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In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Aki Lehtinen (Nankai University) will give a talk titled “Derivational Robustness and Independence“.

The seminar takes place in person at Metsätalo and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 25th of September 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 discusses independence conditions in the context of modelling. It is argued that variety of evidence in experiments and derivational robustness are fundamentally different. The former requires independence of sources of evidence, but the latter is better seen to demonstrate a relevant independence. In a recent criticism of Kuorikoski, Lehtinen and Marchionni’s (2010) analysis of derivational robustness, Margherita Harris (2021) argued that the independence condition they proposed is not credible. While this criticism is cogent, I argue that it is impossible to formulate any independence condition because incremental epistemic benefits from robustness require violating an independence condition. The failure to satisfy a relevant independence condition is best seen as a failure to show the robustness of every assumption in a model family. This illustrates the difference between an increment in confidence in the robust result, and a high absolute degree of confidence in a result: a high absolute degree of confidence in a result does require demonstrating the independence of every false assumption.

Author bio:

Aki Lehtinen is a Talent Professor of Philosophy at Nankai University, Tianjin, China. He has spent most of his academic career at University of Helsinki. In his early career he published papers on social choice and voting theory, rational and game choice theory. As a philosopher of science, he has written about the philosophy of modelling and simulation, confirmation, and philosophy of economics. His most recent interests lie in data, meta-analysis, scientific representation, generalisation, and robustness. See https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aki-Lehtinen for most of his publications.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Milutin Stojanovic (University of Helsinki) will give a talk titled “Is there a crisis in sustainability research?“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 18th of September 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:

Integrity of the planetary bio-physical systems on which the human and other species depend for survival and the sustainability of their destruction by human socio-economic systems have recently become the main challenges delegated to the modern science. As science historically both contributed to a large extent to the environmental destruction and devoted little attention to the problem, the new challenge was to harness the existing tools and create new knowledge-production and institutional capacities which would enable the science to successfully represent and intervene in this unprecedently complex system. As a result, sustainability research emerged, mostly employing the established scientific capacities, integrating them, and hoping for evolution. Three decades later, the problem this paper tackles is that we have very little and partial information on the success of this epic scientific undertaking. Yet it is crucial to evaluate its current state to develop the field further. The present study will first make a systematic account of the actual state of Sustainability Research (SR), accounting the scattered meta-reviews of research dynamics in published SR and analyses of its key scientific features. I will signal the signs of a crisis in quality within the field and explore the ways it is navigated. Second, the paper will explore how the replicability crisis in the key disciplines engaged in interdisciplinary SR affect the field, together with the wider institutional framework and its narratives. Emphasis will be on modeling the value of novel discoveries, the operating standards of success in science, and signaling the need for well-ordering the aims and methods of the institution. Finally, building on the previous meta-science analyses, I analyze three problematic trends in SR and discuss how they square off with a SR-specific idea of well-ordered science. 

Keywords: sustainability research, crisis in science, meta-science, systems thinking, well-ordered science. 

Relevant background articles: 

• Stojanovic, M. Pursuitworthiness in urgent research: Lessons on well-ordered science from sustainability science, Stud Hist Phil Sci, 49-61 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.01.004 
• Stojanovic, M. Philosophy of sustainability experimentation: experimental legacy, normativity and transfer of evidence. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 11, 83 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-021-00383-4 
• Nagatsu, M., Davis, T., DesRoches, C.T. et al. Philosophy of science for sustainability science. Sustain Sci 15, 1807–1817 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00832-8\ 
• Soininen, N., Raymond, C.M., Tuomisto, H. et al. Bridge over troubled water: managing compatibility and conflict among thought collectives in sustainability science. Sustain Sci 17, 27–44 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-01068-w 

Author bio:

Milutin Stojanovic is a post-doctoral researcher at the Practical Philosophy department, University of Helsinki, specializing in philosophy of sustainability science. His research spans various areas, including crisis in science, systems thinking, meta-science, methodological misconduct, and well-ordered science. His work has been featured in prestigious journals such as European Journal for Philosophy of Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, and Sustainability Science. Stojanovic is particularly interested in systemic approaches to sustainability, the role of normative considerations in shaping research methodologies and evidence, and addressing the quality crisis in modern science.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Teppo Felin (Utah State University) will give a talk on “Generative Rationality and Evolution“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 4th of September 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:

Human reasoning and rationality have for decades been defined in computational, statistical and psychophysical terms across the sciences—particularly in evolutionary psychology and the literatures on ecological and bounded rationality. Building on past work with co-authors (including Jan Koenderink, Stuart Kauffman, Todd Zenger), I offer an alternative, “generative” conception of rationality. In the talk, I first discuss the limitations with the computational and psychophysical approach, highlighting popular experiments from the literature. Thereafter, I discuss how generative rationality solves central problems like the cue-to-clue transformation and the origins of novelty. The generative view of rationality contrasts with computational and bounded views on a number of dimensions: it is forward-looking rather than backward-looking, it focuses on perceptual presentation rather than representation, it is embodied rather than computational, and so forth. I argue that human judgment and rationality are better characterized as a form of quasi-scientific hypothesizing and problem solving. In conclusion, I discuss the interdisciplinary implications of generative rationality for our understanding of evolution and the central questions in fields such as economics, psychology, and cognitive science. 

Relevant background articles:

Teppo Felin & Jan Koenderink (2022). A Generative View of Rationality and Growing Awareness. Frontiers in Psychology. 

Teppo Felin & Stuart Kauffman (2023). The Adjacent Possible: Harnessing Functional Excess, Experimentation and Protoscience as Tool. Industrial and Corporate Change. 

Nick Chater, Teppo Felin, David Funder, Gerd Gigerenzer, Jan Koenderink, Joachim Krueger, Denis Noble, Samuel Nordli, Mike Oaksford, Barry Schwartz, Keith Stanovich & Peter Todd (2018). Mind, Rationality, and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Debate. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

Author bio:

Teppo Felin is the Douglas D Anderson Endowed Professor at the Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University. From 2013-2021, Felin was Professor of Strategy at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and Academic Director of the Oxford Diploma in Strategy and Innovation. His research interests include cognition, bounded rationality, evolution, cognitive systems, economics, organization design, and strategy. His research has been published in journals such as Organization Science, Strategy Science, Research Policy, Strategic Management Journal, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He has also published articles across disciplines, including journals such as Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, Perception, Erkenntnis, PLOS ONE, and Genome Biology. Felin is especially interested in interdisciplinary approaches to evolution, cognition, organization, and the origins of novelty. 

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Lukas Beck (Mercator Institute for Climate Change and Global Commons) and Henrik Thorén (Lund University) will give a talk on “Performativity, Transparency, and the Science-policy Interface: lessons from climate economics“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday the 5th of June 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:

It is a well-known predicament of the social sciences that predictions—if the right circumstances are in place—can intervene on the very processes the predictions concern. Such reflexive predictions (Buck 1963) raise serious challenges to the social sciences for several reasons. They appear to impose constraints on the predictive capacities of the social sciences, they raise moral and ethical concerns about what social scientists can and should do, they risk threatening public trust in the social sciences, and finally they seem to have a potential for destabilizing the appropriate division of labor and responsibilities at the science-policy interface.

These issues have recently been revived and reexamined both in the context of economics (MacKenzie 2007; Guala 2007;Mäki 2013) and then even more recently in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to epidemiological modelling (Basshuysen et al. 2021; Basshuysen 2023; Winsberg and Harvard 2022) under the (controversial) label performativity.

With respect to this latter discussion suggestions have emerged on strategies or approaches that modelers can deploy in order to appropriately manage performative effects when models are used to inform policy and decision-making (Basshuysen et al. 2021; Basshuysen 2023). In this paper we engage we engage critically with these suggestions and argue on the basis of examples from climate economics. Beyond the two suggestions that have already been outlined, which can be labeled mitigation and appraisal we identify a third that revolves around ignoring performative effects or acting as if no performative effects are present, and suggest that in at least some cases this will be a preferable option. We conclude by discussing the respective merits and demerits of these strategies in terms of both knowledge requirements and how they may impinge on or disrupt the (appropriate) division of labor and responsibilities at the science-policy interface.

Author bios:

Lukas Beck is a post-doc at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin, where he works on the FORMAS-funded Rivet project on ‘Risk, values, and decision-making in the economics of climate change.’ His research focuses on economic methodology, the intersection between economics and cognitive science, and the normativity of the sciences.

Henrik Thorén is a researcher at the Department of Philosophy at Lund University, Sweden, and has a background in philosophy of science focusing in particular on the philosophy of sustainability and climate sciences. Currently he is the PI of the RIVET project and is involved in several other research projects focusing on issues having to do with the role of science in planning, policymaking, and society at large.

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. 

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Carlo Martini (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University Milan) and Mason Majszak (University of Bern) will give a talk on “Values within boundaries – Climate science and tipping points“.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 12th of December. 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:

It is often argued that non-epistemic values can play the role of both biases (Lloyd 2006, 244-45) and background assumptions (Parker and Winsberg 2018) in scientific research, with the possibility of resulting in both a positive and/or negative impact on science. This has caused a discussion to arise on when the use of non-epistemic values should be considered legitimate or illegitimate in scientific research, and more specifically in the climate modeling context (Intemann 2015). However, identifying the legitimate use of values tends to become more complicated when discussing science-based policy making and further scientific communication, where values can play a larger and, as we will argue, a slightly different role. In this paper we look at the interplay of science and values on a topic of growing interest in climate science and the larger society: climate tipping points.

While there exists a theoretical and mathematical account of the concept of tipping points in the climate system the scientific community has not reached agreement on any specific tipping point – i.e. ice collapse in Antarctica or Greenland, boreal forest dieback, changes in the frequency or amplitude of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, etc. – nor on its physical mechanisms, as well as the uncertainty or likelihood of these tipping points occurring under certain climate scenarios (Lenton et al. 2008). As a result, some have argued that “the possibility of global tipping remains highly speculative” (Lenton et al. 2019). In turn, tipping points can, in general, be considered as highly uncertain but potentially highly impactful events.

Even though the uncertainty surrounding climate tipping point is extremely high, this concept has made its way into the popular culture discussions on climate change, where usually subtleties tend to disappear, including considerations about uncertainty levels (Schneider 2016). News outlets, in multiple countries, have highlighted concerns of potential climate catastrophe around tipping point events. Illustrating that not only a large cross section of individuals in our global society are aware of this scientific concept but that they are also concerned about the potential of crossing one of these tipping point thresholds. This presents an interesting case where there is currently high uncertainty within the scientific community, regarding the likelihood of a climate tipping point event of global magnitude occurring, however the importance and relevance of tipping points for decision making is relatively agreed upon within our larger society, as demonstrated by the recent survey by The Global Commons Alliance. They have reported that “among G20 countries, 73% of people believe Earth is close to ‘tipping points’ because of human action” (Gaffney et al. 2021, 4).

We argue that this divergence highlights the role values play in the communication of scientific information and, in this context, claims about climate tipping points. Despite the statement that values play a role in science, it is not always clear the way values play a role in how information is framed or presented. We will show how values are introduced and used in the scientific communication surrounding climate tipping points, by discussing a number of prominent papers, written by climate scientists, that have a specific focus on a wider public audience. These examples will illustrate the way values, specifically the precautionary principle as an evaluative value set, are used by experts to fill the knowledge gaps during scientific communication. This brings up questions of legitimate vs the illegitimate use of values in climate science and the scientific communication on tipping points. We begin to address these questions and contrast the difference in using these values to legitimately support further research/inquiry into climate tipping points and the use of these values to illegitimately fuel or support climate alarmism.

Author bios:

Carlo Martini is an Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (Milan) and visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki. 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)

Mason Majszak is a PhD student at the University of Bern, in Switzerland, where he is a part of the Epistemology of Climate Change working group and holds joint membership within the Institute for Philosophy as well as the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR). His work focuses on expertise in climate science and methodological issues in climate science more generally. Before arriving in Switzerland Mason completed his master’s degree in the UK at the London School of Economics with a thesis titled “A Critical Analysis of the Methodology for the Detection and Attribution of Climate Change”.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Säde Hormio and Samuli Reijula (University of Helsinki) will give a talk on “Universities as anarchic knowledge institutions.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 5th of December. 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:

Universities are knowledge institutions. Compared to several other knowledge institutions (e.g., think tanks, schools, government research organisations), universities have unusual, anarchic, organisational features. We argue that such anarchic features are not necessarily a weakness. Rather, they reflect the special standing of universities among knowledge institutions. We argue that the distributed, self-organising mode of knowledge production maintains a diversity of approaches, topics and solutions needed in frontier research, which involves generating relevant knowledge under uncertainty. Organisational disunity and inconsistencies should sometimes be protected by institutional structures and procedures in order for universities to best serve their purpose as knowledge institutions. The quality control for the knowledge produced in a university comes from knowledge fields, clusters of knowledge and research that exist beyond the confines of individual organisations. The diversity of epistemic contributions is therefore kept in check by the order imposed by the internal logic of science as a social practice. Our argument provides a new defence of autonomy of research conducted at universities.

Author bios:

Säde Hormio is a postdoctoral researcher in Practical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki and a member of TINT. Her research focuses on social epistemology and collective responsibility.

Samuli Reijula is an Academy of Finland research fellow (2020-2025) and a university lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Pekka Syrjänen (University of Helsinki) will give a talk on “Novel prediction and the selectionist challenge”.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format in person and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 14th of November. 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:

One of the most prominent arguments for scientific realism is that it is the only view that does not make the success of science ‘a miracle.’ van Fraassen famously challenged the Miracle argument, arguing that it is no surprise that empirically successful theories survive in the scientific process, as scientists actively select empirically successful theories. Realists often argue that van Fraassen’s response is uncompelling, because it does not challenge realism’s explanation for the novel predictive success of scientific theories. I present a new version of the selectionist argument that responds to the realist’s objection and challenges the novelty-based Miracle argument. 

Author bio:

Pekka Syrjänen is a doctoral student in theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki. His PhD research focuses on the epistemic value of prediction in science.

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Corey Dethier (Leibniz Universität Hannover) will give a talk on “How should the IPCC present uncertainty?”.

The seminar takes place online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 31st of October. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the 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:

At present, the IPCC has a unique two-tier method for communicating uncertainty: claims about (e.g.) future warming are qualified using both “likelihood” and “confidence” scales. Recently, however, a number of climate scientists have called attention to the weaknesses of this method, arguing that it is confusing, hard to understand, and used in different ways by different author groups. In this talk, I consider what a better alternative might look like. I begin by arguing that good science communication is like good science modeling: it highlights or emphasizes what’s important by abstracting away from the unimportant. The IPCC’s current approach can be thought of as emphasizing two features of the IPCC’s knowledge: the degree of imprecision or uncertainty and origins of imprecision or uncertainty. I suggest that there are reasons why we should prioritize emphasizing imprecision, but that the origins of uncertainty are less important. Finally, I consider a few different options for capturing imprecision and consider some broader lessons for science communication. 

Author bio:

Corey Dethier is postdoctoral fellow at Leibniz Universität Hannover with the research group “Integrating Ethics and Epistemology of Science.” His work focuses on uncertainty in climate science and how can and should respond to it.