RESUMO
In a recent paper, Takacs and Bourrat (Biol Philos 37:12, 2022) examine the use of geometric mean reproductive output as a measure of biological fitness. We welcome Takacs and Bourrat's scrutiny of a fitness definition that some philosophers have adopted uncritically. We also welcome Takacs and Bourrat's attempt to marry the philosophical literature on fitness with the biological literature on mathematical measures of fitness. However, some of the main claims made by Takacs and Bourrat are not correct, while others are correct but not for the reasons they give.
Assuntos
Vacinas contra COVID-19/administração & dosagem , COVID-19/prevenção & controle , Adolescente , Vacina BNT162 , COVID-19/psicologia , COVID-19/virologia , Vacinas contra COVID-19/efeitos adversos , Criança , Saúde da Criança/ética , Tomada de Decisões , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , SARS-CoV-2/genética , SARS-CoV-2/imunologia , Vacinação/efeitos adversosRESUMO
Is science in the midst of a crisis of replicability and false discoveries? In a recent article, Alexander Bird offers an explanation for the apparent lack of replicability in the biomedical sciences. Bird argues that the surprise at the failure to replicate biomedical research is a result of the fallacy of neglecting the base rate. The base-rate fallacy arises in situations in which one ignores the base rate-or prior probability-of an event when assessing the probability of this event in the light of some observed evidence. By extension, the replication crisis would result from ignoring the low prior probability of biomedical hypotheses. In this paper, my response to Bird's claim is twofold. First, I show that the argument according to which the replication crisis is due to the low prior of biomedical hypotheses is incomplete. Second, I claim that a simple base-rate fallacy model does not account for some important methodological insights that have emerged in discussions of the replication crisis.
RESUMO
The paper offers a partial vindication of Sterelny's view on the role of error rates and reliability in his theory of decoupled representation based on modelling techniques borrowed from the biological literature on evolution in stochastic environments. In the case of a tight link between tracking states and behaviour, I argue that in its full generality Sterelny's account instantiates the base-rate fallacy. With regard to non-tightly linked behaviour, I show that Sterelny's account can be vindicated subject to an adequate evolutionary model and a suitable notion of reliability.
