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Journalistic practice is guided by norms receive sparing attention from philosophers, especially in the context of science reporting. This presentation examines how a conflict between two norms manifests in science journalism due to the phenomenon of science denialism. As outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) Code of Ethics, ...

Kinship was a central topic within anthropology during its first 100 years—roughly 1870-1970—before being made more peripheral to the discipline through several internal critiques. Foremost amongst these were critiques with a political edge to them by David Schneider, who articulated the view that the study of kinship had committed the near ori...

Many philosophers present dispensability or indispensability arguments that presuppose a specific conception of dispensability. The present paper explores and critiques the reigning conception of dispensability. In particular, I argue that it entails that too many things are dispensable to our best scientific theories. This entailment is at odds wi...

I will critically evaluate a science communication strategy – ‘Value-Based Reporting’ – which researchers in science communication are increasingly recommending to science journalists. According to Value-Based Reporting, science reporters should, whenever feasible, report a scientific hypothesis in a manner that appeals to the social values...

Science journalism is an under-examined topic in our field. This is surprising, given the many points of connection between the presumptive goals of science journalism and topics of perennial interest in philosophy of science (discussed in detail in the long description below). The primary goal of the proposed symposium is to open discussion on the...

The relationship between Indigenous knowledge and science is a topic of increasing global discussion, especially regarding climate and environmental sciences. A lot of this discussion has centred around comparing or contrasting the two on a range of counts, such as epistemic merit, methodological overlap, or worthiness of inclusion in science class...

A venerable narrative says that teleology died during the Scientific Revolution. McDonough (2020) recently objected that the principle of least action (PLA) shows teleology surviving into Enlightenment physics. Both narratives get the story wrong. The PLA’s history shows that what really happened is much more interesting. When a metaphysical prin...

A central concern of good reporting is to try to convey a sense of the range of opinions on an issue. This is part of the way in which a free press is understood to fulfill its essential role in functioning democracies. By presenting the electorate with an explanatory survey of plausible positions on matters of social concern, the press (in princip...

In the recent debate about scientific concepts, pluralists claim that scientists can legitimately use concepts with multiple meanings, while eliminativists argue that scientists should abandon such concepts in favor of more precisely defined subconcepts. While pluralists and eliminativists already share key assumptions about conceptual development,...

It is common to distinguish classificatory, physical, and formal unification. Of these, only physical unification seems to have anything to do with explanation and hence understanding. In this paper, I argue that that view is incorrect. Classificatory and formal unification facilitate understanding. Moreover, I argue that theories that physically u...

I argue that thinking with good reason that a hypothesis $H$ is the best available explanation for some phenomenon does not entail that we are justified in believing $H$. Thus, inference to the best explanation does not in general give us justified belief. My argument is distinct from the so-called `bad lot' argument, revolving instead around the c...

Indigenous expertise has become increasingly recognized in a wide range of academic fields including agricultural sciences, ecology, public health, and sustainability studies (Chilisa 2019, Kimmerer 2013). The recognition of Indigenous expertise in academia interacts with a wider shift in the science system towards transdisciplinary and participato...

It has been suggested that particle physics has reached the "dawn of the post-naturalness era." I provide an explanation of the current shift in particle physicists' attitude towards naturalness. I argue that the naturalness principle was perceived to be supported by the theories it has inspired. The potential coherence between major beyond the Sta...

Philosophical studies of complex scientific concepts are predominantly “adaptationist”, arguing that conceptual complexity serves important purposes. This is a historical artifact. Having had to defend their views against a monist presumption favoring simpler concepts, pluralists and patchwork theorists felt compelled to show that complexity ca...