Notes
It is worth noting that evolutionary biologists confidently hypothesize historical events—horizontal gene transfers, for instance, that occurred billions of years ago, give or take a few hundred million years, or speciations and migrations that must have occurred at some point, ill-defined in space, time and causation—without fear of being chastised for indulging in Just So Stories. It is pretty much only hypotheses about human evolution that are held to a higher—conveniently unattainable—standard of evidence, by the critics of sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. Yes, there are egregious cases of hypotheses being defended solely on grounds of their plausibility, given the few facts available, but they shade into entirely reasonable cases—across biology, so far as I can see—with no clear boundaries. Much of the progress in evolutionary biology consists in the confirmation or disconfirmation of bold hypotheses that started out as plausible guesses—Just So Stories.
See also, e.g., p. 133, on homing endonuclease genes, and p. 134: “The driving chromosome has a ‘resistant’ element at the place in the genome that the killer targets.” See also PGS’s reflections on why he doesn’t accept the gene’s-eye view as fundamental, pp. 134–5.
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Dennett, D.C. Homunculi rule: Reflections on Darwinian populations and natural selection by Peter Godfrey Smith. Biol Philos 26, 475–488 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9242-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9242-2