Peter Godfrey-Smith's 2022 Dyason lecture, "The evolution of sentience", is now available on Youtube. Check out our channel for other talks and presentations.
Dyason Lecture video
Vale Robert Nola (1940–2022)
Gurol Irzik and Michael Matthews have written an obituary for Robert Nola, philosophy, Uni. Auckland. It is available at
https://www.hpsst.com/uploads/6/2/9/3/62931075/robert_nola_obituary.pdf
Two HPSSS Jobs
History of Science Faculty position, Florida Institute of Technology
Florida Tech invites applications for a tenure track faculty position in the history of science and/or medicine, to begin in August 2023. Preference will be given to candidates with an area of specialization in the modern period with at least two years of teaching experience at the university level who can (a) teach undergraduate courses in the history of science, medicine, and technology (ancient, medieval, and modern); (b) develop undergraduate courses in their area of specialization; (c) contribute to the teaching of the general education humanities core curriculum; (d) develop courses that contribute to building bridges between the School of Arts and Communication and the College of Engineering and Science. All candidates must have a Ph.D. at the time of appointment. The School of Arts and Communication is part of the College of Psychology and Liberal Arts at Florida Tech. We are a small, collegial faculty committed to developing the liberal arts within a STEM university.
At Florida Tech, we believe in recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty and staff. We are committed to building an inclusive community that will make the university stronger. To achieve and sustain educational excellence, we seek to hire talented faculty and staff across the intersections of diverse races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, gender identities, ages, socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, and national origins.
Florida Tech (fit.edu) is a private university ranked as a Tier 1 National University by U.S. News and World Report, and one of the top 20 small universities in the world by Times Higher Education. The university is in Melbourne, Brevard County, Florida, which is one of the top counties in the U.S. for high-tech employment and is near the NASA/Kennedy Space Center. The campus is six kilometers from the Indian River lagoon, one of the most biodiverse estuaries in the northern hemisphere and home to more than 4,300 species of plants and animals.
Applicants should submit their letter of application and curriculum vitae directly to the search committee chair, Gordon Patterson, at patterso@fit.edu with the Subject Line “History of Science Application”. The search committee encourages applicants to integrate their thinking and experiences regarding diversity into their application letter.
Review of applications will begin November 15, 2022 and continue until the position is filled.
For full details, see: floridatech.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com
Lectureship, HPS, Cambridge
The Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge invites applications for the Department's Lipton Lectureship, a permanent Assistant Professorship (with opportunity for promotion). The position is offered in the History of Recent Science, Technology, and Medicine, to start on 1 October 2023 or as soon as possible thereafter. Responsibilities will include contributing to all aspects of undergraduate and graduate teaching, assessing graduate applications and student funding applications, supervising, examining, leading research activities in the history of recent science, technology, and/or medicine, and various administrative duties for the Department. By 'recent', we generally refer to the period following 1945, with the understanding that periodization varies by historical specialty. The Department welcomes applications from scholars across the full range of specializations, including those whose work considers the diverse range of contexts outside Europe and North America, as well as Indigenous knowledge traditions across the world.
Applicants must hold a PhD (or equivalent) and have an outstanding record of excellence in teaching, research, and publication in the history of recent science, technology, and/or medicine. An ability to work in science and technology studies is desirable. The Department offers an exceptionally stimulating and supportive interdisciplinary research environment and the opportunity to develop undergraduate and graduate teaching in the post-holder's areas of expertise. The closing date for receipt of applications is 27 November 2022.
To see further particulars and apply online, go to: jobs.cam.ac.uk
For information on the Department of History and Philosophy of Science see www.hps.cam.ac.uk; for more on the University of Cambridge see cam.ac.uk.
Please quote reference JN33811 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society.
Dyason Lecture 2022: Peter Godfrey-Smith
The Evolution of Sentience
Thursday 13 October at 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Friends Room in the Mitchell Building, State Library of New South Wales
1 Shakespeare Place, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
In the 2022 Dyason Lecture presented by the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science, Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith considers the evolution of sentience.
How did evolution give rise to feelings, such as pleasure and pain? And which organisms experience the events of their lives in this way? Do insects feel pain? Octopuses? How about plants? Where might we locate the true limits of sentience?
Bookings are essential. Bookings can be made on the State Library event page.
Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Sydney, and he has a PhD in philosophy from UC San Diego. He taught at Stanford University between 1991 and 2003, and then combined a half-time post at the Australian National University and a visiting position at Harvard for a few years. He moved to Harvard full-time and was Professor there from 2006 to 2011, before moving to the CUNY Graduate Center. Since 2015 he has also had a half-time position in the HPS Unit at the University of Sydney.
Peter’s main research interests are in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of mind. He also works on pragmatism (especially John Dewey), general philosophy of science, and some parts of metaphysics and epistemology. Peter has written six books: Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award, Philosophy of Biology, Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, and Metazoa: Animal Life and the Both of the Mind. Peter’s photos and videos have appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, The Guardian, Science, The Boston Globe and elsewhere.
The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties
WORKSHOP
The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties
22-23 September 2022
15:00-18:00 pm London Time*
ONLINE
(London School of Economics, CPNSS)
To register for the workshop,
please fill out the registration form here.
*These will be sessions 1 & 2, there will be two more online sessions (3 & 4) on December 1 & 8.
While the field of statistics has a long history of passionate foundational controversy, the last decade has, in many ways, been the most dramatic. Misuses of statistics, biasing selection effects, and high-powered methods of big-data analysis, have helped to make it easy to find impressive-looking but spurious results that fail to replicate. As the crisis of replication has spread beyond psychology and social sciences to biomedicine, genomics, machine learning and other fields, the need for critical appraisal of proposed reforms is growing. Many are welcome (transparency about data, eschewing mechanical uses of statistics); some are quite radical. The experts do not agree on the best ways to promote trustworthy results, and these disagreements often reflect philosophical battles–old and new– about the nature of inductive-statistical inference and the roles of probability in statistical inference and modeling. Intermingled in the controversies about evidence are competing social, political, and economic values. If statistical consumers are unaware of assumptions behind rival evidence-policy reforms, they cannot scrutinize the consequences that affect them. What is at stake is a critical standpoint that we may increasingly be in danger of losing. Critically reflecting on proposed reforms and changing standards requires insights from statisticians, philosophers of science, psychologists, journal editors, economists and practitioners from across the natural and social sciences. This workshop will bring together these interdisciplinary insights–from speakers as well as attendees.
Speakers/Panellists:
Yoav Benjamini (Tel Aviv University), Alexander Bird (University of Cambridge), Mark Burgman (Imperial College London), Daniele Fanelli (London School of Economics and Political Science), Roman Frigg (London School of Economics and Political Science), Stephan Guttinger (London School of Economics and Political Science), David Hand (Imperial College London), Margherita Harris (London School of Economics and Political Science), Christian Hennig (University of Bologna), Daniël Lakens (Eindhoven University of Technology), Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech), Richard Morey (Cardiff University), Stephen Senn (Edinburgh, Scotland), Jon Williamson (University of Kent)
Sponsors/Affiliations:
The Foundation for the Study of Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (E.R.R.O.R.S.); Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics; Virginia Tech Department of Philosophy
Organizers: D. Mayo, R. Frigg and M. Harris
Logistician (chief logistics and contact person): Jean Miller
Executive Planning Committee: Y. Benjamini, D. Hand, D. Lakens, S. Senn
To register for the workshop,
please fill out the registration form here.
The Statistics Wars and their Casualties workshop: Sept 22 & 23 (online)
Dear Colleagues,
The Statistics Wars and their Casualties workshop will now be fully online. The first 2 meetings (sessions 1 & 2) will be the scheduled dates, but only in the afternoons from 15-18:00 pm London time on Sept 22 and 23, 2022. There will be two future online meetings (sessions 3 & 4) probably in December with dates and times to be announced. There will be lots of opportunities to engage in discussion with attendees and special panelists. We very much hope to see you there!
To register/receive notification of updates and schedules for the workshop, please visit this link. We really appreciate the continued interest many of you have shown in this workshop and associated forums over the past 2 years. We will strive to avoid duplicate messages. Write to us if you prefer not to receive any further updates on these events.
We would be grateful if you would forward this e-mail to interested colleagues.
Warmest Wishes,
D. Mayo
R. Frigg
M. Harris
The Statistics Wars and Their Casualties
22-23 September 2022
15:00-18:00 pm London Time*
ONLINE
To register/receive notification of updates for the workshop, please fill out the registration/notification form here.
*These will be sessions 1 & 2, there will be two more future on-line sessions (3 & 4) to be announced.
Yoav Benjamini (Tel Aviv University), Alexander Bird (University of Cambridge), Mark Burgman (Imperial College London), Daniele Fanelli (London School of Economics and Political Science), Roman Frigg (London School of Economics and Political Science), Stephan Guettinger (London School of Economics and Political Science), David Hand (Imperial College London), Margherita Harris (London School of Economics and Political Science), Christian Hennig (University of Bologna), Daniël Lakens (Eindhoven University of Technology), Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech), Richard Morey (Cardiff University), Stephen Senn (Edinburgh, Scotland), Jon Williamson (University of Kent)
While the field of statistics has a long history of passionate foundational controversy the last decade has, in many ways, been the most dramatic. Misuses of statistics, biasing selection effects, and high powered methods of Big-Data analysis, have helped to make it easy to find impressive-looking but spurious, results that fail to replicate. As the crisis of replication has spread beyond psychology and social sciences to biomedicine, genomics and other fields, people are getting serious about reforms. Many are welcome (preregistration, transparency about data, eschewing mechanical uses of statistics); some are quite radical. The experts do not agree on how to restore scientific integrity, and these disagreements reflect philosophical battles–old and new– about the nature of inductive-statistical inference and the roles of probability in statistical inference and modeling. These philosophical issues simmer below the surface in competing views about the causes of problems and potential remedies. If statistical consumers are unaware of assumptions behind rival evidence-policy reforms, they cannot scrutinize the consequences that affect them (in personalized medicine, psychology, law, and so on). Critically reflecting on proposed reforms and changing standards requires insights from statisticians, philosophers of science, psychologists, journal editors, economists and practitioners from across the natural and social sciences. This workshop will bring together these interdisciplinary insights–from speakers as well as attendees.
Sponsors/Collaborations:
Sponsors: The Foundation for the Study of Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (E.R.R.O.R.S.); Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics
Organizers: D. Mayo, R. Frigg and M. Harris
Logistician (chief logistics and contact person): Jean Miller
To register/receive notification of updates for the workshop, please fill out the registration/notification form here.
CFP: Society for the Metaphysics of Science Session at the 2023 APA Eastern
Dear Members of the Society for the Metaphysics of Science,
In addition to its stand-alone annual conference, the Society for the Metaphysics of Science has often hosted group sessions at the American Philosophical Association divisional meetings. While those sessions have primarily been at the Central and Pacific meetings in the past, this year we are adding a session at the Eastern division meeting (Montreal, 4–7 January 2023) with an open call for papers.
Anonymized abstracts of 400-700 words should be submitted through EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=smsapae23 ) by Friday, 10 June. Final presentations will be roughly 30 minutes.
Abstracts are welcome in:
- The metaphysics of any area of natural or social science
- The implications of any area of natural or social science for metaphysics
Presenters must be members of the APA at the time of the conference and registered for the 2023 Eastern Division meeting.
For any questions please contact the Society for the Metaphysics of Science's APA Eastern division representative, Ryan Miller (Ryan.Miller@unige.ch).
For more information on the Society for the Metaphysics of Science, please see our website: https://socmetsci.org .
SMS Announcements
Kerry McKenzie’s book Fundamentality and Grounding is open access until 23 February 2022.. The CFP for our 2022 Conference, to be held 7–9 September 2022 at the University of Bristol, is now available.
socmetsci.org
Sincerely,
Tyler Hildebrand, Secretary of the SMS
ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshops
The ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop Committee has been hard at work, and we are pleased to announce two more workshops have been approved. This brings the total number of 2022 ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshops to five! You can view all of them on the ISHPSSB webpage here:
https://ishpssb.org/meetings#off-year-workshops
Please note the new website for the “Echoes of Scientific Thought in Society” workshop, and the upcoming Apr. 30 CFP for “Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences XI.”
Our two new workshops:
Sustainable Practices Workshop
University of Minnesota, June 10, 2022 (virtual)
EASPLS 2022 (European Advanced School in Philosophy of the Life Sciences): “Dealing with Complexity in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences”
Institute for Philosophy in Biology & Medicine, ImmunoConcEpT lab, and University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, Sept. 5-9, 2022 (in-person)
Website https://www.philinbiomed.org/event/easpls-bordeaux-2022/
This adds to the previously approved workshops:
Echoes of scientific thought in society: the late 19th century-early 20th century ‘race science’ in Argentina and Brazil
University of São Paulo, Brazil, Sep. 19-23, 2022. (virtual)
Website: https://19racialtheoriesla.wixsite.com/racialtheories (NEW WEBSITE!)
A triple helix: metaphor, society, and the science of evolution. A workshop in memory of Richard Lewontin
UNAM, Mexico, Oct. 3-7, 2022. (hybrid)
Contact information: David Suárez Pascal (david.suarez@ciencias.unam.mx)
Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences XI (PBCS XI)
University of Salamanca, Spain, Nov. 3-4, 2022 (in-person)
Contact information: PBCSXI@usal.es.
Website: https://pbcsxiworkshop.wordpress.com/
Call for Participation (deadline April 30): https://pbcsxiworkshop.wordpress.com/cfp/
Thanks to all the organizers of these workshops for their hard work. Please share with your interested colleagues and students.
Best,
Your ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop Committee,
- Matt Haber, University of Utah (chair)
- Alex Aylward, University of Oxford
- Jenny Bangham, Queen Mary University of London
- Luciana Garbayo, University of Central Florida
- Vivette García Deister, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
- Eva Guadalupe Hernández Avilez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
- Maria Elice de Brzezinski Prestes, Universidade de São Paulo
- Lucia Neco, University of Western Australia
- Charles Pence, Université catholique de Louvain
- Javier Suárez, Universit of Oviedo