Category: Perspectives on Science seminar

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, we will have a special guest from Washington University: Carl F. Craver, giving a talk on “Memory and Time: Perspectives from Neuropsychology“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 10:00 to 12:00 on Friday the 19th of May 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

Amnesia and the Ordinary Conception of Time.

The thesis that the “ordinary conception of time” requires the capacity for episodic memory is common in neuroscience and philosophy alike. In neuropsychology, this thesis is expressed in the contrapositive thesis that people with episodic amnesia are “trapped in time.” In philosophy, it is expressed as the thesis episodic memory is a constitutive or developmental requirement for thinking and reasoning about time. Here I reconsider the neuropsychological thesis in light of evidence from my work with Shayna Rosenbaum to study people with episodic amnesia. I argue that people with episodic amnesia have the same temporal concepts, preferences, and decision-making quirks as do neurotypical controls. I conclude by considering why we ever thought memory could even possibly play this role as well as some rather mundane sources from which our ordinary conception of time might plausibly arise.

Author bio:

Carl F. Craver is professor of Philosophy in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in St. Louis. His work is fueled and characterized by hands-on familiarity with the relevant sciences (including behavioral physiology, neuropsychology, functional imaging and psychiatric genetics). His books include Explaining the Brain (OUP; 2007) and (with Lindley Darden) In Search of Mechanisms (Chicago; 2013). He is the co-editor of two new collections, The Tools of Neuroscience Experiment (with J. Bickle and A. Barwich) and Mind Design III (forthcoming; with John Haugeland and Collin Klein). Craver also maintains a research program in cognitive neuropsychology, exploring the implications of episodic amnesia for the epistemic and moral lives of people with damage to the hippocampus and medial temporal lobes. His work is driven fundamentally by the quest to understand how persons are related to their biologies.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Inkeri Koskinen (University of Helsinki) will give a talk on “Unifying the notion of objectivity“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 8th of May 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

Several philosophers of science have recently attempted to bring some unity to the notion of objectivity. These attempts typically start from the observation that there seem to be several distinct meanings of objectivity, and continue by arguing that these meanings have more in common than has been recognised in the recent literature. I will discuss three recent examples: Koskinen (2020), Wilholt (2022), and Hoyningen-Huene (2023). Others, most recently Thresher, Montuschi, Cartwright, Hardie, and Soleiman (2022), have argued that the conceptual heterogeneity is unavoidable. I will compare and contrast these accounts, focusing on their aims. And I will argue that if it is possible to bring some unity to the notion of objectivity, it will be by developing a general description of its use.

Author bio:

Inkeri Koskinen is a philosopher of science working as an Academy of Finland Research Fellow in Practical philosophy, University of Helsinki.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, David Ludwig (Wageningen University) will give a talk on “What Has Epistemic Diversity Ever Done for Us? Promises and Disappointments of Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research“. This session is organized in cooperation with Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science HELSUS.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 17th of April 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

In the face of social-environmental crises such as biodiversity loss, food security and public health, transdisciplinarity has become increasingly hailed as a “paradigm shift in research practice” (OECD 2020) that mobilizes diverse knowledge for intervention. The promises of transdisciplinarity are both epistemic and political: Mobilizing diverse epistemic resources promises a more robust knowledge basis for intervention while incorporating the concerns and values of marginalized communities who often remain invisible in the academy. Despite these promises, the reality of transdisciplinary research is often marked by disappointments. Academics commonly lack skills and resources for serious knowledge co-creation. And even when co-creation succeeds, it primarily serves dominant interests of dominant actors: academics are doing the integrating, local communities are being integrated. Epistemic diversity is recognized only insofar as it fits into academic frameworks that serve academic purposes. This talk follows a transdisciplinary research project in the Brazilian fishing village of Siribinha to explore both promises and disappointments of transdisciplinarity. Reflecting on seven years of engagement between researchers and fishers, the talk articulates lessons for a transformative transdisciplinarity that challenges rather than legitimizes dominant interests and methods in sustainability science. 

Author bio:

David Ludwig is an associate professor in “Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation” (KTI) Group of Wageningen University and the principal investigator of the “Global Epistemologies and Ontologies” (GEOS) project. He works at the intersection of philosophy of science and development studies with a focus on knowledge diversity among heterogenous actors from Indigenous communities to academically trained scientists. David is passionate about critical thinking about development and about turning philosophical reflection into meaningful and collaborative action. 

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Luca Ausili and Carlo Martini (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan) will give a talk on “Demarcation for Dummies: Using epistemology and experiments to contrast scientific disinformation“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 3rd of April 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

The problem of demarcation, i.e., the distinction between science and pseudoscience, is an age-old problem, but the connection between disinformation and pseudoscience has not been sufficiently explored.

Demarcation is a complex concept, and the goal is to make it understandable to the people it affects the most, the ones without specialised knowledge. Demarcation and disinformation ought to be explainable as issues for dummies – i.e., for people who are not initiated to the complexities of the scientific method, and who might have a general school education at most. 

In this paper we aim to improve on the design of current social science experimentation in the field of disinformation by providing an additional focus on scientific disinformation in experimental research, and by providing an epistemological foundation to experiments aimed at studying and counteracting disinformation. The paper is divided into two sections, a theoretical one, and an experimental one.

The theoretical section of the paper addresses the problem of scientific disinformation, defined as a type of disinformation that is supported by pseudoscience, pseudo-evidence, or pseudo-experts (Panizza et al. 2022, Martini 2023). 

The second part of the paper uses the theoretical discussion about the distinction between science and pseudoscience, as well as modern version of the principle of demarcation, in order to conduct an epistemically informed experiment on the ability of young adults to spot disinformation about science (cf. McGrew et al. 2018). We are conducting a randomized controlled field experiment (lab-in-the-field) with 43 Italian institutes of secondary education. The design is a between subjects design (N > 2000) where students are tested in a simulated digital environment (designed on Qualtrics.com) on their ability to recognize scientific disinformation after an intervention based on a combination of the COR – Civic Online Reasoning approach (Breakstone et al. 2022) the Cognitive Biases approach (Pennycook and Rand 2021), and the Inoculation approach (Lewandowski & Van Der Linden 2021). All intervention groups will be compared to a control group. The experimental protocol is pre-registered and based on the Open Science Framework. 

Author bios:

Luca Ausili is a PhD student at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan and is currently doing a visiting period at the University of Helsinki. His research areas include social epistemology, the relation between science and society, and the problem of scientific disinformation.

Carlo Martini is Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (Milan). He has worked on the interface between science and policy, scientific expertise, and science communication. He is leader of the work package “Behavioral Tools for Building Trust” in the H2020 Project “Policy, Expertise and Trust” (https://peritia-trust.eu)

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Peter Vickers (University of Durham) will give a talk on “The Institute for Ascertaining Scientific Consensus, or, How to Measure Scientific Community Opinion and Influence People“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 27th of March 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

A solid, international scientific consensus is the best signal humanity ever gets that a specific scientific statement articulates an “established scientific fact”. It is thus surprising that there currently exists no good way to measure the strength of scientific consensus regarding a specific statement of interest. Indeed, scientists themselves don’t know when a claim can be called a ‘fact’ (as Ernst Mayr used to complain, and as one IPCC author recently complained). A good method for quickly, efficiently assessing mass scientific opinion is urgently needed, especially given the rise in ‘fake news’ and misleading information in the public sphere. Perhaps most significantly of all, recent studies have demonstrated the power of expert-community consensus information to correct misconceptions of laypersons, and, crucially, impact upon relevant actions of those laypersons (such as getting vaccinated against COVID-19). The fledgling ‘Institute for Ascertaining Scientific Consensus’, or ‘IASC’, is now operating out of Durham (UK), and seeks to become humanity’s premier means for measuring scientific community opinion. It consists of an international hub-and-spoke network, currently with 31 institutions involved. In May 2023 it will take action for the first time, surveying 20,000 scientists from 12 different countries. This will be humanity’s first ever serious survey of international scientific community opinion, regarding a specific statement of interest

Author bio:

Peter Vickers is Professor of Philosophy of Science, and Co-Director of the Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS) at the University of Durham, UK. His research interests include social epistemology and the relationships between scientific evidence, facts, and truth. Vickers’s first book, Understanding Inconsistent Science, was published by Oxford University Press in 2013. His new book, also by Oxford, is Identifying Future-Proof Science.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Anita Välikangas (University of Helsinki) will give a talk on “What makes research relevant? – A literature synthesis, and its implications on the IPCC’s policy relevance“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 13th of March 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

Several organisations and actors identify relevance as one of their central targets. This notion is used in several levels of knowledge production, ranging from practices to ideal research outcomes. This article offers a review on the uses of relevance in recent academic discussion, identifying eight main ways of discussing relevance. It shows how relevance is being used in several ways, ranging from societal meaningfulness and transdisciplinarity to the relevance of data and evidence at the context of scientific explanation.  

This paper argues that we need to understand better the relationship between these various forms and levels of relevance. This lack of clarity leads to vagueness surrounding the characteristics of policy relevant research. As a case study, the paper reflects how these different portrayals of relevance are visible in discussion about the goals of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This case shows that the organisation utilised several formulations of relevance while maintaining its target of policy relevance. The findings of this study are beneficial to research policy, and to the design of actions and projects aiming at policy relevance.  

Author bio:

​​​​​​​Anita Välikangas is a doctoral researcher in practical philosophy at the University of Helsinki and a member of TINT (Centre for Philosophy of Social Science) and HELSUS. She is currently finalising her PhD thesis about the role of values in research policy, looking at how people turn grand challenges into executable research topics.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Markus Eronen (University of Groningen) will give a talk on “Causal complexity and psychological measurement“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 27th of February 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

First, I will defend a causal approach to measurement: valid measurement involves establishing a causal relationship between the property that is measured (e.g., temperature) and the measurement outcome (e.g., thermometer readings). Next, I will argue that this leads to formidable obstacles to the valid measurement of psychological attributes (e.g., happiness, emotions): (1) The causal structure of psychology is extremely complex, which makes establishing the required causal relationships very difficult, (2) psychological constructs are usually not sufficiently clearly conceptualized, and (3) psychological states are difficult to directly intervene on, and effects of interventions are hard to reliably track. One upshot of this is that in order to improve the validity of psychological measurement, psychologists and psychometricians need to pay more attention to causal modeling and conceptual issues.

Author bio:

​​​​​​​Markus Eronen is an assistant professor in the Department of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Groningen. He received his PhD at the University of Osnabrück (Germany) in 2010, and his previous positions include a postdoctoral fellowship of the Research Council Flanders (FWO), a visiting scholarship at UC Davis, and assistant professor at the department of Theory and History of Psychology at the University of Groningen. His research is focused on causal discovery and downward causation, levels and the nature of hierarchical organization, and the role of theory in psychology. For more, see www.markuseronen.com

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Marion Godman (Aarhus university) will give a talk on “The Nordic Racial Hygiene Studies: How Science becomes a Force for Cultural Domination“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 13th of January 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

This paper argues that science can become a force for cultural (group) dominance and thus is a topic ripe for scrutiny by political philosophy. I review the case of the Nordic racial hygiene studies – a branch of physical anthropology in the northern Nordic region in the early 20^th century. I argue that although it is highly likely that there were racist biases and ideological influences affecting these researchers, this is not why we primarily should find fault with them. We should instead focus on condemning them for their epistemic conduct that means they abused the epistemic authority invested in them. As Michele Luchetti (2022) has argued for American craniologists active at the same time, there were serious problems that had to do with both circularity and coordination in the measurement assumptions employed – problems which were also pointed out to the researchers at the time, only to be ignored. It is this neglect coupled with the epistemic authority that I argue translates into a problem of reactivity and eventually new patterns of cultural dominance when these scientists interacted and disseminate their research results.  

So far, the moral problems of interactivity have mostly been seen from the purview of an individualistic research ethics framework. Based on this case, however, I try to show that it is really (also) a problem of political philosophy, in two ways: first, it is a problem for scientific institutions and their certification of scientific authority; and, second, the effects of scientific reactivity often lies at the level of populations (the kinds of people under study) and as such has their more troubling and lasting effects. 

Author bio:

Marion Godman is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus university, a core member of their Centre of Excellence of the Experimental Philosophy of Discrimination, (CEPDISC) and an affiliated scholar of the History and Philosophy of Science department, Cambridge university. Between 2012 and 2018 she was also based at Helsinki university working at TINT/Centre of Excellence in Philosophy of the Social Sciences.

She works on a range of issues with philosophy of biology, philosophy of social science & political philosophy and endeavours to find a synthesis between these different areas as can be seen in her first book, The Epistemology and Morality of Human Kinds (2020, Routledge).

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Brian Nosek (University of Virginia) will give a talk on “Shifting incentives from getting it published to getting it right“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 30th of January 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

The currency of academic science is publishing.  Producing novel, positive, and clean results maximizes the likelihood of publishing success because those are the best kind of results.  There are multiple ways to produce such results: (1) be a genius, (2) be lucky, (3) be patient, or (4) employ flexible analytic and selective reporting practices to manufacture beauty.  In a competitive marketplace with minimal accountability, it is hard to avoid (4).  But, there is a way.  With results, beauty is contingent on what is known about their origin.  With methodology, if it looks beautiful, it is beautiful. The only way to be rewarded for something other than the results is to make transparent how they were obtained.  With openness, I won’t stop aiming for beautiful papers, but when I get them, it will be clear that I earned them. 

Author bio:

Brian Nosek is co-Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science (http://cos.io/) that operates the Open Science Framework (http://osf.io/). COS is enabling open and reproducible research practices worldwide. Brian is also a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2002. He co-founded Project Implicit (http://projectimplicit.net/), an multi-university collaboration for research and education investigating implicit cognition–thoughts and feelings that occur outside of awareness or control. Brian investigates the gap between values and practices, such as when behavior is influenced by factors other than one’s intentions and goals. Research applications of this interest include implicit bias, decision-making, attitudes, ideology, morality, innovation, and barriers to change. Nosek applies this interest to improve the alignment between personal and organizational values and practices. In 2015, he was named one of Nature’s 10 and to the Chronicle for Higher Education Influence list.

In the first Perspectives on Science seminar of the year, Vanessa Seifert (University of Athens) will give a talk on “The periodic table as law(s) of nature“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 16th of January 2023. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

The periodic table as law(s) of nature

Chemists often refer to the periodic table as the ‘periodic law’. However whether it actually refers to a law of nature is far from evident. To this end, I identify what kind of relationships are represented in the periodic table and claim that the table identifies various law-like regularities about (different groups of) chemical elements. Secondly, I present some key features typically assigned to laws and argue that they are satisfied by the periodic table. Thirdly, I consider two potential problems to the claim that the periodic table represents laws of nature. The first concerns the existence of alternative representations of the table. The second problem concerns the potential reducibility of the periodic table to quantum physics. All in all, whether the periodic table represents a law of nature is far from uncontroversial. Nevertheless, it is a novel issue within the metaphysics of science that could not only inform our understanding of laws, but also make us appreciate in a new way the enormous significance of the periodic table.

Author bio:

Vanessa Seifert currently works as a postdoctoral researcher in the project NoMoS at the University of Athens. She has worked as a researcher at the University of Bristol where she also completed her PhD in philosophy. She has a master’s in philosophy of science from the LSE and her undergraduate studies were in chemical engineering. She has published in several journals (incl. Philosophy of Science, British Journal for Philosophy of Science, and European Journal for Philosophy of Science) around topics on reduction, scientific realism, models and idealisations. She is interested in exploring these topics primarily from the perspective of chemistry, and has written about them in popular science journals, such as The Conversation and Chemistry World.