Optimality Modeling and Explanatory Generality
نویسندگان
چکیده
منابع مشابه
Optimality Modeling and Explanatory Generality
The optimality approach to modeling natural selection has been criticized by many biologists and philosophers of biology. For instance, Lewontin (1979) argues that the optimality approach is a shortcut that will be replaced by models incorporating genetic information, if and when such models become available. In contrast, I think that optimality models have a permanent role in evolutionary stud...
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Explanation is a central concept in human psychology. Drawing upon philosophical theories of explanation, psychologists have recently begun to examine the relationship between explanation, probability and causality. Our study advances this growing literature at the intersection of psychology and philosophy of science by systematically investigating how judgments of explanatory power are affecte...
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The value of optimality modeling has long been a source of contention amongst population biologists. Here I present a view of the optimality approach as at once playing a crucial explanatory role and yet also depending on external sources of confirmation. Optimality models are not alone in facing this tension between their explanatory value and their dependence on other approaches; I suspect th...
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ژورنال
عنوان ژورنال: Philosophy of Science
سال: 2007
ISSN: 0031-8248,1539-767X
DOI: 10.1086/525613