caa a22 4500 605448167 CHVBK 20210128100135.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20151101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10539-015-9498-7 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10539-015-9498-7 Are natural selection explanatory models a priori? [Elektronische Daten] [José Díez, Pablo Lorenzano] The epistemic status of Natural Selection (NS) has seemed intriguing to biologists and philosophers since the very beginning of the theory to our present times. One prominent contemporary example is Elliott Sober, who claims that NS, and some other theories in biology, and maybe in economics, are peculiar in including explanatory models/conditionals that are a priori in a sense in which explanatory models/conditionals in Classical Mechanics (CM) and most other standard theories are not. Sober's argument focuses on some "would promote” sentences that according to him, play a central role in NS explanations and are both causal and a priori. Lange and Rosenberg criticize Sober arguing that, though there may be some unspecific a priori causal claims, there are not a priori causal claims that specify particular causal factors. Although we basically agree with Lange and Rosenberg's criticism, we think it remains silent about a second important element in Sober's dialectics, namely his claim that, contrary to what happens in mechanics, in NS explanatory conditionals are a priori, and that this is so in quite specific explanatory models. In this paper we criticize this second element of Sober's argument by analyzing what we take to be the four possible interpretations of Sober's claim, and argue that, terminological preferences aside, the possible senses in which explanatory models in NS can qualify, or include elements that can qualify, as a priori, also apply to CM and other standard, highly unified theories. We conclude that this second claim is unsound, or at least that more needs to be said in order to sustain that NS explanatory models are a priori in a sense in which CM models are not. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2015 Natural selection nationallicence Sober nationallicence A priori explanatory models nationallicence Díez José LOGOS Research Group, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain aut Lorenzano Pablo National University of Quilmes/CONICET, Bernal, Argentina aut Biology & Philosophy Springer Netherlands 30/6(2015-11-01), 787-809 0169-3867 30:6<787 2015 30 10539 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-015-9498-7 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-015-9498-7 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Díez José LOGOS Research Group, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Lorenzano Pablo National University of Quilmes/CONICET, Bernal, Argentina aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Biology & Philosophy Springer Netherlands 30/6(2015-11-01), 787-809 0169-3867 30:6<787 2015 30 10539