From ereshefs at ucalgary.ca Thu Jan 16 11:41:06 2014 From: ereshefs at ucalgary.ca (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca) Date: Thu Jan 16 11:41:18 2014 Subject: Philosophy of Science Events Message-ID: Below are three philosophy of science talks during Winter 2014. Further information about the talks can be found on the Philosophy Department's website. Also below is information about the Calgary Summit for Philosophers of Science in 2014. JACKIE SULLIVAN (Western) - "Experimentation and Construct Stabilization in Neuroscience" 2014-01-24 15:00-17:00 Social Sciences Building, Room 1253 MARC ERESHEFSKY (Calgary) - "Natural Kinds: The Stuff of Metaphysics or Scientific Practice?" 2014-02-28 15:00-17:00 Social Sciences Building, Room 1253 ANDREA WOODY (Washington) - "Re-orienting Discussions of Scientific Explanation: A Functional Perspective" 2014-03-28 15:00-17:00 Social Sciences Building, Room 1253 ------------------------------------------------------------------ The Calgary Summit of Philosophers of Science September 26 ? 27, 2014 University of Calgary The University of Calgary will celebrate the establishment of its new Canada Research Chair in Logic and Philosophy of Science by bringing philosophers of biology from throughout Canada to Calgary. The topic of discussion will be future directions for the philosophy of science. Discussions will begin with six talks, each of which will be followed by a commentary and open discussion. The event will also include a poster forum where Canadian students and postdoctoral fellows will discuss their research. The Summit will be open to students, scholars, and scientists from Canada and elsewhere. Registration materials will be available on the Summit website (currently under construction) by April 15th. The future website will also include directions for Canadian students and post-docs who wish to present their research at the Summit?s forum. Speakers John Dupr? (University of Exeter) Philip Kitcher (Columbia University) Helen E. Longino (Stanford University) Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin) C. Kenneth Waters (University of Calgary, starting July 1, 2014) William Wimsatt (University of Minnesota / University of Chicago) Commentators John Beatty (University of British Columbia) Marc Ereshefsky (University of Calgary) Carla Fehr (University of Waterloo) Lisa Gannett (Saint Mary's University) Denis Walsh (University of Toronto) Robert Wilson (University of Alberta) Discussants Gillian Barker (Western University) Matthew Barker (Concordia University) Ingo Brigandt (University of Alberta) Frederick Bouchard (University of Montreal) Megan Delehanty (University of Calgary) Eric Desjardins (Western University) Stefan Linquist (University of Guelph) Mohan Matthen (University of Toronto) Gordon McQuat (University of King's College) Kathryn Plaisance (University of Waterloo) Andrew Reynolds (Cape Breton University) Chris Stephens (University of British Columbia) Paul Thompson (University of Toronto) Scientific Guests Alan Bernstein (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research) Ford Doolittle (Dalhousie University) For further information about the Summit, please contact one of the organizers: Megan Delehanty (mdelehan@ucalgary.ca), Marc Ereshefsky (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca), or Ken Waters (ckwaters@umn.edu). From ereshefs at ucalgary.ca Mon Mar 24 09:24:44 2014 From: ereshefs at ucalgary.ca (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca) Date: Mon Mar 24 09:24:57 2014 Subject: March 28: Andrea Woody (philosopher of science) Events Message-ID: <4933521b0a46ae74c972efe28a578c54.squirrel@webmail.ucalgary.ca> Andrea Woody (Washington University) will be visiting March 28. There will be a discussion with her concerning the philosophy of chemistry in the morning, and a talk by her concerning scientific explanation in the afternoon. Below are the details of these events. You are welcome to both. The Philosophy Speakers Program presents ANDREA WOODY - "Re-orienting Discussions of Scientific Explanation: A Functional Perspective" March 28, 2014 - 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm Location: Social Sciences Building, Room 1253 For the talk's abstract, go to http://phil.ucalgary.ca/event/2014-03-28/philosophy-speakers-program-andrea-woody-washington-reorienting-discussions Earlier in the day, Andrea will host a discussion about issues in the philosophy of chemistry. We'll meet with her 11:00-12:30 in SS1253 on March 28. She has sent a chapter to read and discuss at the meeting. It's title is: "Chemistry's Periodic Law: Rethinking Representation and Explanation after the Turn to Practice." If you'd like a copy of this chapter just send Marc (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca)a request. From ereshefs at ucalgary.ca Fri May 16 12:00:17 2014 From: ereshefs at ucalgary.ca (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca) Date: Fri May 16 12:00:31 2014 Subject: History and Philosophy of Science as a Teaching Tool Talk and Workshop Message-ID: <3451def8bb8bcaf299f369641fcead2b.squirrel@webmail.ucalgary.ca> Douglas Allchin University of Minnesota Talk: ?Fostering Scientific Literacy: History and Philosophy of Science as Tools? When: Tuesday, June 24 Time: 3:00-4:00 p.m. Overview: Science helps inform personal decision-making and public policy, but what does the ordinary person need to know? In these contexts, understanding how science works to develop reliable knowledge becomes immensely important, even more important than understanding scientific concepts. This talk will profile how historical cases may be the best resource to prepare us for contemporary and future challenges. Workshop: Using Case Studies in the Classroom When: Wednesday, June 25 - Morning Part One: Participate in a Historical Case Study Time: 8:30-10:00 a.m. Overview: Experience and reflect on how we can teach about the nature of science. Participate in a guided historical case study, engaging the problem of the cause of beriberi in Java in the 1890s, which ultimately led Christiaan Eijkman to a Nobel Prize. Afterwards we will discuss the perspectives of both students and teachers, probing the way in which such lessons are designed and delivered. Part Two: Planning to Teach a Case Time: 10:30-Noon Overview: Participants will pre-select and read a case and in this session adapt it to their own classroom and students. We will focus in particular on how to pose questions and lead discussion on issues about how we know. (This session will build directly on the first morning session.) Presentation & Discussion : History and Philosophy of Science & Science Teaching When: Wednesday, June 25 - Afternoon Talk: ?Scientific Myth-Conceptions? Time: 1:00-2:00 p.m. Overview: Historical anecdotes and biographical stories are a stock feature of many science classrooms. An opening presentation will expose some of the inadvertent errors that such stories sometimes foster and profile their broader significance for learning about the nature of science. We will discuss a series of striking historical examples. Talk: ?What Did Our Students Learn About the Nature of Science? The Challenge of Assessment.? Time: 2:30-3:30 p.m. Overview: While many science educators are eager to teach more about the nature of science and how science works, they face the corresponding problem of assessing what students have learned. We will survey some of the instruments and strategies that have been introduced to measure how well our students understand nature of science. ouglas Allchin * Fellow, Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science * Instructor, Curriculum & Instruction, University of Minnesota Douglas Allchin earned his M.S. in evolutionary biology and Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science at the University of Chicago. Currently he studies error and disagreement in science and works to bridge the two worlds of science studies and science education. As Editor of the SHiPS Resource Center, he guides teachers in developing historical problem-based case studies to help illuminate the nature of science. Dr. Allchin has taught high school and college biology and it was while he was a high school teacher in the 1980s that he began to introduce historical cases into his teaching. His own cases include several large-scale historical simulations: ?Debating Galileo's Dialog: The 1633 Trial? and ?Debating Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: The President's Committee on Pesticides, 1963.? Dr. Allchin is author of Teaching the Nature of Science (SHiPS Education Press, 2013). He also writes the Sacred Bovines column for American Biology Teacher. From ereshefs at ucalgary.ca Fri Jun 20 09:47:08 2014 From: ereshefs at ucalgary.ca (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca) Date: Fri Jun 20 09:47:20 2014 Subject: Reminder: Teaching & Learning Lecture & Workshops- Douglas Allchin Message-ID: A reminder about a special Teaching & Learning event next week featuring Dr Douglas Allchin (Fellow, Minnesota Centre for the Philosophy of Science Instructor, Curriculum & Instruction, University of Minnesota). Space is still available. You can find the information below or on our webpage here:http://www.ucalgary.ca/science/teaching_learning/workshops/douglas_allchin_workshop_june2014 Talk: ?Fostering Scientific Literacy: History and Philosophy of Science as Tools? When: Tuesday, June 24 Time: 3:00-4:00 p.m. EEEL 161 Overview: Science helps inform personal decision-making and public policy, but what does the ordinary person need to know? In these contexts, understanding how science works to develop reliable knowledge becomes immensely important, even more important than understanding scientific concepts. This talk will profile how historical cases may be the best resource to prepare us for contemporary and future challenges. To register for the talk: http://allchintalk.eventbrite.ca ________________________________ Workshop: Using Case Studies in the Classroom When: Wednesday, June 25 - Morning Part One: Participate in a Historical Case Study Time: 8:30-10:00 a.m. EEEL 345 Overview: Experience and reflect on how we can teach about the nature of science. Participate in a guided historical case study, engaging the problem of the cause of beriberi in Java in the 1890s, which ultimately led Christiaan Eijkman to a Nobel Prize. Afterwards we will discuss the perspectives of both students and teachers, probing the way in which such lessons are designed and delivered. Part Two: Planning to Teach a Case Time: 10:30-Noon EEEL 345 Overview: Participants will pre-select and read a case and in this session adapt it to their own classroom and students. We will focus in particular on how to pose questions and lead discussion on issues about how we know. (This session will build directly on the first morning session.) To register for the workshop: http://allchinworkshops.eventbrite.ca ________________________________ Presentation & Discussion : History and Philosophy of Science & Science Teaching When: Wednesday, June 25 - Afternoon Talk: ?Scientific Myth-Conceptions? Time: 1:00-2:00 p.m. EEEL 345 Overview: Historical anecdotes and biographical stories are a stock feature of many science classrooms. An opening presentation will expose some of the inadvertent errors that such stories sometimes foster and profile their broader significance for learning about the nature of science. We will discuss a series of striking historical examples. Talk: ?What Did Our Students Learn About the Nature of Science? The Challenge of Assessment.? Time: 2:30-3:30 p.m. EEEL 345 Overview: While many science educators are eager to teach more about the nature of science and how science works, they face the corresponding problem of assessing what students have learned. We will survey some of the instruments and strategies that have been introduced to measure how well our students understand nature of science. To register for the presentations: http://allchinpresentation.eventbrite.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucalgary.ca/pipermail/hps-l/attachments/20140620/c69fd2f5/untitled-2.html From ereshefs at ucalgary.ca Mon Aug 25 09:17:00 2014 From: ereshefs at ucalgary.ca (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca) Date: Mon Aug 25 09:17:09 2014 Subject: Talk by Adrian Currie, "Function & Success in Paleobiology" Message-ID: Adrian Currie, "Marsupial Lions & Methodological Omnivory: Function & Success in Paleobiology" Date & Time: September 3, 2014 - 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Location: SS 1253 About the Talk: Historical scientists frequently face incomplete data, and lack direct experimental access to their targets. This has led some philosophers and scientists to be pessimistic about the epistemic potential of the historical sciences. And yet, historical scientists often produce plausible, sophisticated hypotheses. I explain this capacity to generate knowledge in the face of apparent evidential scarcity by examining recent work on Thylacoleo carnifex, the 'marsupial lion'. Here, we see two important features. First, historical scientists are methodological omnivores, that is, they construct purpose-built epistemic tools tailored to test highly localized hypotheses. This allows them to generate many streams of independent evidence and thus maximize their epistemic reach. Second, investigative scaffolding: research proceeds in a piece-meal fashion, information only gaining evidential relevance once certain hypotheses are well supported. This means that we systematically underestimate the amount of evidence ultimately available about the past. These two factors are part of the explanation of the success of historical science and undermine pessimism. I illustrate scaffolding in a discussion of the nature of functional ascription in paleobiology. Frequently, different senses of 'function' are not discriminated during paleobiological contexts--something which has marred many adaptationist investigations of extant organisms. However, I argue that, due to scaffolding, in some contexts conflating senses of 'function' is the right thing to do, as coarse-grained functional hypotheses are required before it is clear what evidence could discriminate between more fine-grained ones. About the Speaker Adrian Currie joined the Philosophy Department in July as one of the University of Calgary's Eyes High Postdoctoral Fellows. He completed his PhD last winter at Australian National University with a dissertation entitled "Explanation and Evidence in Historical Science" (supervised by Kim Sterelny). His current research focuses on 'paleoepistemology': how historical scientists (palaeontologists, geologists, archaeologists, and so on) generate knowledge about the deep past, although he also dabbles in environmental philosophy, the philosophy of biology and issues of philosophical methodology. From ereshefs at ucalgary.ca Wed Nov 5 11:46:35 2014 From: ereshefs at ucalgary.ca (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca) Date: Wed Nov 5 11:46:43 2014 Subject: Social event for U of C Science Studies scholars Friday Nov 14, 1:30-3:00 Message-ID: <94ce68b0a6163753bdd1de3ab6dc7366.squirrel@webmail.ucalgary.ca> ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [STS-l] Social event for STEMS scholars on Friday Nov 14, 1:30-3:00 From: "Patrick Feng" Date: Wed, November 5, 2014 11:17 am To: sts-l@mailman.ucalgary.ca -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear colleagues, On behalf of the Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine Studies (STEMS) network at the University of Calgary, I'd like to invite you to an informal reception and mixer on Friday November 14. The event will kick off this year's STEMS colloquium series. Launched in 2010, this cross-faculty initiative brings together faculty, students, and other scholars who study the social and humanistic dimensions of science and technology, broadly defined. Our goal is to encourage discussion, networking, and collaboration across the university. Here are the details: *What: Informal reception and mixer for STEMS scholars When: Friday November 14**, 1:30 - 3:00 PM** Where**: Social Sciences building, room 217 ** * /This event is supported by the History of Medicine and Health Care, History and Philosophy of Science, and Science, Technology, and Society programs.// /// Refreshments will be served. Get to know your colleagues across campus and find out what we have in store for this year! Note that immediately following the event the Philosophy Speakers Program is presenting a talk by Bryson Brown (Lethbridge). We hope you will be able to stay for the talk. More details here: http://phil.ucalgary.ca/event/2014-11-14/philosophy-speakers-bryson-brown-lethbridge-reconsidering-induction Hope to see you there! Patrick/ / -- Dr. Patrick Feng Science, Technology, and Society Program Department of Communication and Culture Faculty of Arts University of Calgary _______________________________________________ This message was sent to all subscribers of sts-L To unsubscribe, see instructions at: http://www.ucalgary.ca/it/email/mailman E-mail: sts-L@mailman.ucalgary.ca Homepage: http://mailman.ucalgary.ca/mailman/listinfo/sts-l From ereshefs at ucalgary.ca Wed Nov 19 14:04:31 2014 From: ereshefs at ucalgary.ca (ereshefs@ucalgary.ca) Date: Wed Nov 19 14:05:25 2014 Subject: Talk this Friday at 3 PM: Against Sex Assignment via Predicted Gender Identity Message-ID: The STEMS network is pleased to host Catherine Clune-Taylor from the University of Alberta, who will be giving a talk this Friday at 3 PM in SS 217. Her talk will touch on issues of gender and sexuality, medical practice, philosophy of science, and medical ethics. Details below. *Against Sex Assignment via Predicted Gender Identity* The revised treatment model for intersex conditions introduced in 2006 continues the approach first developed by Dr. John Money in the 1950s of assigning sex in infants with ambiguous genitalia on the basis predictions about future gender identity (for example, 63% of individuals age 12 and older with 5a-reductase-2 deficiency and 46 XY chromosomes identify as male (Cohen-Kettenis, 2005)). In this presentation I will argue that this practice problematically assumes gender-identity development is either biologically determined or so closely correlated with biology that an individual's diagnosis is a good (or even adequate) predictor of future gender identity. Furthermore, given the number of biologically, culturally and temporally specific variables identified as playing a role in the development of gender identity, as well as the ethical limitations of studying such individuals, we will never be able to have the kind of long-term outcome studies we think of as providing us with good clinical evidence. Finally, I argue that even if we were able to ethically construct the kind of double-blind trial idealized in evidence-based medicine, given the culturally and temporally specific nature of gender identity development it is bizarre to think we could apply the data generated from such a study to a cohort born decades later. Please join us this Friday at 3 PM in SS 217. Refreshments will be served. This event is supported by the History of Medicine and Health Care, History and Philosophy of Science, and Science, Technology, and Society programs. -- Dr. Patrick Feng Assistant Professor Department of Communication and Culture Faculty of Arts University of Calgary