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Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Values in Science: Rethinking the Dichotomy

In Lynn Hankinson Nelson & Jack Nelson (eds.), Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science. pp. 39--58 (1996)

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  1. State of the field: Transient underdetermination and values in science.Justin Biddle - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (1):124-133.
    This paper examines the state of the field of “science and values”—particularly regarding the implications of the thesis of transient underdetermination for the ideal of value-free science, or what I call the “ideal of epistemic purity.” I do this by discussing some of the main arguments in the literature, both for and against the ideal. I examine a preliminary argument from transient underdetermination against the ideal of epistemic purity, and I discuss two different formulations of an objection to this argument—an (...)
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  • Epistemic Trust in Science.Torsten Wilholt - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (2):233-253.
    Epistemic trust is crucial for science. This article aims to identify the kinds of assumptions that are involved in epistemic trust as it is required for the successful operation of science as a collective epistemic enterprise. The relevant kind of reliance should involve working from the assumption that the epistemic endeavors of others are appropriately geared towards the truth, but the exact content of this assumption is more difficult to analyze than it might appear. The root of the problem is (...)
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  • Gender, Objectivity, And Realism.Alan Soble - 1994 - The Monist 77 (4):509-530.
    A detailed examination of the philosophy of science of Evelyn Fox Keller, with special emphasis on her account of "objectivity" and her understanding of the methodology of Barbara McClintock.
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  • Is Longino's Conception of Objectivity Feminist?Daniel Hicks - 2011 - Hypatia 26 (2):333-351.
    Helen Longino's account of objectivity has been highly regarded by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science. However, I have encountered three feminist philosophers who have all offered one especially compelling feminist critique of Longino's view: far from vindicating or privileging the work of feminist scientists, Longino's account actually requires the active cultivation of anti-feminist and misogynist scientists to balance out the possibility of feminist bias. I call this objection the Nazi problem, for the particular version that claims that her (...)
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  • Years of Feminist Empiricism and Standpoint Theory: Where Are We Now?Kristen Intemann - 2010 - Hypatia 25 (4):778-796.
    Over the past twenty-five years, numerous articles in Hypatia have clarified, revised, and defended increasingly more nuanced views of both feminist empiricism and standpoint feminism. Feminist empiricists have argued that scientific knowledge is contextual and socially situated (Longino 1990; Nelson 1990; Anderson 1995), and standpoint feminists have begun to endorse virtues of theory choice that have been traditionally empiricist (Wylie 2003). In fact, it is unclear whether substantive differences remain. I demonstrate that current versions of feminist empiricism and standpoint feminism (...)
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  • A Family Resemblance Approach to the Nature of Science for Science Education.Gürol Irzık, Gurol Irzik & Robert Nola - 2011 - Science & Education 20 (7-8):591-607.
    Although there is universal consensus both in the science education literature and in the science standards documents to the effect that students should learn not only the content of science but also its nature, there is little agreement about what that nature is. This led many science educators to adopt what is sometimes called “the consensus view” about the nature of science (NOS), whose goal is to teach students only those characteristics of science on which there is wide consensus. This (...)
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  • The Unreasonable Destructiveness of Political Correctness in Philosophy.Manuel Doria - 2017 - Philosophies 2 (3):17.
    I submit that epistemic progress in key areas of contemporary academic philosophy has been compromised by politically correct ideology. First, guided by an evolutionary account of ideology, results from social and cognitive psychology and formal philosophical methods, I expose evidence for political bias in contemporary Western academia and sketch a formalization for the contents of beliefs from the PC worldview taken to be of core importance, the theory of social oppression and the thesis of anthropological mental egalitarianism. Then, aided by (...)
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  • Can gender ideologies influence the practice of the physical sciences?Kristina Rolin - 1999 - Perspectives on Science 7 (4):510-533.
    : As a response to the critics of feminist science studies I argue that it is possible to formulate empirical hypotheses about gender ideology in the practice of the physical sciences without (1) reinforcing stereotypes about women and mathematical sciences or (2) assuming at the outset that the area of physics under investigation is methodologically suspect. I will then critically evaluate two case studies of gender ideology in the practice of the physical sciences. The case studies fail to show that (...)
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  • Phronetic Risk in Research Agenda Setting – the Case of Nutrition Science and Public Health.Saana Jukola - forthcoming - Social Epistemology.
    Justin Biddle and Quill Kukla have introduced the concept of phronetic risk to refer to epistemic risks emerging in activities that either are conditions for empirical reasoning or included in empirical reasoning and that have to be weighted according to different values and interests. In this paper, I show how a phronetic risk arises in research agenda setting. Given the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases associated with diet, there is a need for science-based nutritional public health interventions. However, how the relation (...)
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  • On the Nature and Relationship of Individual and Collective Justification.Simon Graf - 2024 - Dissertation, University of Leeds
    This thesis is an investigation into the nature of epistemic justification. It brings together themes from traditional, individual-centred epistemology, and collective, group-centred epistemology. The first half of the thesis is concerned with the question of whether rationality is epistemically permissive; that is, whether one body of evidence can rationalise more than one doxastic attitude. In chapter 1, I argue that permissive cases are best understood as epistemic standard conflicts. Doing so provides us with a novel understanding of the arbitrariness objection (...)
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  • Sins and Risks in Underreporting Suspected Adverse Drug Reactions.Austin Due - 2024 - Philosophy of Medicine 5 (1).
    The underreporting of suspected adverse drug reactions remains a primary issue for contemporary post-market drug surveillance or ‘pharmacovigilance.’ Pharmacovigilance pioneer W.H.W. Inman argued that ‘deadly sins’ committed by clinicians are to blame for underreporting. Of these ‘sins,’ ignorance and lethargy are the most obvious and impactful in causing underreporting. However, recent analyses show that diffidence, insecurity, and indifference additionally play a major role. I aim to augment our understanding of diffidence, insecurity, and indifference by arguing these sins are underwritten by (...)
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  • Roles for scientists in policymaking.Joe Roussos - forthcoming - In W. J. Gonzalez (ed.), Climate change and studies of the future.
    What is the proper role for scientists in policymaking? This paper explores various roles that scientists can play, with an eye to questions that these roles raise about value-neutrality and technocracy. Where much philosophical literature is concerned with the conduct of research or the transmission of research results to policymakers, I am interested in various non-research roles that scientists take on in policymaking. These include raising the alarm on issues, framing and conceptualising problems, formulating potential policies, assessing policy options for (...)
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  • What counts as relevant criticism? Longino's critical contextual empiricism and the feminist criticism of mainstream economics.Teemu Lari - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 104:88-97.
    I identify and resolve an internal tension in Critical Contextual Empiricism (CCE) – the normative account of science developed by Helen Longino. CCE includes two seemingly conflicting principles: on one hand, the cognitive goals of epistemic communities should be open to critical discussion (the openness of goals to criticism principle, OGC); on the other hand, criticism must be aligned with the cognitive goals of that community to count as “relevant” and thus require a response (the goal-relativity of response-requiring criticism principle, (...)
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  • Permissive Divergence.Simon Graf - 2023 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (3):240-255.
    Within collective epistemology, there is a class of theories that understand the epistemic status of collective attitude ascriptions, such as ‘the college union knows that the industrial action is going to plan’, or ‘the jury justifiedly believes that the suspect is guilty’, as saying that a sufficient subset of group member attitudes have the relevant epistemic status. In this paper, I will demonstrate that these summativist approaches to collective epistemology are incompatible with epistemic permissivism, the doctrine that a single body (...)
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  • Bridgman and the Normative Independence of Science: An Individual Physicist in the Shadow of the Bomb.Mahmoud Jalloh - 2024 - Synthese 203 (141):1-24.
    Physicist Percy Bridgman has been taken by Heather Douglas to be an exemplar defender of an untenable value-free ideal for science. This picture is complicated by a detailed study of Bridgman's philosophical views of the relation between science and society. The normative autonomy of science, a version of the value-free ideal, is defended. This restriction on the provenance of permissible values in science is given a basis in Bridgman's broader philosophical commitments, most importantly, his view that science is primarily an (...)
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  • Reorienting the Debate on Biological Individuality: Politics and Practices: Review of Alison K. McConwell. Biological Individuality. Elements in the Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 93pp. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108942775; ISBN: 9781009387422. [REVIEW]Rose Trappes - 2024 - Acta Biotheoretica 72 (1):4.
    Biological individuality is without a doubt a key concept in philosophy of biology. Questions around the individuality of organisms, species, and biological systems can be traced throughout the philosophy of biology since the discipline’s inception, not to mention the sustained attention they have received in biology and philosophy more broadly. It’s high time the topic got its own Cambridge Element. McConwell’s Biological Individuality falls short of an authoritative overview of the debate on biological individuality. However, it sends a welcome message (...)
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  • Straightening the ‘value-laden turn’: minimising the influence of extra-scientific values in science.Philippe Stamenkovic - 2024 - Synthese 203 (20):1-38.
    Straightening the current ‘value-laden turn’ (VLT) in the philosophical literature on values in science, and reviving the legacy of the value-free ideal of science (VFI), this paper argues that the influence of extra-scientific values should be minimised—not excluded—in the core phase of scientific inquiry where claims are accepted or rejected. Noting that the original arguments for the VFI (ensuring the truth of scientific knowledge, respecting the autonomy of science results users, preserving public trust in science) have not been satisfactorily addressed (...)
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  • Cognitive Metascience: A New Approach to the Study of Theories.Miłkowski Marcin - 2023 - Przeglad Psychologiczny 66 (1):185-207.
    In light of the recent credibility crisis in psychology, this paper argues for a greater emphasis on theorizing in scientific research. Although reliable experimental evidence, preregistration, methodological rigor, and new computational frameworks for modeling are important, scientific progress also relies on properly functioning theories. However, the current understanding of the role of theorizing in psychology is lacking, which may lead to future crises. Theories should not be viewed as mere speculations or simple inductive generalizations. To address this issue, the author (...)
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  • Valeurs Dans la Representation Scientifique.Quentin Ruyant - 2023 - Lato Sensu: Revue de la Société de Philosophie des Sciences 10 (1):24-38.
    Le but de cet article est d'examiner le rôle joué par les valeurs dans les activités de représentation en science, notamment la construction ou utilisation de modèles, en distinguant représentation concrète et abstraite. Un modèle hiérarchique est proposé. La conclusion est que l'influence des valeurs sociales dans la représentation scientifique dépend du niveau d'abstraction considéré, et qu'elle n'est problématique que quand des valeurs locales sont considérées pour évaluer des représentations plus générales.
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  • The value-free ideal in codes of conduct for research integrity.Jacopo Ambrosj, Hugh Desmond & Kris Dierickx - 2023 - Synthese 202 (5):1-23.
    While the debate on values in science focuses on normative questions on the level of the individual (e.g. should researchers try to make their work as value free as possible?), comparatively little attention has been paid to the institutional and professional norms that researchers are expected to follow. To address this knowledge gap, we conduct a content analysis of leading national codes of conduct for research integrity of European countries, and structure our analysis around the question: do these documents allow (...)
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  • Behind the mask: unmasking the social construction of leadership amongst officer cadets of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.Jeff Tibbett - 2022 - Dissertation, University of Northumbria at Newcastle
    This thesis explores Officer Cadets' social construction of leadership at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). It addresses calls for more research into leadership behaviours. Taking a social constructionist perspective, the thesis focuses on unmasking the social construction of Leadership amongst Officer Cadets. This study adopts a reflexive approach, acknowledging the centrality of the researcher in the co-construction of the data. The thesis develops interdisciplinary links between the theoretical areas of Dark Leadership to problematize and inform contemporary understandings of Officer (...)
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  • Philosophy's Past: Cognitive Values and the History of Philosophy.Phil Corkum - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (3):585-606.
    Recent authors hold that the role of historical scholarship within contemporary philosophical practice is to question current assumptions, to expose vestiges or to calibrate intuitions. On these views, historical scholarship is dispensable, since these roles can be achieved by nonhistorical methods. And the value of historical scholarship is contingent, since the need for the role depends on the presence of questionable assumptions, vestiges or comparable intuitions. In this paper I draw an analogy between scientific and philosophical practice, in order to (...)
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  • How tracking technology is transforming animal ecology: epistemic values, interdisciplinarity, and technology-driven scientific change.Rose Trappes - 2023 - Synthese 201 (4):1-24.
    Tracking technology has been heralded as transformative for animal ecology. In this paper I examine what changes are taking place, showing how current animal movement research is a field ripe for philosophical investigation. I focus first on how the devices alter the limitations and biases of traditional field observation, making observation of animal movement and behaviour possible in more detail, for more varied species, and under a broader variety of conditions, as well as restricting the influence of human presence and (...)
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  • The Value-Free Ideal of Science: A Useful Fiction? A Review of Non-epistemic Reasons for the Research Integrity Community.Jacopo Ambrosj, Kris Dierickx & Hugh Desmond - 2023 - Science and Engineering Ethics 29 (1):1-22.
    Even if the “value-free ideal of science” (VFI) were an unattainable goal, one could ask: can it be a useful fiction, one that is beneficial for the research community and society? This question is particularly crucial for scholars and institutions concerned with research integrity (RI), as one cannot offer normative guidance to researchers without making some assumptions about what ideal scientific research looks like. Despite the insofar little interaction between scholars studying RI and those working on values in science, the (...)
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  • No free theory choice from machine learning.Bruce Rushing - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-21.
    Ravit Dotan argues that a No Free Lunch theorem from machine learning shows epistemic values are insufficient for deciding the truth of scientific hypotheses. She argues that NFL shows that the best case accuracy of scientific hypotheses is no more than chance. Since accuracy underpins every epistemic value, non-epistemic values are needed to assess the truth of scientific hypotheses. However, NFL cannot be coherently applied to the problem of theory choice. The NFL theorem Dotan’s argument relies upon is a member (...)
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  • Space, time and parsimony.Daniel Nolan - 2022 - Noûs 57 (4):763-783.
    This paper argues that all of the standard theories about the divisions of space and time can benefit from, and may need to rely on, parsimony considerations. More specifically, whether spacetime is discrete, gunky or pointy, there are wildly unparsimonious rivals to standard accounts that need to be resisted by proponents of those accounts, and only parsimony considerations offer a natural way of doing that resisting. Furthermore, quantitative parsimony considerations appear to be needed in many of these cases.
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  • Inference to the Best Explanation - An Overview.Frank Cabrera - 2023 - In Lorenzo Magnani (ed.), Handbook of Abductive Cognition. Springer. pp. 1-34.
    In this article, I will provide a critical overview of the form of non-deductive reasoning commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Roughly speaking, according to IBE, we ought to infer the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of our evidence. In section 2, I survey some contemporary formulations of IBE and highlight some of its putative applications. In section 3, I distinguish IBE from C.S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. After underlining some of the essential elements of IBE, (...)
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  • The Descriptive, the Normative, and the Entanglement of Values in Science.Matthew J. Brown - 2021 - In Heather Douglas & Ted Richards (eds.), Science, Values, and Democracy: The 2016 Descartes Lectures. Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University. pp. 51-65.
    Heather Douglas has helped to set the standard for twenty-first century discussions in philosophy of science on the topics of values in science and science in democracy. Douglas’s work has been part of a movement to bring the question of values in science back to center of the field and to focus especially on policy-relevant science. This first chapter, on the pervasive entanglement of science and values, includes an improved and definitive statement of the argument from inductive risk, which she (...)
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  • Helen Longino'nun Bilimsel Nesnellik Anlayışı.Alper Bilgehan Yardımcı - 2021 - SRA Academic Publishing.
    Bilimsel faaliyetin ve bilimsel bilginin en temel özelliklerinden bir tanesi olarak karşımıza çıkan bilimsel nesnellik bilim felsefesi alanı içerisinde sıklıkla tartışılan bir konu olagelmiştir. Bu doğrultuda, bilimsel nesnelliğin temin edilmesine yönelik çeşitli görüşler ileri sürülmektedir. Genel olarak bilimsel nesnellik bilim insanlarının çalışmalarında olguları doğrudan yansıtması ya da bilim insanlarının çalışmalarını tarafsız bir bakış açısıyla tamamlaması olarak anlaşılmaktadır. Bu görüşlerin bilim felsefesi içerisindeki yansımaları sırasıyla olgulara bağlılık olarak nesnellik ve hiçbir yerden bakış olarak nesnellik isimleriyle olmuştur. Bu bakış açısı, kişisel çıkarların (...)
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  • Risky Inquiry: Developing an Ethics for Philosophical Practice.Rima Basu - 2023 - Hypatia 38:275-293.
    Philosophical inquiry strives to be the unencumbered exploration of ideas. That is, unlike scientific research which is subject to ethical oversight, it is commonly thought that it would either be inappropriate, or that it would undermine what philosophy fundamentally is, if philosophical research were subject to similar ethical oversight. Against this, I argue that philosophy is in need of a reckoning. Philosophical inquiry is a morally hazardous practice with its own risks. There are risks present in the methods we employ, (...)
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  • Objectivity for the research worker.Noah van Dongen & Michał Sikorski - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-25.
    In the last decade, many problematic cases of scientific conduct have been diagnosed; some of which involve outright fraud others are more subtle. These and similar problems can be interpreted as caused by lack of scientific objectivity. The current philosophical theories of objectivity do not provide scientists with conceptualizations that can be effectively put into practice in remedying these issues. We propose a novel way of thinking about objectivity for individual scientists; a negative and dynamic approach.We provide a philosophical conceptualization (...)
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  • How strong is the argument from inductive risk?Tobias Henschen - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-23.
    The argument from inductive risk, as developed by Rudner and others, famously concludes that the scientist qua scientist makes value judgments. The paper aims to show that trust in the soundness of the argument is overrated – that philosophers who endorse its conclusion fail to refute two of the most important objections that have been raised to its soundness: Jeffrey’s objection that the genuine task of the scientist is to assign probabilities to hypotheses, and Levi’s objection that the argument is (...)
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  • Value management and model pluralism in climate science.Julie Jebeile & Michel Crucifix - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (August 2021):120-127.
    Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can be seriously considered (...)
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  • What is the environment in environmental health research? Perspectives from the ethics of science.David M. Frank - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (C):172-180.
    Environmental health research produces scientific knowledge about environmental hazards crucial for public health and environmental justice movements that seek to prevent or reduce exposure to these hazards. The environment in environmental health research is conceptualized as the range of possible social, biological, chemical, and/or physical hazards or risks to human health, some of which merit study due to factors such as their probability and severity, the feasibility of their remediation, and injustice in their distribution. This paper explores the ethics of (...)
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  • The Cyclical Return of the IQ Controversy: Revisiting the Lessons of the Resolution on Genetics, Race and Intelligence.Davide Serpico - 2021 - Journal of the History of Biology 54 (2):199-228.
    In 1976, the Genetics Society of America published a document entitled “Resolution of Genetics, Race, and Intelligence.” This document laid out the Society’s position in the IQ controversy, particularly that on scientific and ethical questions involving the genetics of intellectual differences between human populations. Since the GSA was the largest scientific society of geneticists in the world, many expected the document to be of central importance in settling the controversy. Unfortunately, the Resolution had surprisingly little influence on the discussion. In (...)
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  • Values in Psychometrics.Lisa D. Wijsen, Denny Borsboom & Anna Alexandrova - forthcoming - Perspectives on Psychological Science.
    When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, we develop (...)
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  • (Mis)Understanding scientific disagreement: Success versus pursuit-worthiness in theory choice.Eli I. Lichtenstein - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 85:166-175.
    Scientists often diverge widely when choosing between research programs. This can seem to be rooted in disagreements about which of several theories, competing to address shared questions or phenomena, is currently the most epistemically or explanatorily valuable—i.e. most successful. But many such cases are actually more directly rooted in differing judgments of pursuit-worthiness, concerning which theory will be best down the line, or which addresses the most significant data or questions. Using case studies from 16th-century astronomy and 20th-century geology and (...)
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  • Countering medical nihilism by reconnecting facts and values.Ross Upshur & Maya J. Goldenberg - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 84:75-83.
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  • Are Algorithms Value-Free?Gabbrielle M. Johnson - 2023 - Journal Moral Philosophy 21 (1-2):1-35.
    As inductive decision-making procedures, the inferences made by machine learning programs are subject to underdetermination by evidence and bear inductive risk. One strategy for overcoming these challenges is guided by a presumption in philosophy of science that inductive inferences can and should be value-free. Applied to machine learning programs, the strategy assumes that the influence of values is restricted to data and decision outcomes, thereby omitting internal value-laden design choice points. In this paper, I apply arguments from feminist philosophy of (...)
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  • A Tale of Two Doctrines: Moral Encroachment and Doxastic Wronging.Rima Basu - 2021 - In Jennifer Lackey (ed.), Applied Epistemology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 99-118.
    In this paper, I argue that morality might bear on belief in at least two conceptually distinct ways. The first is that morality might bear on belief by bearing on questions of justification. The claim that it does is the doctrine of moral encroachment. The second, is that morality might bear on belief given the central role belief plays in mediating and thereby constituting our relationships with one another. The claim that it does is the doctrine of doxastic wronging. Though (...)
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  • Does IBE Require a ‘Model’ of Explanation?Frank Cabrera - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (2):727-750.
    In this article, I consider an important challenge to the popular theory of scientific inference commonly known as ‘inference to the best explanation’, one that has received scant attention.1 1 The problem is that there exists a wide array of rival models of explanation, thus leaving IBE objectionably indeterminate. First, I briefly introduce IBE. Then, I motivate the problem and offer three potential solutions, the most plausible of which is to adopt a kind of pluralism about the rival models of (...)
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  • The epistemic impact of theorizing: generation bias implies evaluation bias.Finnur Dellsén - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (12):3661-3678.
    It is often argued that while biases routinely influence the generation of scientific theories, a subsequent rational evaluation of such theories will ensure that biases do not affect which theories are ultimately accepted. Against this line of thought, this paper shows that the existence of certain kinds of biases at the generation-stage implies the existence of biases at the evaluation-stage. The key argumentative move is to recognize that a scientist who comes up with a new theory about some phenomena has (...)
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  • Disagreement or denialism? “Invasive species denialism” and ethical disagreement in science.David M. Frank - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 25):6085-6113.
    Recently, invasion biologists have argued that some of the skepticism expressed in the scientific and lay literatures about the risks of invasive species and other aspects of the consensus within invasion biology is a kind of science denialism. This paper presents an argument that, while some claims made by skeptics of invasion biology share important features with paradigm cases of science denialism, others express legitimate ethical concerns that, even if one disagrees, should not be dismissed as denialist. Further, this case (...)
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  • Data, epistemic values, and multiple methods in case study research.Julie Zahle - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 78:32-39.
    Case Study research is characterized by the employment of multiple data gathering methods. In this paper, I examine the concurrent use of participant observation and qualitative interviews. The question I examine is: what is the rationale behind their combination in case study research? In the literature on case study research, the two most common reasons for using multiple methods appeal to comprehensiveness and convergent confirmation respectively. I argue that there is a third significant, yet overlooked, way to motivate the joint (...)
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  • The Error Is in the Gap: Synthesizing Accounts for Societal Values in Science.Christopher ChoGlueck - 2018 - Philosophy of Science 85 (4):704-725.
    Kevin Elliott and others separate two common arguments for the legitimacy of societal values in scientific reasoning as the gap and the error arguments. This article poses two questions: How are these two arguments related, and what can we learn from their interrelation? I contend that we can better understand the error argument as nested within the gap because the error is a limited case of the gap with narrower features. Furthermore, this nestedness provides philosophers with conceptual tools for analyzing (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Defending a Risk Account of Scientific Objectivity.Inkeri Koskinen - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1187-1207.
    When discussing scientific objectivity, many philosophers of science have recently focused on accounts that can be applied in practice when assessing the objectivity of something. It has become clear that in different contexts, objectivity is realized in different ways, and the many senses of objectivity recognized in the recent literature seem to be conceptually distinct. I argue that these diverse ‘applicable’ senses of scientific objectivity have more in common than has thus far been recognized. I combine arguments from philosophical discussions (...)
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  • Ethics of the scientist qua policy advisor: inductive risk, uncertainty, and catastrophe in climate economics.David M. Frank - 2019 - Synthese:3123-3138.
    This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the economic effects of climate change, and how climate economists acting as policy advisors ought to represent the uncertain possibility of catastrophe. Some climate economists, especially Martin Weitzman, have argued for a precautionary approach where avoiding catastrophe should structure climate economists’ welfare analysis. This paper details ethical arguments that justify this approach, showing how Weitzman’s “fat tail” probabilities of climate catastrophe pose ethical problems for widely used IAMs. The main (...)
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  • Trade-offs between Epistemic and Moral Values in Evidence-Based Policy.Donal Khosrowi - 2016 - Economics and Philosophy (1):49-78.
    Proponents of evidence-based policy (EBP) call for public policy to be informed by high-quality evidence from randomized controlled trials. This methodological preference aims to promote several epistemic values, e.g. rigor, unbiasedness, precision, and the ability to obtain causal conclusions. I argue that there is a trade-off between these epistemic values and several non-epistemic, moral and political values. This is because the evidence afforded by preferred EBP methods is differentially useful for pursuing different moral and political values. I expand on how (...)
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  • Systematizing the theoretical virtues.Michael N. Keas - 2017 - Synthese 1 (6):1-33.
    There are at least twelve major virtues of good theories: evidential accuracy, causal adequacy, explanatory depth, internal consistency, internal coherence, universal coherence, beauty, simplicity, unification, durability, fruitfulness, and applicability. These virtues are best classified into four classes: evidential, coherential, aesthetic, and diachronic. Each virtue class contains at least three virtues that sequentially follow a repeating pattern of progressive disclosure and expansion. Systematizing the theoretical virtues in this manner clarifies each virtue and suggests how they might have a coordinated and cumulative (...)
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