ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimo... more ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimony – the testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understood first as related to the quality of the underlying science and then in terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the minimal standard set by Helen Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino’s account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by...
In the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimonythe te... more In the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimonythe testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understood first as related to the quality of the underlying science and then in terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the minimal standard set by Helen Longino's social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino's account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by individuals, not communities, at least in U.S. courts, we (may) need a way to evaluate individual scientific and epistemic agents. We suggest a means for making this evaluation that is derived from our infrastructural account of objectivity.
Congratulations on becoming an important part of the creative output of an academic research prog... more Congratulations on becoming an important part of the creative output of an academic research program! Commenting on a paper is the next most important role to presenting a paper at a professional conference. Paper writers will be relying on you to do two things: (1) help the audience identify and understand salient features of the paper, and (2) be the key person to ask critical questions that will help the presenter think about, improve, and expand their paper. While this is a shock to most speakers, the audience at a conference might not be well equipped to help the speaker think about their paper critically. Of course, it is nice to simply provide new ideas to an audience, most speakers are actually looking for help in assessing the thoughts in their paper in terms of clarity and closeness to the truth. This is why your job is so important.
The intuition that the success of science is a mark of sciences power to track the nature of our ... more The intuition that the success of science is a mark of sciences power to track the nature of our world, to permit us confidence that the descriptions of our best sciences are true (or approximately true), is not new. Puntam (1975) popularized an argument based on this intuition; this argument is known as the No Miracles Argument. Providing a convincing formulation of this argument has proven difficult, and recently Magnus and Callender (2004) have suggested that any probabilistic formulation (given form by Bayes theorem) is fallacious. Earlier formulations suffer from problems just as deep; best explanation formulations are question-begging, for example. In this article, I propose two constraints for those attempting to formulate the argument: first, we ought to narrow the scope of the argument, focusing on only a special set of successes, and, second, the epistemic principle that connects the intuition to the realist conclusion ought to be one that is defeasible (rather than probab...
As of March 2012, students with concealed carry permits attending public colleges and universitie... more As of March 2012, students with concealed carry permits attending public colleges and universities in the state of Colorado may carry their weapons on campus. Colorado is one of six states with legal provisions permitting guns on public campuses. An additional twenty-two states leave it up to the governing bodies of individual colleges and universities to determine their institution's gun policy, while twenty-two states ban concealed weapons on campuses. The NRA often asserts that "an armed society is a polite society." They and those who favorably quote them take this as a positive result of an armed citizenry. People won't be rude. They won't argue. They won't say anything offensive, for fear of being shot. And that may be right. But we do not want a polite campus. If an armed campus is a polite campus, then students at such campuses will miss a fundamentally important aspect of their college experience. Students ought to be able to voice their opinions, to argue with others, and to test new ideas without fear. The threat of violence that guns create challenges the most fundamental liberty we have: the freedom of speech.
There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United State... more There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United States. In this paper, we explore undergraduate conferences along three lines. First, we argue that, as a well-designed learning activity, undergraduate conferences can serve to increase gender parity in philosophical spaces—a widely accepted and important goal for our discipline. Second, we argue that this increase in parity (and other beneficial learning outcomes) is due, at least in part, to the proper design of undergraduate conferences as High-Impact Practices. Our empirical work on our own undergraduate conference demonstrates that properly designing the conference as a High-Impact learning activity does, as expected, benefit underserved student populations, including women. Additionally, the study also revealed unexpected opportunities to intervene on student learning. Third, we argue, also in line with our data, that undergraduate conferences occupy a previously taxonomically unrecogn...
Conspiracy Theories: Philosophers Connect the Dots, 2020
In this book chapter, we argue that treating conspiracy theories as theories permits us to judge ... more In this book chapter, we argue that treating conspiracy theories as theories permits us to judge their relative merits. It also reveals some of features of conspiracy theories that make them suspect, simpliciter.
There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United State... more There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United States. In this paper, we explore undergraduate conferences along three lines. First, we argue that, as a well-designed learning activity, undergraduate conferences can serve to increase gender parity in philosophical spaces-a widely accepted and important goal for our discipline. Second, we argue that this increase in parity (and other beneficial learning outcomes) is due, at least in part, to the proper design of undergraduate conferences as High-Impact Practices. Our empirical work on our own undergraduate conference demonstrates that properly designing the conference as a High-Impact learning activity does, as expected, benefit underserved student populations, including women. Additionally, the study also revealed unexpected opportunities to intervene on student learning. Third, we argue, also in line with our data, that undergraduate conferences occupy a previously taxonomically unrecognized grouping (Culminating Events) among recognized High-Impact Practices.
This paper details how ghost hunting, as a set of learning activities, can be used to enhance cri... more This paper details how ghost hunting, as a set of learning activities, can be used to enhance critical thinking and philosophy of science classes. We describe in some detail our own work with ghost hunting, and reflect on both intended and unintended consequences of this pedagogical choice. This choice was, at least partly, motivated by students’ lack of familiarity with science and the sometimes quite foreign questions of philosophy of science. We offer reflections on our three different implementations of the ghost hunting activities: (1) as an extra-curricular activity connected to an existing course, (2) as a stand-alone course with ghost hunting as the primary focus, and (3) as a unit within a course. In addition to describing the ghost hunting activities, we also discuss the practical nuances of implementing them, as well as discussing various ways in which ghost hunting relates to our course content. We focus in particular on the course content we did connect to the ghost hunting activities, including a fairly wide-ranging discussion of relevant fallacies, the role of Naturalism in science, and a variety of models for scientific inference. We conclude that employing ghost hunting alongside traditional activities and content of critical thinking and philosophy of science offers a number of benefits, including being fun, increasing student attendance, enhancing student learning, and providing a platform for campus wide dialogues about philosophy.
ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimo... more ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimony – the testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understood first as related to the quality of the underlying science and then in terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the minimal standard set by Helen Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino’s account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by...
In the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimonythe te... more In the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimonythe testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understood first as related to the quality of the underlying science and then in terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the minimal standard set by Helen Longino's social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino's account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by individuals, not communities, at least in U.S. courts, we (may) need a way to evaluate individual scientific and epistemic agents. We suggest a means for making this evaluation that is derived from our infrastructural account of objectivity.
Congratulations on becoming an important part of the creative output of an academic research prog... more Congratulations on becoming an important part of the creative output of an academic research program! Commenting on a paper is the next most important role to presenting a paper at a professional conference. Paper writers will be relying on you to do two things: (1) help the audience identify and understand salient features of the paper, and (2) be the key person to ask critical questions that will help the presenter think about, improve, and expand their paper. While this is a shock to most speakers, the audience at a conference might not be well equipped to help the speaker think about their paper critically. Of course, it is nice to simply provide new ideas to an audience, most speakers are actually looking for help in assessing the thoughts in their paper in terms of clarity and closeness to the truth. This is why your job is so important.
The intuition that the success of science is a mark of sciences power to track the nature of our ... more The intuition that the success of science is a mark of sciences power to track the nature of our world, to permit us confidence that the descriptions of our best sciences are true (or approximately true), is not new. Puntam (1975) popularized an argument based on this intuition; this argument is known as the No Miracles Argument. Providing a convincing formulation of this argument has proven difficult, and recently Magnus and Callender (2004) have suggested that any probabilistic formulation (given form by Bayes theorem) is fallacious. Earlier formulations suffer from problems just as deep; best explanation formulations are question-begging, for example. In this article, I propose two constraints for those attempting to formulate the argument: first, we ought to narrow the scope of the argument, focusing on only a special set of successes, and, second, the epistemic principle that connects the intuition to the realist conclusion ought to be one that is defeasible (rather than probab...
As of March 2012, students with concealed carry permits attending public colleges and universitie... more As of March 2012, students with concealed carry permits attending public colleges and universities in the state of Colorado may carry their weapons on campus. Colorado is one of six states with legal provisions permitting guns on public campuses. An additional twenty-two states leave it up to the governing bodies of individual colleges and universities to determine their institution's gun policy, while twenty-two states ban concealed weapons on campuses. The NRA often asserts that "an armed society is a polite society." They and those who favorably quote them take this as a positive result of an armed citizenry. People won't be rude. They won't argue. They won't say anything offensive, for fear of being shot. And that may be right. But we do not want a polite campus. If an armed campus is a polite campus, then students at such campuses will miss a fundamentally important aspect of their college experience. Students ought to be able to voice their opinions, to argue with others, and to test new ideas without fear. The threat of violence that guns create challenges the most fundamental liberty we have: the freedom of speech.
There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United State... more There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United States. In this paper, we explore undergraduate conferences along three lines. First, we argue that, as a well-designed learning activity, undergraduate conferences can serve to increase gender parity in philosophical spaces—a widely accepted and important goal for our discipline. Second, we argue that this increase in parity (and other beneficial learning outcomes) is due, at least in part, to the proper design of undergraduate conferences as High-Impact Practices. Our empirical work on our own undergraduate conference demonstrates that properly designing the conference as a High-Impact learning activity does, as expected, benefit underserved student populations, including women. Additionally, the study also revealed unexpected opportunities to intervene on student learning. Third, we argue, also in line with our data, that undergraduate conferences occupy a previously taxonomically unrecogn...
Conspiracy Theories: Philosophers Connect the Dots, 2020
In this book chapter, we argue that treating conspiracy theories as theories permits us to judge ... more In this book chapter, we argue that treating conspiracy theories as theories permits us to judge their relative merits. It also reveals some of features of conspiracy theories that make them suspect, simpliciter.
There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United State... more There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United States. In this paper, we explore undergraduate conferences along three lines. First, we argue that, as a well-designed learning activity, undergraduate conferences can serve to increase gender parity in philosophical spaces-a widely accepted and important goal for our discipline. Second, we argue that this increase in parity (and other beneficial learning outcomes) is due, at least in part, to the proper design of undergraduate conferences as High-Impact Practices. Our empirical work on our own undergraduate conference demonstrates that properly designing the conference as a High-Impact learning activity does, as expected, benefit underserved student populations, including women. Additionally, the study also revealed unexpected opportunities to intervene on student learning. Third, we argue, also in line with our data, that undergraduate conferences occupy a previously taxonomically unrecognized grouping (Culminating Events) among recognized High-Impact Practices.
This paper details how ghost hunting, as a set of learning activities, can be used to enhance cri... more This paper details how ghost hunting, as a set of learning activities, can be used to enhance critical thinking and philosophy of science classes. We describe in some detail our own work with ghost hunting, and reflect on both intended and unintended consequences of this pedagogical choice. This choice was, at least partly, motivated by students’ lack of familiarity with science and the sometimes quite foreign questions of philosophy of science. We offer reflections on our three different implementations of the ghost hunting activities: (1) as an extra-curricular activity connected to an existing course, (2) as a stand-alone course with ghost hunting as the primary focus, and (3) as a unit within a course. In addition to describing the ghost hunting activities, we also discuss the practical nuances of implementing them, as well as discussing various ways in which ghost hunting relates to our course content. We focus in particular on the course content we did connect to the ghost hunting activities, including a fairly wide-ranging discussion of relevant fallacies, the role of Naturalism in science, and a variety of models for scientific inference. We conclude that employing ghost hunting alongside traditional activities and content of critical thinking and philosophy of science offers a number of benefits, including being fun, increasing student attendance, enhancing student learning, and providing a platform for campus wide dialogues about philosophy.
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