LTT: Mike Dietrich
Title: Richard Lewontin and the Complications of Linkage Abstract: During the 1960s and 1970s population geneticists pushed beyond models of single genes to grapple with the effect on evolution of multiple […]
Annual Lecture Series (in-person)
Lunchtime Talks (in-person)
Conferences (in-person)
Online-Only Events
Title: Richard Lewontin and the Complications of Linkage Abstract: During the 1960s and 1970s population geneticists pushed beyond models of single genes to grapple with the effect on evolution of multiple […]
Title: Gricean inferentialism about scientific representation: A framework and two applications. Abstract: Traditional views of scientific representation are “referentialist.” They argue that a representation’s meaning is determined by a substantive […]
Title: People Prefer Moral Discretion to Algorithms: Algorithm Aversion Beyond Intransparency Abstract: We explore aversion to the use of algorithms in moral decision-making. So far, this aversion has been explained […]
Title: Quantum Nanowires: A case study on reproducibility in natural sciences Abstract: Three years ago, I and a friend found major problems in a Nature paper in my field. The […]
Title: How much are large language models narrowing the gap to human intelligence? Abstract: ChatGPT was released in late October 2022. It is a public interface to GPT-3, an artificial […]
Title: "A quantitative field theoretical for spontaneous collapse" Abstract: Any model of spontaneous collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics must involve alterations of the standard Schrödinger equation to […]
Title: From Epistemology to Quantum Mechanics: A Phenomenological Proposal Abstract: Contemporary epistemology is dominated by externalist approaches. In this picture, evidence is not constituted by our experiences but by facts […]
Title: The Sense of Commitment in Joint Action: Towards a Comparative Perspective Abstract: Recent research provides evidence that, in the context of joint action, individuals’ sense of commitment sustains their […]
Title: Inductive Risk and Value Freedom, Revisited Abstract: Work on the role of values in science has grown and diversified dramatically in the 21st century. But there is a near-consensus […]
Title: The Wordly Infrastructure of Causation Abstract: This talk is based on joint work with Naftali Weinberger and Porter Williams. It will describe an alternative to currently dominant philosophical approaches […]
Title: Replacing STEM with Natural Philosophy: Reconfiguring the Science/Philosophy Relationship Abstract: The idea of this project is to seek to replace the current notions of STEM with the classical ideal […]
Title: Spacetime, functionalism, and inertial frames Abstract: I advocate a form of spacetime functionalism that identifies spacetime with whatever picks out a structure of inertial frames. In this talk, I’ll […]
Title: A Novel Perspective on Pluralism in Climate Modeling Abstract: Modeling the mass-extinction event at the Permian Triassic Boundary (PTB), which is believed to have followed a warming event triggered by […]
Title: Renormalization group explanations in particle physics Abstract: Despite the highly analogous forms that renormalization group methods take in particle physics and condensed matter physics, there are key modal differences […]
Title: Crafting Scientific Narratives Abstract: How do particular sets of experimental data become evidence for particular scientific claims? In this talk I call attention to the narrative constraints that shape […]
Title: Where the Philosophy of Cognitive Science Went Wrong Abstract: One can hardly overestimate the influence of Jerry Fodor on the philosophy of cognitive science. Fodor has left us two […]
Title: Expectation and exception: expertise as an epistemic constraint Abstract: I document historical cases of anomalies that resulted in theory changes, with an eye to the course of their reception […]