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Optimality Modeling and Explanatory Generality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Angela Potochnik
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Abstract

The optimality approach to modeling natural selection has been criticized by many biologists and philosophers of biology. For instance, Lewontin (1979) argues that the optimality approach is a shortcut that will be replaced by models incorporating genetic information, if and when such models become available. In contrast, I think that optimality models have a permanent role in evolutionary study. I base my argument for this claim on what I think it takes to best explain an event. In certain contexts, optimality and game-theoretic models best explain some central types of evolutionary phenomena.

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Michael Friedman, Helen Longino, Michael Weisberg, and especially Elliott Sober for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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