Characterizing the Robustness of Science
Characterizing the Robustness of Science

Author: Léna Soler

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-03-22

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 9400727593

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Mature sciences have been long been characterized in terms of the “successfulness”, “reliability” or “trustworthiness” of their theoretical, experimental or technical accomplishments. Today many philosophers of science talk of “robustness”, often without specifying in a precise way the meaning of this term. This lack of clarity is the cause of frequent misunderstandings, since all these notions, and that of robustness in particular, are connected to fundamental issues, which concern nothing less than the very nature of science and its specificity with respect to other human practices, the nature of rationality and of scientific progress; and science’s claim to be a truth-conducive activity. This book offers for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the problem of robustness, and in general, that of the reliability of science, based on several detailed case studies and on philosophical essays inspired by the so-called practical turn in philosophy of science.

Science as It Could Have Been
Science as It Could Have Been

Author: Lena Soler

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2016-02-19

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0822981157

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Could all or part of our taken-as-established scientific conclusions, theories, experimental data, ontological commitments, and so forth have been significantly different? Science as It Could Have Been focuses on a crucial issue that contemporary science studies have often neglected: the issue of contingency within science. It considers a number of case studies, past and present, from a wide range of scientific disciplines—physics, biology, geology, mathematics, and psychology—to explore whether components of human science are inevitable, or if we could have developed an alternative successful science based on essentially different notions, conceptions, and results. Bringing together a group of distinguished contributors in philosophy, sociology, and history of science, this edited volume offers a comprehensive analysis of the contingency/inevitability problem and a lively and up-to-date portrait of current debates in science studies.

Reproducibility and Replicability in Science
Reproducibility and Replicability in Science

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2019-10-20

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0309486165

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One of the pathways by which the scientific community confirms the validity of a new scientific discovery is by repeating the research that produced it. When a scientific effort fails to independently confirm the computations or results of a previous study, some fear that it may be a symptom of a lack of rigor in science, while others argue that such an observed inconsistency can be an important precursor to new discovery. Concerns about reproducibility and replicability have been expressed in both scientific and popular media. As these concerns came to light, Congress requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conduct a study to assess the extent of issues related to reproducibility and replicability and to offer recommendations for improving rigor and transparency in scientific research. Reproducibility and Replicability in Science defines reproducibility and replicability and examines the factors that may lead to non-reproducibility and non-replicability in research. Unlike the typical expectation of reproducibility between two computations, expectations about replicability are more nuanced, and in some cases a lack of replicability can aid the process of scientific discovery. This report provides recommendations to researchers, academic institutions, journals, and funders on steps they can take to improve reproducibility and replicability in science.

Metaphors and Analogies in Sciences and Humanities
Metaphors and Analogies in Sciences and Humanities

Author: Shyam Wuppuluri

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-05-30

Total Pages: 590

ISBN-13: 3030906884

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In this highly-interdisciplinary volume, we systematically study the role of metaphors and analogies in (mis)shaping our understanding of the world. Metaphors and Analogies occupy a prominent place in scientific discourses, as they do in literature, humanities and at the very level of our thinking itself. But when misused they can lead us astray, blinding our understanding inexorably. How can metaphors aid us in our understanding of the world? What role do they play in our scientific discourses and in humanities? How do they help us understand and skillfully deal with our complex socio-political scenarios? Where is the dividing line between their use and abuse? Join us as we explore some of these questions in this volume.

Science after the Practice Turn in the Philosophy, History, and Social Studies of Science
Science after the Practice Turn in the Philosophy, History, and Social Studies of Science

Author: Léna Soler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-03-21

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1317935357

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In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study scientific practices? What are the general lessons, implications, and new challenges? This volume explores questions about the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences. The volume promotes interactions between acknowledged experts from different, often thought of as conflicting, orientations. It presents contributions in conjunction with critical commentaries that put the theses and assumptions of the former in perspective. Overall, the book offers a unique and diverse range of perspectives on the meanings, methods, lessons, and challenges associated with the practice turn.

Philosophy of Astrophysics
Philosophy of Astrophysics

Author: Nora Mills Boyd

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-06-28

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 3031266188

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This is an open access book. This book, the first edited collection of its kind, explores the recent emergence of philosophical research in astrophysics. It assembles a variety of original essays from scholars who are currently shaping this field, and it combines insightful overviews of the current state of play with novel, significant contributions. It therefore provides an ideal source for understanding the current debates in philosophy of astrophysics, and it offers new ideas for future cutting-edge research. The selection of essays offered in this book addresses methodological and metaphysical questions that target a wide range of topics, including dark matter, black holes, astrophysical observations and modelling. The book serves as the first standard resource in philosophy of astrophysics for all scholars who work in the field and want to expand or deepen their knowledge, but it also provides an accessible guide for all those philosophers and scientists who are interested in getting a first, basic understanding of the main issues in philosophy of astrophysics.

Transactions on Computational Science XVIII
Transactions on Computational Science XVIII

Author: Marina L. Gavrilova

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-05-24

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 3642388035

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The 18th issue of the Transactions on Computational Science journal, edited by Arjan Kuijper, is devoted to the topic of cyberworlds. The 14 papers in the volume constitute revised and extended versions of a selection of contributions presented at CW 2012, the International Conference on Cyberworlds, held in Darmstadt, Germany in September 2012. The selected papers span the areas of human path prediction, gesture-based interaction, rendering, valence-levels recognition, virtual collaborative spaces, virtual environment, emotional attention, virtual palpation, sketch-book design, animation, and avatar-face recognition.

Science after the Practice Turn in the Philosophy, History, and Social Studies of Science
Science after the Practice Turn in the Philosophy, History, and Social Studies of Science

Author: Léna Soler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-03-21

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1317935365

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In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study scientific practices? What are the general lessons, implications, and new challenges? This volume explores questions about the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences. The volume promotes interactions between acknowledged experts from different, often thought of as conflicting, orientations. It presents contributions in conjunction with critical commentaries that put the theses and assumptions of the former in perspective. Overall, the book offers a unique and diverse range of perspectives on the meanings, methods, lessons, and challenges associated with the practice turn.

Seeing Things
Seeing Things

Author: Robert Hudson

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0199303282

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In Seeing Things, Robert Hudson argues that robustness reasoning lacks the special value it is often claimed to have. Robustness reasoning claims that an observation report is more likely to be true if the report is produced by multiple, independent sources.

Biological Robustness
Biological Robustness

Author: Marta Bertolaso

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-01-04

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 3030011984

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This volume reviews examples and notions of robustness at several levels of biological organization. It tackles many philosophical and conceptual issues and casts an outlook on the future challenges of robustness studies in the context of a practice-oriented philosophy of science. The focus of discussion is on concrete case studies. These highlight the necessity of a level-dependent description of robust biological behaviors.Experts from the neurosciences, biochemistry, ecology, biology, and the history and the philosophy of life sciences provide a multiplex perspective on the topic. Contributions span from protein folding, to cell-level robustness, to organismal and developmental robustness, to sensorimotor systems, up to the robustness of ecological systems.Several chapters detail neurobiological case-studies. The brain, the poster child of plasticity in biology, offers multiple examples of robustness. Neurobiology explores the importance of temporal organization and multiscalarity in making this robustness-with-plasticity possible. The discussion also includes structures well beyond the brain, such as muscles and the complex feedback loops involved in the peculiar robustness of music perception. Overall, the volume grounds general reflections upon concrete case studies, opening to all the life sciences but also to non-biological and bio-inspired fields such as post-modern engineering. It will appeal to researchers, students, as well as non-expert readers.