Elliott Sober -- Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Sober taught for one year at Stanford University and has been a regular visiting professor at the London School of Economics. He earned his PhD in philosophy from Harvard University under the supervision of Hilary Putnam. His work has also been strongly influenced by the biologist Richard Lewontin, and he has collaborated with biologist David Sloan Wilson. Sober has been a prominent critic of intelligent design which he has attacked as not testable.

One of Sober's key fields of research has been the subject of simplicity or parsimony in connection with theory evaluation in the philosophy of science. To this end he published Simplicity (1975) and, since then, a growing number of influential articles in mainstream philosophical journals.

Published books

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• (edited with Steven Orzack) Adaptationism and Optimality, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

• (with David S. Wilson) Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, Harvard University

Press, 1998 (Spanish edition, Siglo Veintiouno de EspaÁa Editores, 2000).

• From a Biological Point of View: Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

• Philosophy of Biology, Westview Press (in UK: Oxford University Press), 1993; 2nd edition, 1999. Spanish edition,

Alianza, 1996; Chinese edition, 2000.

• (with Erik Wright and Andrew Levine) Reconstructing Marxism: Essays on Explanation and the Theory of History, Verso Press, 1992; Portuguese edition, 1993.

• Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference. Bradford/MIT Press, 1988. Japanese edition, Souju Publishers, Tokyo, 1996.

• The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Bradford/MIT Press, 1984; 2nd edition, University of Chicago Press, 1993.

• (edited) Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology: An Anthology, Bradford/MIT Press, 1984; 2nd edition

1993.

• Simplicity, Oxford University Press, 1975.

External links

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• Elliott Sober's Homepage