Annual Lecture Series (in-person)
Lunchtime Talks (in-person)
Conferences (in-person)
Online-Only Events
The Lost Generation of Philosophers of Science: An Illustration Nicholas Rescher, University of Pittsburgh ABSTRACT: WWII derailed many philosophers of science from their career track. A most interesting example of this is Albert Wohlstetter (1913 - 1997), laureate of the Presidential Medal of Merit. My talk will provide the details. You have the option to […]
Evolutionary Functions of Consciousness W Tecumseh Fitch, Dept of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Austria ABSTRACT: Recent scientific discussions of consciousness have been dominated by the search for the neural correlates of consciousness and/or philosophical debates concerning the so-called “Hard Problem” – why should conscious cognitive states have a phenomenal, subjective component? Many […]
Can Meaningless Statements be Approximately True? On the Semantic Component of Scientific Realism Darrell Rowbottom, Lingnan University, Center Visiting Fellow ABSTRACT: This paper argues that statements may be approximately true despite being neither true nor false. This has a significant consequence for scientific realism; it makes it possible to relax the semantic component thereof. You […]
Human Achievement and Artificial Intelligence Brett Karlan, University of Pittsburgh, HPS ABSTRACT: Shortly after the deep neural network AlphaGo defeated Go grandmaster Lee Sedol in a series of matches in 2016, Sedol announced his retirement from professional Go. In his retirement announcement, Sedol expressed a sentiment many others have echoed about the encroachment of AI […]
Identifying Future-Proof Science Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Peter Vickers, Durham University This will be an online event. Register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HRqsVLWNS-u0Q_2puihG_Q ABSTRACT: My forthcoming book Identifying Future-Proof Science argues that we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever (so long as science continues). Examples include the evolution of […]
Aydin Mohseni, UC Irvine, Center Post-Doc Fellow HARKing: from Misdiagnosis to Misprescription ABSTRACT: The practice of HARKing---hypothesizing after results are known---is commonly maligned as undermining the reliability of scientific findings. There are several accounts in the literature as to why HARKing undermines the reliability of findings. We argue that none of these is right and […]