Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference

by Elliott Sober

Reconstructing the Past seeks to clarify and help resolve the vexing methodological issues that arise when biologists try to answer such questions as whether human beings are more closely related to chimps than they are to gorillas. It explores the case for considering the philosophical idea of simplicity/parsimony as a useful principle for evaluating taxonomic theories of evolutionary relationships. For the past two decades, evolutionists have been vigorously debating the appropriate methods that should be used in systematics, the field that aims at reconstructing phylogenetic relationships among species. This debate over phylogenetic inference, Elliott Sober observes, raises broader questions of hypothesis testing and theory evaluation that run head on into long standing issues concerning simplicity/parsimony in the philosophy of science. Sober treats the problem of phylogenetic inference as a detailed case study in which the philosophical idea of simplicity/parsimony can be tested as a principle of theory evaluation. Bringing together philosophy and biology, as well as statistics, Sober builds a general framework for understanding the circumstances in which parsimony makes sense as a tool of phylogenetic inference. Along the way he provides a detailed critique of parsimony in the biological literature, exploring the strengths and limitations of both statistical and nonstatistical cladistic arguments.

Genres: Philosophy, Biology, Science

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Joshua Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's no doubt that Sober is one of the best working philosophers of science, and this discussion of parsimony is hugely useful to those who are wandering into the depths of both philosophy of science and epistemology. Sober actually sells short the epistemological importance of his work, and the work of his colleagues, because a lot of the framework for justification that he provides in the book can be extended well beyond just the philosophy of evolutionary biology that he offers and out into giving accounts where the historical data is seriously limited.

There are a few problems in the book, and they are problems of philosophical writing generally that haven't been altered in recent years. The first is that it's hard to tell who Sober's audience is in putting the book together. He dwells in the early chapters on some general material in philosophy of science that should be familiar to any philosopher reading, but he then jumps with full force into an incredibly complicated discussion of both the biology and more technically advanced philosophy. For those outside of the more narrow subfield, this can cause some serious literary problems.

There are a few opportunities where Sober takes his time and slows down and really illustrates his points, and in those moments it's clear that he is a terrific writer and educator, but it's not consistent throughout the book. This is partly because the book is kept to a relatively short length, which is understandable, but unfortunate since the material in the book is advanced and deserving of the more delicate exploration.

All around, this is a solid read and definitely one worth getting into for those who (like me) are really interested in the philosophy of simplicity. Also, those who are routinely confronted with objections to "historical science" that have become popular in Creationist/Intelligent Design circles, it is hard to find a more powerful philosophical source for explaining historical justifications and the epistemology of that sort of science than Sober. While, perhaps, this isn't an appropriate introductory work, it is a useful piece to be aware of.