[spsp-members] FRIDAY - Annual Lecture Series - Samir Okasha - The “Philosophy of Fitness” revisited

[Center for Phil Sci]

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh
invites you to join us for our 65th Annual Lecture Series Talk. Attend in
person in room 1008 in the Cathedral of Learning (10th Floor)  or visit our
live stream on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.

Annual Lecture Series - *Samir Okasha - *
https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/samir-okasha
*Friday, March 21st @ 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm EDT*
 Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91859551683
*Title:  The “Philosophy of Fitness” revisited*
*Abstract:*  The "philosophy of fitness'' was a disparaging name given to
the philosophy of biology in the 1970s by critics who felt that
practitioners of this emerging sub-discipline spent too much time analyzing
the concept of fitness, to the exclusion of other topics. Despite the
critics, the philosophical discussion of fitness has burgeoned since then.
Oddly, though, this discussion makes little contact with the technical
literature on fitness in evolutionary theory itself, where there are
ongoing disagreements over what the "right" definition of fitness and / or
the "right" mathematical measure of fitness is, in different contexts, and
why. The existence of parallel literatures on a single topic is not
uncommon in philosophy of science but is rarely ideal. Better integration
is needed.
This talk is part of a broader project that re-visits the concept of
fitness, tries to make sense of the controversies surrounding it, and to
integrate the philosophical and biological discussions. The basic idea is
to regard "fitness" as a theoretical term in science, and then to use the
Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis technique to define it via its theoretical role.
However, the situation is complicated by the fact that there is arguably
more than one "fitness role". Moreover, in any particular evolutionary
model, a given quantity, definable from the model parameters, may realize
one of these fitness roles but not others. Taken together, this explains
why the fitness concept has caused so much confusion, why the term
"fitness" is polysemic in evolutionary biology, and why theorists can
disagree about the "right" fitness measure despite the underlying science
not being in dispute.

Can’t make it in-person? This talk will be available online through the
following:
Zoom:  https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91859551683
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
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