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5 unusual facts about Elliott Sober


Gene-centered view of evolution

Prominent opponents of this gene-centric view of evolution include evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, biologist and anthropologist David Sloan Wilson, and philosopher Elliott Sober.

Individuals opposing this gene-centric view include Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould, David Sloan Wilson, and philosopher Elliott Sober.

Richard Lewontin

He has worked with and had great influence on many philosophers of biology, including William C. Wimsatt, Elliott Sober, Philip Kitcher, Elisabeth Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Sahotra Sarkar, and Robert Brandon, often inviting them to work in his lab.

He has been a major influence on philosophers of biology, notably William C. Wimsatt (who taught with Lewontin and Richard Levins at the University of Chicago), Robert Brandon and Elisabeth Lloyd (who studied with Lewontin as graduate students), Philip Kitcher, and Elliott Sober.

Unit of selection

Sober, Elliott (1984; 1993) The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus.


Evaluative diversity

For example, Sober and Wilson have suggested that there is nothing moral about not pricking one's toes with a pin if one prefers not to prick one's toes with a pin; when following one's natural proclivity no moral codes/conventions are required.

In Unto Others: the Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (1998), Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson demonstrated that evaluative diversity could evolve through group selection.


see also