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20Dimensional versus conceptual incommensurability in the social and behavioral sciencesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 47. 2024.This commentary analyzes the extent to which the incommensurability problem can be resolved through the proposed alternative method of integrative experiment design. We suggest that, although one aspect of incommensurability is successfully addressed (dimensional incommensurability), the proposed design space method does not yet alleviate another major source of discontinuity, which we call conceptual incommensurability.
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81The Dark Galaxy HypothesisPhilosophy of Science 85 (5): 1204-1215. 2018.Gravitational interactions allowed astronomers to conclude that dark matter rings all luminous galaxies in gigantic halos, but this only accounts for a fraction of the total mass of dark matter believed to exist. Where is the rest? We hypothesize that some of it resides in dark galaxies, pure dark matter halos that either never possessed or have totally lost their baryonic matter. This article explores methodological challenges that arise because of the nature of observation in astrophysics and …Read more
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21A comparative study of the acceptance and understanding of evolution between China and the USPublic Understanding of Science 31 (1): 88-102. 2022.Prior work has found that Americans’ views on evolution are significantly and positively related to their understanding of this theory. However, whether this relationship is cross-culturally robust is unknown. This article extends earlier work by measuring and comparing the acceptance and understanding of evolution among highly educated individuals in China and the United States. We find a significantly higher evolution acceptance level in the Chinese sample than in the US sample, but no signifi…Read more
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43Errol Morris. The Ashtray; or, The Man Who Denied RealityPhilosophy of Science 88 (4): 751-754. 2021.
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31A Case of Sustained Internal Contradiction: Unresolved Ambivalence between Evolution and CreationismJournal of Cognition and Culture 20 (3-4): 338-354. 2020.Many people feel the pull of both creationism and evolution as explanations for the origin of species, despite the direct contradiction. Some respond by endorsing theistic evolution, integrating the scientific and religious explanations by positing that God initiated or guided the process of evolution. Others, however, simultaneously endorse both evolution and creationism despite the contradiction. Here, we illustrate this puzzling phenomenon with interviews with a diverse sample. This qualitati…Read more
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61Why does the Chinese public accept evolution?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 81 116-124. 2020.A substantial proportion of Chinese nationals seem to accept evolution, and the country is sometimes held up to show that the sorry state of evolution acceptance in the United States is not inevitable. Attempts to improve evolution acceptance generally focus on improving communication, curricular reform, and even identifying cognitive mechanisms that bias people against evolution. What is it that the Chinese scientific community did so well, and can it be generalized? This paper argues that evol…Read more
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21In Mendel's Mirror: Philosophical Reflections on Biology (review)Philosophical Review 114 (3): 419-423. 2005.
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201. On Ad Hoc Hypotheses On Ad Hoc Hypotheses (pp. 1-14)Philosophy of Science 79 (1): 1-14. 2012.This article examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demonstrate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states among agents of the same type. This is quite different from Schelling-like behavior and suggests that seg…Read more
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57When is the spread of a cultural trait due to cultural group selection? The case of religious syncretismBehavioral and Brain Sciences 39. 2016.The reproduction of cultural systems in cases where cultural group selection may occur is typically incomplete, with only certain cultural traits being adopted by less successful cultural groups. Why a particular trait and not another is transmitted might not be explained by cultural group selection. We explore this issue through the case of religious syncretism.
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1When Less is More: Tradeoffs and Idealization in Model-BuildingDissertation, Stanford University. 2003.Scientific models almost always contain idealizations, and this fact suggests methodological questions about how model building should proceed. Biologist Richard Levins addressed such questions by arguing that highly idealized models have a special role in helping to explain the behavior of populations. In When Less is More: Tradeoffs and Idealization in Model Building, I assess and partially endorse Levins' views first on their own terms and then through a novel analysis of idealization in mode…Read more
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1New approaches to the division of cognitive laborIn P. D. Magnus & Jacob Busch (eds.), New waves in philosophy of science, Palgrave-macmillan. 2009.
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61Interpreting Aristotle on mixture: Problems about elemental composition from philoponus to CooperStudies in History and Philosophy of Science 35 (4). 2004.Aristotle’s On generation and corruption raises a vital question: how is mixture, or what we would now call chemical combination, possible? It also offers an outline of a solution to the problem and a set of criteria that a successful solution must meet. Understanding Aristotle’s solution and developing a viable peripatetic theory of chemical combination has been a source of controversy over the last two millennia. We describe seven criteria a peripatetic theory of mixture must satisfy: uniformi…Read more
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ModelingIn Herman Cappelen, Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, Oxford University Press. 2016.This article focuses on the methodology of modeling and how it can be applied to philosophical questions. It looks at various traditional views of modeling and defends the idea that modeling is a form of surrogate reasoning involving two distinct steps: indirect representation of a target system using a model and analysis of that model. The article considers different accounts of model/target representational relations, defending an account of similarity. It concludes by presenting several examp…Read more
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58Biology and Philosophy’s transition to continuous publicationBiology and Philosophy 33 (1-2): 1. 2018.
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40Non‐Scientific Criteria for Belief Sustain Counter‐Scientific BeliefsCognitive Science 42 (5): 1477-1503. 2018.Why is evolutionary theory controversial among members of the American public? We propose a novel explanation: allegiance to different criteria for belief. In one interview study, two online surveys, and one nationally representative phone poll, we found that evolutionists and creationists take different justifications for belief as legitimate. Those who accept evolution emphasize empirical evidence and scientific consensus. Creationists emphasize not only the Bible and religious authority, but …Read more
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153Modeling in biology and economicsBiology and Philosophy 26 (5): 613-615. 2011.Much of biological and economic theorizing takes place by modeling, the indirect study of real-world phenomena by the construction and examination of models. Books and articles about biological and economic theory are often books and articles about models, many of which are highly idealized and chosen for their explanatory power and analytical convenience rather than for their fit with known data sets. Philosophers of science have recognized these facts and have developed literatures about the n…Read more
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176Why evolutionary biology is (so far) irrelevant to legal regulationLaw and Philosophy 29 (1): 31-74. 2010.Evolutionary biology – or, more precisely, two (purported) applications of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, namely, evolutionary psychology and what has been called human behavioral biology – is on the cusp of becoming the new rage among legal scholars looking for interdisciplinary insights into the law. We argue that as the actual science stands today, evolutionary biology offers nothing to help with questions about legal regulation of behavior. Only systematic misrepresentati…Read more
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In defending semantic externalism, philosophers of language have often assumed that there is a straightforward connection between scientific kinds and the natural kinds recognized by ordinary language users.1 For example, the claim that water is H2O assumes that the ordinary language kind water corresponds to a chemical kind, which contains all the molecules with molecular formula H2O as its members. This assumption about the coordination between ordinary language kinds and scientific kinds is imp…Read more
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171Getting Serious about SimilarityPhilosophy of Science 79 (5): 785-794. 2012.Although most philosophical accounts about model/world relations focus on structural mappings such as isomorphism, similarity has long been discussed as an alternative account. Despite its attractions, proponents of the similarity view have not provided detailed accounts of what it means that a model is similar to a real-world target system. This article gives the outlines of such an account, drawing on the work of Amos Tversky.
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59Group-level traits are not units of selectionBehavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (3): 271-272. 2014.
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201IdealizationPhilosophy Compass 9 (3): 176-185. 2014.This article reviews the recent literature on idealization, specifically idealization in the course of scientific modeling. We argue that idealization is not a unified concept and that there are three different types of idealization: Galilean, minimalist, and multiple models, each with its own justification. We explore the extent to which idealization is a permanent feature of scientific representation and discuss its implications for debates about scientific realism
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258The Structure of Tradeoffs in Model BuildingSynthese 170 (1). 2009.Despite their best efforts, scientists may be unable to construct models that simultaneously exemplify every theoretical virtue. One explanation for this is the existence of tradeoffs: relationships of attenuation that constrain the extent to which models can have such desirable qualities. In this paper, we characterize three types of tradeoffs theorists may confront. These characterizations are then used to examine the relationships between parameter precision and two types of generality. We sh…Read more
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86Matter, Structure, and Change: Aspects of the Philosophy of ChemistryPhilosophy Compass 5 (10): 927-937. 2010.This article is an overview of some of the contemporary debates in philosophy of chemistry. We discuss the nature of chemical substances, the individuation of chemical kinds, the relationship between chemistry and physics, and the nature of the chemical bond.
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205Robustness AnalysisPhilosophy of Science 73 (5): 730-742. 2006.Modelers often rely on robustness analysis, the search for predictions common to several independent models. Robustness analysis has been characterized and championed by Richard Levins and William Wimsatt, who see it as central to modern theoretical practice. The practice has also been severely criticized by Steven Orzack and Elliott Sober, who claim that it is a nonempirical form of confirmation, effective only under unusual circumstances. This paper addresses Orzack and Sober's criticisms by g…Read more
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66Interpreting Aristotle on mixture: problems about elemental composition from Philoponus to CooperStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 35 (4): 681-706. 2004.Aristotle’s On generation and corruption raises a vital question: how is mixture, or what we would now call chemical combination, possible? It also offers an outline of a solution to the problem and a set of criteria that a successful solution must meet. Understanding Aristotle’s solution and developing a viable peripatetic theory of chemical combination has been a source of controversy over the last two millennia. We describe seven criteria a peripatetic theory of mixture must satisfy: uniformi…Read more
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193The Intelligent Design controversy: lessons from psychology and educationTrends in Cognitive Sciences 10 (2): 56-57. 2006.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |