On Robustness in Cosmological Simulations Marie Gueguen, Center Postdoctoral Fellow U. of Western Ontario, Rotman Institute Abstract:  While the Cold Dark Matter model is well supported by evidence on large scales, it does not fare well on small scales, where simulations do not reproduce the observed abundance and demographics of dark matter halos. Since these […]

What is Health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design (some conclusions) Peter Sterling, Professor of Neuroscience U. of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine Abstract:  Many claim that the conditions of human life began improving with the Enlightenment (1700-1800 CE), and now we are better off by every measure––food, health, lifespan, and so on.  But recently […]

New Tools Drive New Concepts into Neuroscience Luis Favela, Center Visiting Fellow U. of Central Florida Abstract:  Increases in the spatial and temporal resolution of data obtained from neuronal activity are largely enabled by technological innovations, for example, single neurons integrating inputs from thousands of other neurons and then distributing energy back to the network. […]

Title TBA Jean Baccelli, Post-Doc Fellow Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy

Squaring the Extrapolator’s Circle Jonathan Fuller, HPS University of Pittsburgh Abstract:  To explain or predict the effect of some exposure in a human target population, health scientists and social scientists often extrapolate from a study done on some other human or non-human population. This procedure is used frequently in toxicology and epidemiology, where the exposure is a potential toxin or carcinogen, the outcome is a disease […]

Baroque Mathematics Paolo Palmieri, HPS University of Pittsburgh Abstract:  In this talk I conjure, or evoke by supernatural power, or jugglery, the emergence of early modern calculus, the geometry of indivisibles, in confrontation with the ghost of Archimedes, the wonders of Baroque aesthetics, rhetoric, and the estranging creative power of extenuated metaphor.

Title TBA Marian Gilton, HPS University of Pittsburgh

Title TBA David Wallace, Phil/HPS University of Pittsburgh Abstract TBA

Relevance and its Problems Nicholas Rescher U. Pittsburgh, Philosophy Abstract: Relevance to significant questions is one of the main evaluative factors with respect to scientific findings, along with originality and reproducibility. The talk will elucidate some aspects of how this conception actually works.

Abductive Epistemic Engineering Christian Feldbacher-Escamilla, Center Visiting Fellow U. Duesseldorf Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (DCLPS) Abstract: We investigate virtues of creative abductive concept formation (cf. Schurz 2008) and their application in epistemic engineering (cf. Brun 2017, Cappelen 2018). It will be shown that abductive virtues allow for an explication of traditional conditions […]

Cheating, Deceiving, and Corruption. Reshaping the Empirical Data Paola Hernández-Chávez, Center Visiting Fellow U. Juárez del Estado de Durango, Cognitive Sci. Research Ctr. Abstract: Characterizations of corruption convolute in conceptualizing it as a violation of a social norm in order to obtain a particular benefit, as in political corruption, defined as the use of public […]

The American Reception of Logical Positivism Sander Verhaegh, Center Visiting Fellow Tilburg U. ABSTRACT: In the late-1930s, a small number of European logicians and philosophers of science sought refuge in the United States, escaping the quickly deteriorating political situation on the continent. Within a few years, these logical positivists significantly reshaped the American philosophical landscape. […]

Severe Testing Samuel Fletcher, Ctr. Visiting Fellow U. of Minnesota Abstract: The methods of classical statistics have tilled the experimental soil from which twentieth-century science has grown. Philosophers of science, meanwhile, have showered those methods mostly with withering epistemological criticism. One of its few steadfast philosophical defenders, Deborah G. Mayo, has over decades developed her own approach […]

A Generalized Patchwork Approach to Scientific Concepts Philipp Haueis Bielefeld University, Dept. of Philosophy Abstract:  Patchwork approaches hold that scientists implicitly subdivide their concepts into several, partially overlapping segments or “patches” to describe, classify and explain the investigated part of reality appropriately. For example: based on the measurement technique, different patches of the concept “hardness” […]

A Kantian Approach to Climate Justice and the Reasons Why We do not Act Christine Heybl Leuphana University of Lüneburg   Abstract:  In this lunchtime talk, I invite you to hear what Kant would have had to say about the great injustices of our age. Namely I will focus on climate change and how Kant […]

Evolution, Reasoning and Causal Nihilism Alex Broadbent University of Johannesburg Abstract:  Causal reasoning is widely thought to be a cognitive trait that is a distinguishing feature of humanity, accountable for our success at spreading through the world and shaping it. In this paper I argue that there is neither empirical nor conceptual evidence to support […]

Did Humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans interbreed? Facts versus Received Wisdom in Molecular Systematics Jeffrey H. Schwartz Emeritus Professor of Anthropology University of Pittsburgh Abstract:  Belief in the infallibility of molecular analyses – especially of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA – in determining “who’s related to” and even “who’s been sleeping with whom?” pervades human evolutionary studies, […]

Explosive Proofs of Mathematical Truths Simon DeDeo, CMU & the Santa Fe Institute Abstract: Justifications for believing a mathematical proof are traditionally based in the validity of its underlying deductive steps. However, in a skeptical argument going back to Hume, this should make even weak belief in a theorem unjustified because errors compound exponentially. To […]

Healing or Hacking the Earth?: Lessons from the Metaphors of Climate Intervention Gillian Barker, University of Western Ontario Abstract:  Thinking about interventions in the climate system designed to have effects at the global scale takes us into new conceptual territory. Scientists and others have drawn on a wide array of metaphors to help navigate its […]

A Less Myopic View of the Virtues of Blinding and of Tests for Blinding in Clinical Trials John Worrall, London School of Economics Abstract: Performing a clinical trial double-blind controls for various biases that might affect the outcome if the trial were unblinded.   It would seem, then, that a trial that begins and continues to be […]