On Episode 81, Nick chats with John Norton, Distinguished Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, about the story of his work on Einstein, how probabilistic inferences can lead to fallacies (e.g. thinking we’re living in a computer simulation), how not to do philosophy of science, and his latest book “The Material Theory of Induction” in the new, Open Access Series BSPS Open.
Read MoreOn Episode 80, Nick chats with Kevin Elliot, Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University, about the role of values in science, starting with his own introduction to the field, a brief history of the values in science literature, the four general approaches to working on values in science, and the need for philosophers of science to do more ground work in values in science in socially engaged projects.
Read MoreOn Episode 79, Nick chats with Till Grüne-Yanoff, professor of philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, about his early career as a television reporter in Post-Soviet Moscow, preferences in decision theory, “boosting” versus “nudging,” teaching philosophy of science as method choice with exemplars, and making philosophy of science relevant to science.
Read MoreOn Episode 78, Nick chats with Catherine Kendig, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University, about her path to studying classification in scientific practice, non-dichotomous ways of thinking, socially-engaged philosophy of agriculture, and dealing with “demarcationist” tendencies in philosophy of science.
Read MoreOn Episode 77, Nick chats with Deepanwita Dasgupta, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso about why there is no philosophy of science in India, non-Western contexts of scientific practice, and her vision for 21st-century science both as a cognitively diverse and wisdom-producing practice.
Read MoreOn Episode 76, Nick chats with Miriam Solomon, Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, about succeeding in philosophy despite an abusive PhD advisor at Harvard, cognitive biases in scientists thinking and what they mean for the rationality of science, scientific consensus conferences or GOBSATs (Good Old Boys Sitting Around Tables), and her recent Guggenheim fellowship on science and values in the DSM.
Read MoreOn Episode 75, Nick chats with Sarah Richardson, Professor of the History of Science and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University about her interdisciplinary work at Stanford on race and genomics, her approach to studying the social dimensions of science, her current work with Harvard’s GenderSci Lab generating feminist concepts, methods and theories for scientific research on sex and gender, and the importance for philosophers of science to better represent the world.
Read MoreOn Episode 74, Nick chats with Emily Parke, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Auckland, about her first job creating life from the bottom-up at the academic-run synthetic biology company Protolife, challenging the idea that there’s some epistemic privilege experiments have over models, the trade-offs and causual issues of using microbiome-based explanations to explain every element of human health, and how philosophical debates on the origin of life might actually matter to science.
Read MoreOn Episode 73, Nick chats with Dan Hicks, philosopher at University of California Merced about Dan’s science and values research on the aims of science, working in science policy at the AAAS and NSF, and learning to incorporate methods from statistics and data science with a conceptual philosophy of science framework to understand how science operates.
Read MoreOn Episode 72, Nick chats with Karen Kovaka, assistant professor in philosophy at Virginia Tech about the upcoming Philosophy of Science Association conference, philosophical implications of meta-analysis, the presumption against intervention in restoration ecology, and how to advise philosophy of science students to achieve success outside of academia.
Read MoreOn Episode 71, Nick chats with Jennifer Jhun, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, as well as a fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy, about her historically-informed philosophy of science research on the role idealizations play in science, both in economics and in physics.
Read MoreOn Episode 70, Nick chats with historian of medicine and science, sex researcher, mainstream writer, and (im)patient advocate, Dr. Alice Dreger about her early investigations into the broken medical care system and the intersex rights movement, the story behind her book, Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar’s Search for Justice and the relationship between science and social justice, approaching present-day cancel culture from a nuanced perspective, and her current efforts as founder of the local news organization East Lansing Info to rescue local news in her city and in America more generally.
Read MoreOn Episode 69, Nick chats with Dr. Maya Goldenberg, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph author of the new book, Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science, about how we frame and might reframe public debate about vaccines and vaccination. Maya’s argument—that at the foundation of today’s vaccine controversies is a public mistrust of science, not a public misunderstanding of science—offers an important point of view in the larger contemporary debate about vaccine hesitancy.
Read MoreOn Episode 68, Nick chats with Dr. Sean Valles, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University and author of the book, Philosophy of Population Health: Philosophy for a New Public Health Era, about problematic discourse surrounding COVID-19, the need for promoting a “culture of health,” the dangers of COVID-19 hobbyism, addressing COVID-19 mental health concerns, advice for professors planning to add COVID-19 material to their classes, and looking toward a a future ethics of health resilience post-COVID-19.
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