In recent decades climate science has gained increasing public attention and importance. However, scientists have been attempting to understand the complex behavior of the atmosphere for far longer than that. Further, the centrality of computer models and simulations to climate science has led to debates over the nature of evidence and experiment…[Read more]

This course will consider three central areas of analytic philosophy: epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Epistemology is the study of knowledge: what is the nature of knowledge, what is the difference between belief and knowledge, and how do we know if we know? Metaphysics is the study of the natures of things and the fundamental operation of…[Read more]

Review of Cold WarSocial Science: Knowledge, Production, Liberal Democracy, and Human Nature

According to Margaret Gilbert’s collective epistemology, we should take attributions of beliefs to groups seriously, rather than metaphorically or as reducible to individual belief. I argue that, similarly, attributions of belief to markets ought to be taken seriously and not merely as reports of the average beliefs of market participants. While m…[Read more]

Prediction markets, which trade contracts based on the results of predictions, have been remarkably successful in predicting the results of political events. A number of proposals have been made to extend prediction markets to scientific questions, and some small-scale science prediction markets have been implemented. Advocates for science…[Read more]

This paper presents an account of how to evaluate formal models of science: models and simulations in social epistemology designed to draw normative conclusions about the social structure of scientific research. I argue that such models should be evaluated according to their representational and predictive accuracy. Using these criteria and…[Read more]