talks honestly about the difficulties of improving life-work balance and gender balance in academiaThomas is proud of his success in creating examples of the Philosophy IN Biology networks as a model for interdisciplinary collaboration He mentioned these researchers/philosophersJean Gayon : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_GayonEdgardo Carosella : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgardo_D._CarosellaDavid Hull : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hull_(philosopher)Elliott Sober : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_SoberErnst Mayr : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_MayrRichard Dawkins : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_DawkinsStephen Paget : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_PagetLucie Laplane : https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/personne/lucie-laplaneFrancis Bacon : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_BaconDick Lewontin : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_LewontinTo find out more about Thomas visit his websites or follow him on TwitterWebsite : https://www.u-bordeaux.fr/universite/espace-presse/repertoire-dexperts/thomas-pradeuImmunoConcept Lab : https://immunoconcept.cnrs.fr/conceptual-biology-medicine/PhilInBioMed: Institute for Philosophy in Biology and Medicine : https://www.philinbiomed.org/Thomas on Twitter : https://twitter.com/pradeu?lang=enYou want to support our work ? Buy us a coffee ! ==> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lonelypipetteTo find out more about Renaud and Jonathan : Twitter : https://twitter.com/LePourpre LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/renaudpourpre/ Twitter : https://twitter.com/Epigenetique LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanweitzman/%20 More about the soundtrack :Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/
David Sloan Wilson is one of biology's most prolific and impactful scientists. He is author of paradigmatic contributions to evolutionary theory and how organisms behave, such as multilevel selection and core design principles for the efficacy of groups. But the reach of his work is far beyond the domains of biology and sociology, in whole a toolkit for improving how we live together and weaving between areas of thought. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Atlas Hugged (06:30)Sociobiology by EO Wilson (12:00)Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Steven C Hayes (21:00)Science proceeds by seeing really good reasons for not believing the current model for reality Lindon Eaves (25:40)Elinor Ostrom (26:15)EO Wilson (26:15)Elliott Sober (27:00)Ostrom design principles for governing the commons (31:00)The Tragedy of the Commons [Hardin, 1968] (34:20)The Neighborhood Project by Sloan Wilson (41:30)Richard A Kauffman (David's graduate student)Core competencies of prosociality (48:50)The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (49:10)The knowledge commons (51:00)The Noosphere and Pierre Teilhard de ChardinLynn Margulis (53:50)Dual inheritance theory (55:00)Lightning round (01:01:00):Book: Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and The Secret of our Successand The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph HenrichPassion: being stewards of the natural worldHeart sing: stewarding prosocialityFind David online:Website: https://davidsloanwilson.world/Twitter: @David_S_WilsonProsocial Commons: https://thisviewoflife.com/introducing-the-prosocial-commons/'Five-Cut Fridays' five-song music playlist series David's playlist
------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Anchor (podcast): https://anchor.fm/thedissenter Dr. Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. He's the author of books like Philosophy of Biology, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, and The Design Argument. In this episode, we focus our conversation on the topic of group selection. We establish the kinds of behavior that group selectin allows for us to have a better grasp on, particularly altruistic behavior. Then we talk about the limitations of a gene-centered approach to natural selection; how people (wrongly) think about evolution; and the averaging fallacy. We also discuss the role of rewards and punishments in the evolution of altruism, and the development of social norms. Finally, we talk about how multilevel selection works, and the extended evolutionary synthesis. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, PER HELGE LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, BO WINEGARD, CRAIG HEALY, OLAF ALEX, PHILIP KURIAN, JONATHAN VISSER, DAVID DIAS, ANJAN KATTA, JAKOB KLINKBY, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, JOHN CONNORS, PAULINA BARREN, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ARTHUR KOH, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, MAX BEILBY, COLIN HOLBROOK, SUSAN PINKER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, PABLO SANTURBANO, SIMON COLUMBUS, PHIL KAVANAGH, JORGE ESPINHA, CORY CLARK, MARK BLYTH, ROBERTO INGUANZO, MIKKEL STORMYR, ERIC NEURMANN, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, BERNARD HUGUENEY, ALEXANDER DANNBAUER, OMARI HICKSON, PHYLICIA STEVENS, FERGAL CUSSEN, YEVHEN BODRENKO, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, DON ROSS, JOÃO ALVES DA SILVA, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, OZLEM BULUT, NATHAN NGUYEN, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, J.W., JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, AND IDAN SOLON! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, IAN GILLIGAN, SERGIU CODREANU, LUIS CAYETANO, MATTHEW LAVENDER, TOM VANEGDOM, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, AND VEGA GIDEY! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MICHAL RUSIECKI, ROSEY, AND JAMES PRATT!
Nancy Cartwright is a methodologist and philosopher of the natural and human sciences, with special focus on causation, evidence and modelling. Her recent work has been on scientific evidence, objectivity and how to put theory to work. She is a Professor of Philosophy at Durham University and the University of California San Diego, having worked previously at Stanford University and the London School of Economics. Professor Cartwright is a former MacArthur fellow, a fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Social Sciences, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society (the oldest honorary academic society in the US), the Academia Europeae and Leopoldina (the German Society for Natural Science). She has won the Hempel Prize for lifetime achievement in philosophy of science and with Elliott Sober, the Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She is Tsing Hua Honorary Distinguished Chair Professor in Taiwan and has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews and Southern Methodist University. Her latest books are Nature, the Artful Modeler and Improving Child Safety: deliberation, judgement and empirical research with Eileen Munro, Jeremy Hardie and Eleonora Montuschi. This podcast is an audio recording of Professor Cartwright's talk - 'Why Trust Science?' - at the Aristotelian Society on 27 April 2020. The recording was produced by the Backdoor Broadcasting Company.
One of the high points of David's professional life has been to work with Elliott Sober, Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. Elliott has made foundational contributions to many topics in evolutionary science, including his and David's collaboration on multilevel selection (MLS) theory. In this conversation, they discuss the roots of MLS theory and more, including the subtlety of Darwin, what Bret Weinstein misses about group selection, the problem of the averaging fallacy, and path dependency in scholarship. Links from the Episode 1:05- Upcoming Debate with David Sloan Wilson (video) and also see "What Bret Weinstein Gets Wrong About Group Selection" (TVOL article) 1:42- Elliott Sober's 1993 book, The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus1:50-1:57- "Reviving the Superorganism" (Wilson & Sober 1989), "Reintroducing Group Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences" (Wilson & Sober 1994), and their book, Unto Others (1998). 2:12- Elliott Sober's 2010 book, Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards? Philosophical Essays on Darwin's Theory 22:58- "Altruism in Mendelian Populations Derived from Sibling Groups: The Haystack Model Revisited" (Wilson 1987) 31:20- Michael Gilpin's 1975 book, Group Selection in Predator-Prey Communities Also see "The Mathematics of Kindness" (TVOL article) --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook Order the This View of Life book
The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don’t know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press’s series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.” Sober’s book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator. Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don't know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press's series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.” Sober's book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator. Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City.
The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don't know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press's series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.” Sober's book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator. Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don’t know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press’s series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.” Sober’s book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator. Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don’t know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press’s series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.” Sober’s book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator. Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don’t know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press’s series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.” Sober’s book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator. Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don’t know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere designed and made it due to its complexity. This is the basic premise of the argument for intelligent design, mobilized by the religious in their efforts to demonstrate evidence for their belief in a divine creator. So how does this relatively simple story translate into a more fully fleshed out philosophy for understanding our world and universe, and how does that philosophy stand up to mathematical scrutiny? This is what Professor Elliott Sober works to elaborate in his new book The Design Argument, which is a monograph in Cambridge University Press’s series “Elements in the Philosophy of Religion.” Sober’s book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these. The first is known as biological creationism and concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. The second design argument––referred to as the argument from fine-tuning––begins with the assertion that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values and our remarkable luck here points to a divine creator. Elliott Sober is the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Hans Reichenbach Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. He is widely regarded as having played a formative role in the establishment of the field of philosophy of biology and is the recipient of the 2014 Hempel Award for lifetime accomplishment in the philosophy of science. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On Episode 10, Nick talks with Elliott Sober, the Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in Philosophy at University of Wisconsin-Madison, about doing his PhD backwards (dissertation first, coursework second), his move from more traditional philosophy into the philosophy of biology, and the hard problem of why the simplicity of a scientific theory should be relevant to saying what the world is like.
Many scientists believe that the search for simple theories is not optional; rather, it is a requirement of the scientific enterprise. When theories get too complex, scientists reach for Ockham’s razor, the principle of parsimony, to do the trimming. This principle says that a theory that postulates fewer entities, processes, or causes is better than a theory that postulates more, so long as the simpler theory is compatible with what we observe. Ockham’s razor presents a puzzle. It is obvious that simple theories may be beautiful and easy to remember and understand. The hard problem is to explain why the fact that one theory is simpler than another tells you anything about the way the world is. In my lecture, I’ll describe two solutions. (March 15, 2016)
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