Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to defend, contra F&PP, that Natural Selection (NS) is a bona fide empirical unified explanatory theory. We argue this by defending: (i) (with Sober and contra F&PP) that there is nothing defective in NS, it provides adaptive explanations of phenotype evolution that share a natural-selection common principle; and (ii) (contra Sober) that adaptive explanations or models have no epistemicallyspecial a priori status compared to explanations or models in other bona fide empirical theories, such as Classical Mechanics (CM). First, we introduce the debate and F&PP's main strategy. Second, we discuss F&PP's argument(s) based on free-riders and show why it is (they are) flawed. Third, we show, by reviewing different examples, and analyzing Fisher's model in detail, that NS-explanations of phenotypic evolution share a General Natural Selection Principle. Then, we argue against Sober's thesis that NS models are a priori in a specific sense not applicable to other common empirical theories like CM. We defend that NS general principle has the same (subtle) epistemic status as other general principles in other theories, like CM or Mendelian Genetics. We conclude that NS is neither defective in F&PP's sense, nor epistemically "peculiar" in Sober's sense. Natural Selection is as defective and as peculiar as Classical Mechanics. The paper also aims to show, by exemplification, how a correct analysis of the structure of theories may help to address substantive epistemological issues.