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When many statistical hypotheses are tested simultaneously (e.g., when searching for genes associated with a disease), some statisticians recommend “correcting” classical hypothesis tests to avoid inflation of the false positive rate. I defend three theses. First, such “corrections” have no ...

When solving a complex problem in a group, should we always choose the best available solution? In this paper, I build simulation models to show that, surprisingly, a group of agents who randomly follow a better available solution than their own can end up outperforming a group of agents who follow ...

If you can’t or don’t want to ascribe probabilities to the consequences of your actions, classic causal decision theory won’t let you reap the undeniable benefits of causal reasoning for decision making. The following theory fixes this problem. I explain why it’s good to have a causal decisi...

There are two problems in the history and philosophy of genetics that seem to be related. One is the problem of causal selection in cellular and developmental processes. The other is the general approach of seeking genetic explanations, characterized by Ken Waters (2006) as ‘gene centrism.’ I ar...

Two ideas that run through much of Western environmentalist thought are (1) nature is that which is untouched by humans, and (2) intervening in nature is generally bad, morally and epistemically. These ideas continue to be quite influential in environmental conservation. They define what successful ...

The astrophysical media are extremely (if not impossible) difficult to probe. Their chemical characterization can only be done through the analysis of the emission spectra registered by telescopes. Since the lines composing the spectra represent the emission energy between quantified and variously p...

Belief polarization occurs when the beliefs of agents diverge upon updating on certain types of evidence. Recent research indicates that belief can arise even amongst rational agents \cite{Jern_Polarization, Kelly_2008, O_Connor_Polarization}. Although the specific mechanisms differ, I distinguish t...

Analogue experiments have attracted interest for their potential to shed light on inaccessible domains. In 1981, Unruh found a striking mathematical analogy between the propagation of light waves near a black hole and the propagation of sound in fluids. In fact, a number of distinct such 'analogue' ...

Notions of fair machine learning that seek to control various kinds of error across protected groups generally are cast as constrained optimization problems over a fixed model class. For all such problems, tradeoffs arise: asking for various kinds of technical fairness requires compromising on overa...

In this paper, I use a number of examples of multiscale modeling in biology to argue that the primary challenge facing these modelers is not how to metaphysically interpret their models, but is instead using various idealizations to bring the available multiscale modeling techniques to bear on the p...

It has long been thought that observing the effects of quantum gravity is effectively impossible, since gravity is so much weaker than other forces: consider, for instance the utterly insensible gravitational attraction of a magnet, compared with the very sensible magnetic force it exerts. But by dr...

Philosophical discussions of causal faithfulness have been predominantly situated within the social sciences—the traditional domain of application of the causal modeling techniques it attends. Recently, there has been increasing interest in applying such techniques to uncover causal relationships ...

Philosophers of science and scholars in science and technology studies have recently focused their attention on civic participation in research processes, commonly described as ``citizen/participatory science'' (Irwin 1995, Curtis 2018). This paper provides evidence from an exemplary case of such pa...

Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) characterizes the response of Earth’s temperature to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 and is one of the most important and most studied metrics in climate science. For decades, estimates of ECS have been stable around 1.5°C to 4.5°C. In the most recent coupled ...

This talk will provide commentary from the perspective of political philosophy about the other papers in the session. In particular, I will apply insights from democratic theory about the nature of representation and its corresponding responsibilities, the epistemic and moral value of deliberation, ...

Belief polarization occurs when individuals with opposing initial beliefs strengthen their beliefs in response to the same evidence. In previous work (“Disagreement, Dogmatism, and Belief Polarization,” Journal of Philosophy 2008), I explored the hypothesis that the psychological mechanisms that...

Anthropogenic climate change (CC) poses a serious global threat, and human responses to this problem are usually framed in terms of mitigation (the reduction of human actions that contribute to climate change) and adaptation (the response to actual or expected impacts of changes in the climate with ...

The conservation ecologist Robert Lackey (2005, 2013) describes stealth policy advocacy as strategy deployed in the pursuit of “policy-based science.” As a proponent of the value-free ideal, Lackey argues that the adoption of ethical values by scientists (in a professional capacity) undermines t...

While philosophers have raised many interesting questions concerning the ethics, aesthetics, and politics of food, philosophy of science has paid little attention to the nutrition sciences. In this symposium we bring together philosophers and a scientist to explore conceptual and empirical challenge...

Commonly in neuroscientific research today, scientists build models that can perform cognitive capacities and compare their activity with neuronal activity, with the purpose of learning about brain computations. These models are constrained only by the task they must perform. Therefore, it is a wort...

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 ...

In discussions of the power of causal explanations, one often finds a commitment to two premises. The first is that, all else being equal, a causal explanation is powerful to the extent that it cites the full causal history of why the effect occurred. The second is that, all else being equal, causal...

Scientism has recently experienced a resurgence of interest in philosophy. One version of scientism often defended is ontological scientism—the view that any kind or property not mentioned in the theories of science has only a subordinate, secondary kind of reality. It is worth noting that a domin...

Conflicting accounts of thought insertion share the assumption of realism: that the subject of thought insertion has a thought that corresponds to the description of her thought insertion episode. I argue against realism on the grounds that we should adopt a fictionalist, anti-realist interpretation...

The symposium session, Consensus and Dissent in Science: New Perspectives, will end with a commentary on the papers by Miriam Solomon. Solomon has extensively studied the social epistemology of consensus and dissent. For example, Solomon (2001) criticizes the view that consensus is an aim of, or a r...