• January 16, 2026
  • 3:00p.m. - 5:00p.m.
  • Social Science Plaza B, Room 1222
  • Elliott Sober, Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

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Elliott Sober will discuss three of Darwin’s assumptions about common ancestry:  (1) Similarity are evidence for common ancestry. (2) Adaptive similarities provide meager evidence for common ancestry while nonadaptive similarities provide stronger evidence. (3) Common ancestry allows one to infer characteristics of ancestors and thereby test hypotheses about natural selection.  Sober will use the Law of Likelihood to analyze each of these theses.

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  • Contact: Logan Lanis, llanis@uci.edu, or Olga Dunaevsky, odunaevs@uci.edu
  • Sponsor: Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science

 

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