DAVID ROSS BOYD LECTURES AT OU TO ADDRESS GENERAL THEME
OF “PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON DARWIN’S THEORY”

Elliott Sober, Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will deliver three public talks on the general topic “Philosophical Reflections on Darwin’s Theory” during the 11th Biennial David Ross Boyd Lectures at the University of Oklahoma this month.

Lecture titles and dates are “Darwin and Intelligent Design,” Sept. 21, “Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards?” Sept. 23, and “Darwin and Group Selection,” Sept. 25. All lectures are scheduled for 5 p.m. in room 128 of Dale Hall, 433 W. Lindsey St.

The David Ross Boyd Lecture series, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy in the OU College of Arts and Sciences, bring to campus philosophers of distinction for approximately one week to deliver a series of public lectures on an important topic in philosophy. The lecture series was funded in 1979 by Mary Alice Boyd, daughter of OU’s first president, David Ross Boyd.

Sober is noted for his work in the field of the philosophy of biology and of science. He is the author or coauthor of numerous articles on a wide range of topics, including evolutionary theory, intelligent design, naturalism vs. supernaturalism, and social psychology, that have been published in scholarly journals , as well as several books, including Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, From a Biological Point of View: Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy and Philosophy of Biology. He recently published his 11th book, Evidence and Evolution.

In recognition of his outstanding body of work, Sober has been accorded many honors and awards, including being named the American Philosophical Association’s Prometheus Laureate in 2008  and Patrick Romanell Lecturer on Philosophical Naturalism. He received the Imre Lakatos Award for his 1988 book, Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference.

Sober serves on the editorial board of Greater Good Magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and  is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Linnean Society of London, as well as a member of the International Academy of Philosophy of Science.

Sober earned his doctoral degree in philosophy from Harvard University. He has taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science and at Stanford University; since 1974, he has been a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

For more information about the lectures, please contact Reinaldo Elugardo at (405) 325-6324 or relugardo@ou.edu. For accommodations on the basis of disability, please call (405) 325-6324.