One influential philosophical position about the use of probability in science holds that probabilities are objective only if they are based on micro-physics; all other probabilities should be interpreted subjectively, as merely revealing our ignorance about physical details. I have argued against this position, contending that the objectivity of micro-physical probabilities entails the objectivity of macro-probabilities.

I think that the existence of Beethoven is remarkable, but I do not bristle at the suggestion that this event had a low probability given the initial state of the universe.

If you have evidence that C1 is a cause of E, and no evidence as to whether C2 is also a cause of E, then C1 seems to be a better explanation of E than C1&C2 is, since C1 is more parsimonious. I call the version of Ockham's razor used here "the razor of silence." The better explanation of E is silent about C2; it does not deny that C2 was a cause. The problem changes if you consider two conjunctive hypotheses.

In many contexts, simplicity is not an aesthetic frill.

Group selection and individual selection are just two of the selection processes that have played important roles in evolution. There also is selection within individual organisms (intragenomic conflict), and selection among multi-species communities (an idea that now is getting attention in work on the human microbiome). All four of these levels of selection find a place in multi-level selection theory.

Deism claims that God creates the universe and the laws of nature and then is hands-off, with everything that subsequently happens in nature being due to natural processes.

The racial categories that are used in a given society (for example, in contemporary America) are biologically meaningless, but sometimes it turns out that a vernacular racial category has biological reality.