When one theory is simpler than its competitor, this fact is relevant to saying what the world is like.

When one theory is simpler than its competitor, this fact is relevant to saying what the world is like.

I think that some "interventionist theisms" are compatible with evolutionary theory. (By "intervention," I don't mean that God violates laws of nature; I mean that God affects what happens in nature in ways that are additional to the ones that deism recognizes.)

Trait X is fitter than trait Y in a population of organisms if those organisms have other biological traits T and live in an environment that has properties E. The theory of natural selection is filled with statements of this form.

"Tiger is a natural kind" and "Tiger is a historical particular" are incompatible with each other, and evolutionary biology provides a reason for favoring the latter over the former.

Methodological naturalism gives advice to scientists about what they should include in their theories. There is a second type of methodological naturalism that gives advice to philosophers, which I call "methodological naturalismp." It says that the methods that philosophers should use in assessing philosophical theories are limited to the methods that scientists ought to use in assessing scientific theories.

When I was in high school I found literature and history interesting, but science not at all. Literature and history obviously involved thinking, but science seemed to be all about memorizing facts and doing mindless calculations.