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33Review of Hans Radder (ed.), The Commodification of Academic Research: Science and the Modern University (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2011 (2). 2011.
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34The social contract for science and the value-free idealSynthese 203 (2): 1-19. 2024.While the Value-Free Ideal (VFI) had many precursors, it became a solidified bulwark of normative claims about scientific reasoning and practice in the mid-twentieth century. Since then, it has played a central role in the philosophy of science, first as a basic presupposition of how science should work, then as a target for critique, and now as a target for replacement. In this paper, we will argue that a narrow focus on the VFI is misguided, because the VFI coalesced in the midst of other impo…Read more
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Science, Values, and Democracy: The 2016 Descartes Lectures (edited book)Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University. 2021.
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252Rethinking the Conceptual Space for Science in Society after the VFIPhilosophy of Science. 2023.Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society relationships i…Read more
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22The integration of symbolic and non-symbolic representations of exact quantity in preschool childrenCognition 166 (C): 382-397. 2017.
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39‘She Knew What was Expected of Her’: The White Legal System’s Encounter with Traditional MarriageFeminist Legal Studies 13 (2): 181-203. 2005.A recent case in the Northern Territory of Australia has raised the issues of intra-racial rape and the legal recognition of traditional marriages between Indigenous people. The defendant in the Jamilmira case was charged with statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. He argued that the girl’s status as his promised wife should lead to mitigation of his sentence. Members of the Northern Territory judiciary and others in the community were divided in their response to his claim. Ultimately the case l…Read more
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56Book symposium on expertise: Philosophical reflections by Evan Selinger automatic press/vip, vince inc. Press 2011Philosophy and Technology 26 (1): 93-109. 2013.
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Values in social scienceIn Nancy Cartwright & Eleonora Montuschi (eds.), Philosophy of Social Science: A New Introduction, Oxford University Press. 2014.
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1Scientific freedom and social responsibilityIn Péter Hartl & Adam Tamas Tuboly (eds.), Science, Freedom, Democracy, Routledge. 2021.
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45Addressing the Reproducibility Crisis: A Response to HudsonJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 53 (2): 201-209. 2022.In this response to Robert Hudson’s article, “Should We Strive to Make Science Bias-Free? A Philosophical Assessment of the Reproducibility Crisis,” we identify three ways in which he misrepresents our work: he conflates value-ladenness with bias; he describes our view as one in which values are the same as evidential factors; and he creates a false dichotomy between two ways that values could be considered in science for policy. We share Hudson’s concerns about promoting scientific reproducibil…Read more
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7Hugh Lacey, Is Science Value Free?: Values & Scientific Understanding. Routledge (1999), xiv + 285 pp., $90.00 (cloth) (review)Philosophy of Science 69 (2): 379-406. 2002.
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32Science, Values, and CitizensIn Marcus P. Adams, Zvi Biener, Uljana Feest & Jacqueline Anne Sullivan (eds.), Eppur Si Muove: Doing History and Philosophy of Science with Peter Machamer: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Peter Machamer, Springer. 2017.Science is one of the most important forces in contemporary society. The most reliable source of knowledge about the world, science shapes the technological possibilities before us, informs public policy, and is crucial to measuring the efficacy of public policy. Yet it is not a simple repository of facts on which we can draw. It is an ongoing process of evidence gathering, discovery, contestation, and criticism. I will argue that an understanding of the nature of science and the scientific proc…Read more
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22Philip Kitcher science in a democratic societyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (4): 901-905. 2013.
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3Values in ScienceIn Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press. pp. 609-630. 2014.
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4Science is one of the most important forces in contemporary society. The most reliable source of knowledge about the world, science shapes the technological possibilities before us, informs public policy, and is crucial to measuring the efficacy of public policy. Yet it is not a simple repository of facts on which we can draw. It is an ongoing process of evidence gathering, discovery, contestation, and criticism. I will argue that an understanding of the nature of science and the scientific…Read more
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470Resisting the Great Endarkenment: On the Future of PhilosophyPhilosophical Inquiries 2 (6): 93-106. 2018.Elijah Millgram’s book The Great Endarkenment takes philosophy to task for failing to note the kinds of creatures we are (serial hyperspecializers) and what that means for philosophy. In this commentary, I will complicate the picture he draws, while suggesting a more hopeful path forward. First, I argue that we are not actually serial hyperspecializers. Nevertheless, we are hyperspecializers, and this is the main source of the looming endarkenment. I will suggest that a proper understanding of e…Read more
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156The Moral Responsibilities of Scientists (Tensions between Autonomy and Responsibility)American Philosophical Quarterly 40 (1). 2003.
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108Prediction, explanation, and dioxin biochemistry: Science in public policy (review)Foundations of Chemistry 6 (1): 49-63. 2004.
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The Use of Science in Policy-Making: A Study of Values in Dioxin ScienceDissertation, University of Pittsburgh. 1998.The risk regulation process has been traditionally conceived as having two components: a consultation of the experts concerning the magnitude of risk and a negotiated decision on whether and how to reduce that risk . The first component is generally thought to be free of the contentious value judgments that often characterize the second component. In examining the recent controversy over dioxin regulation, I argue that the first component is not value-free. I review three areas of science import…Read more
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247Reintroducing prediction to explanationPhilosophy of Science 76 (4): 444-463. 2009.Although prediction has been largely absent from discussions of explanation for the past 40 years, theories of explanation can gain much from a reintroduction. I review the history that divorced prediction from explanation, examine the proliferation of models of explanation that followed, and argue that accounts of explanation have been impoverished by the neglect of prediction. Instead of a revival of the symmetry thesis, I suggest that explanation should be understood as a cognitive tool that …Read more
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110Science, Policy, Values: Exploring the NexusPerspectives on Science 24 (5): 475-480. 2016.The importance of science for guiding policy decisions has been an increasingly central feature of policy-making for much of the past century. But which science we have available to us and what counts as adequate science for policy-making shapes substantially the specific impact science has on policy decisions. Policy influences which science we pursue and how we pursue it in practice, as well as how science ultimately informs policy. Values inform our choices in these areas, as values shape the…Read more
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230The Irreducible Complexity of ObjectivitySynthese 138 (3). 2004.The terms ``objectivity'''' and ``objective'''' are among the mostused yet ill-defined terms in the philosophy of science and epistemology. Common to all thevarious usages is the rhetorical force of ``I endorse this and you should too'''', orto put it more mildly, that one should trust the outcome of the objectivity-producing process.The persuasive endorsement and call to trust provide some conceptual coherenceto objectivity, but the reference to objectivity is hopefully not merely an attemptat …Read more
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76Fraud from the frontlines: the importance of being nice Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9492-2 Authors Heather Douglas, Department of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 815 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0480, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796
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274Science, Policy, and the Value-Free IdealUniversity of Pittsburgh Press. 2009.Douglas proposes a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, protecting the integrity and objectivity of science.
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189Weighing Complex Evidence in a Democratic SocietyKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 22 (2): 139-162. 2012.Weighing complex sets of evidence (i.e., from multiple disciplines and often divergent in implications) is increasingly central to properly informed decision-making. Determining “where the weight of evidence lies” is essential both for making maximal use of available evidence and figuring out what to make of such evidence. Weighing evidence in this sense requires an approach that can handle a wide range of evidential sources (completeness), that can combine the evidence with rigor, and that can …Read more
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189The Moral Terrain of ScienceErkenntnis 79 (S5): 1-19. 2014.The moral terrain of science, the full range of ethical considerations that are part of the scientific endeavor, has not been mapped. Without such a map, we cannot examine the responsibilities of scientists to see if the institutions of science are adequately constructed. This paper attempts such a map by describing four dimensions of the terrain: (1) the bases to which scientists are responsible (scientific reasoning, the scientific community, and the broader society); (2) the nature of the res…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
General Philosophy of Science |