The growing body of research on interdisciplinarity has encouraged a more in depth analysis of the relations that hold among academic disciplines. In particular, the incursion of one scientific discipline into another discipline’s traditional domain, also known as scientific imperialism, has been a matter of increasing debate. Following this trend, Scientific Imperialism aims to bring together philosophers of science and historians of science interested in the topic of scientific imperialism and, in particular, interested in the conceptual clarification, empirical identification, and (...) normative assessment of the idea of scientific imperialism. Thus, this innovative volume has two main goals. Indeed, the authors first seek to understand interdisciplinary relations emerging from the incursion of one scientific discipline into one or more other disciplines, such as in cases in which the conventions and procedures of one discipline or field are imposed on other fields; or more weakly when a scientific discipline seeks to explain phenomena that are traditionally considered proper of another discipline’s domain. Secondly, the authors explore ways of distinguishing imperialistic from non-imperialistic interactions between disciplines and research fields. (shrink)

The article examines the process of niche standardization in medical research as an example of democratizing strategies implemented in industry-funded science. I argue that niche standardization can lead to undesirable epistemic and ethical consequences, if the various goals of research are not properly aligned. I examine two examples: the case of Sarafem, approved for the treatment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder in women, and the case of BiDil, approved for exclusive use in African Americans for the treatment of congestive heart failure. (...) I conclude by cautioning against the unqualified support of democratizing strategies in industry-funded research. (shrink)

The shooting bias hypothesis aims to explain the disproportionate number of minorities killed by police. We present the evidence mounting in support of the existence of shooting bias and then focus on two dissenting studies. We examine these studies in light of Biddle and Leuschner’s “inductive risk account of epistemically detrimental dissent” and conclude that, although they meet this account only partially, the studies are in fact epistemically and socially detrimental as they contribute to racism in society and to a (...) social atmosphere that is hostile to science as scholars working on issues of racism come under attack. We emphasize this final point via recourse to Kitcher’s “Millian argument against the freedom of research.”. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to clarify the concept of scientific ignorance: what is it, what are its sources, and when is it epistemically detrimental for science. I present a taxonomy of scientific ignorance, distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic sources. I argue that the latter can create a detrimental epistemic gap, which have significant epistemic and social consequences. I provide three examples from medical research to illustrate this point. To conclude, I claim that while some types of scientific ignorance (...) are inevitable and even desirable, other types of scientific ignorance are epistemically and ethically flawed and should be prevented. (shrink)

Expanding on recent philosophical contributions to the conceptual and normative framework of scientific imperialism, I examine whether the economics approach to social epistemology can be considered a case of economics imperialism and determine whether economics’ explanatory expansionism appropriately contributes to this philosophical subfield or not. I argue first that the economics approach to social epistemology counts as a case of economics imperialism under a broad conception of the term, and second that we have good reasons to doubt the appropriateness of (...) the incursion of economics into social epistemology, insofar as economics’ attempt at explanatory unification fails to express significant human interests. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to clarify the concept of scientific ignorance: what is it, what are its sources, and when is it epistemically detrimental to science. While some sources of scientific ignorance come inevitably with the process of knowledge acquisition, others are deliberately created. The former includes selection processes, inductive reasoning, and cognitive biases, while the latter includes scientific fraud. Another important source of scientific ignorance appears when scientists introduce methodological biases through micro-decisions in the research process. I (...) provide three examples from medical research to illustrate this point. I argue further that methodological biases present a challenge, in so far as they are no easily classifiable as deliberate: they might also be the result of entrenched research practices within a scientific community. Strategies to identify and prevent methodological biases in research should take into account such difference. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have become increasingly concerned with the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. The general aim of the paper is to show that approaches in social epistemology of science fail to take into account important changes that the organization of science has undergone in the past decades. I argue that the social organization of science is an important “social dimension” of scientific knowledge that philosophers need to consider. In order to do so, I focus on Helen Longino’s social epistemology (...) of science as portrayed in her critical contextual empiricism. I show that Longino’s approach has important limitations when trying to implement it as a guide for current research through an evaluation of two of her norms of effective criticism. (shrink)

A coherent and helpful public policy based on science is difficult to achieve for at least three reasons. First, there are purely practical problems—for example, that scientific experts often disagree on policy-relevant questions and their debates often continue well beyond policy appropriate timelines. Second, there are epistemic problems—for example, that science is hardly the neutral supplier of factual information that traditionally has been supposed. And third, there are social problems: given the commercialization of today’s science and its enduring limitations, much (...) of scientific research today fails to meet the moral and political standards one would expect it to meet in order to inform public policy. In this paper, we examine such problems in the context of breast cancer screening policy and suggest the role philosophy of science should play in dealing with the situation. (shrink)

As scientific research moves increasingly to the private sector, the social organization of science undergoes important transformations. Focusing on the production of ignorance, agnotology has been a fruitful approach to understanding the social and epistemic consequences of the recent commercialization of scientific research. Despite their important contributions, scholars working on agnotology seem to hold implicit normative commitments that are in tension with their descriptive accounts of ignorance-constructive practices. The main aim of this article is to uncover these commitments and to (...) expose the emerging tensions. Thus, this article begins an exploration into normative aspects of the studies of ignorance. In particular, it shows that agnotology still needs the support of a well-articulated normative approach capable of identifying and evaluating the epistemic and social concerns raised by the private funding and performance of science. (shrink)

Gender bias is a recalcitrant problem in academia and society. However, dissent has been created on this issue. We focus on dissenting studies by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, arguing that they reach conclusions that are unwarranted on the basis of the available evidence and that they ignore fundamental objections to their methodological decisions. Drawing on discussions from other contexts, particularly on manufactured dissent concerning anthropogenic climate change, we conclude that dissent on gender bias substantially contributes to the (...) exacerbation of biases in society and an increasing number of attacks on researchers, making it both epistemically and socially problematic. (shrink)

The growing body of research on interdisciplinarity has encouraged a more in depth analysis of the relations that hold among academic disciplines. In particular, the incursion of one scientific discipline into another discipline's traditional domain, also known as scientific imperialism, has been a matter of increasing debate. Following this trend, Scientific Imperialism aims to bring together philosophers of science and historians of science interested in the topic of scientific imperialism and, in particular, interested in the conceptual clarification, empirical identification, and (...) normative assessment of the idea of scientific imperialism. Thus, this innovative volume has two main goals. Indeed, the authors first seek to understand interdisciplinary relations emerging from the incursion of one scientific discipline into one or more other disciplines, such as in cases in which the conventions and procedures of one discipline or field are imposed on other fields; or more weakly when a scientific discipline seeks to explain phenomena that are traditionally considered proper of another discipline's domain. Secondly, the authors explore ways of distinguishing imperialistic from non-imperialistic interactions between disciplines and research fields. The first sustained study of scientific imperialism, this volume will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Science & Technology, Philosophy of Science, and History of Science. (shrink)

Tarski's theory of truth brings out the question of whether he intended his theory to be a correspondence theory of truth and whether, whatever his intentions, his theory is, in fact, a correspondence theory. The aim of this paper is to answer both questions. The answer to the first question depends on Tarski's relevant assertions on semantics and his conception of truth. In order to answer the second question Popper's and Davidson's interpretations of Tarski's truth theory are examined; to this (...) end both Tarski's definition of truth in terms of satisfaction and the T-sentences are taken into account. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to uncover some of the limitations that critical contextual empiricism, and in particular Longino's contextualism, faces when trying to provide a normative account of scientific knowledge that is relevant to current scientific research. After presenting the four norms of effective criticism, I show how the norms have limited scope when dealing with cases of current scientific practices. I then present some historical evidence for the claim that the organization of science has changed in recent (...) decades, and I argue that the uncovered limitations emerge from this larger phenomenon. Finally, I conclude by suggesting two ways to overcome the previously uncovered limitations. (shrink)

In recent decades, philosophers of science have become increasingly concerned with the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. Philosophers such as Helen Longino, Philip Kitcher, Miriam Solomon, Heather Douglas, and Janet Kourany have sought to incorporate the social aspects of science, while retaining the normative commitments of philosophy of science. Some of the major theoretical approaches in social epistemology of science, however, tend to ignore or underestimate the role that the current state of science organization plays in the production of scientific (...) knowledge.1 The world has changed significantly in recent decades, and science has changed with it. The.. (shrink)

At least since Kuhn’s Structure, philosophers have studied the influence of social factors in science’s pursuit of truth and knowledge. More recently, formal models and computer simulations have allowed philosophers of science and social epistemologists to dig deeper into the detailed dynamics of scientific research and experimentation, and to develop very seemingly realistic models of the social organization of science. These models purport to be predictive of the optimal allocations of factors, such as diversity of methods used in science, size (...) of groups, and communication channels among researchers. In this paper we argue that the current research faces an empirical challenge. The challenge is to connect simulation models with data. We present possible scenarios about how the challenge may unfold. (shrink)

Weisberg and Muldoon’s epistemic landscape model (ELM) has been one of the most significant contributions to the use of agent-based models in philosophy. The model provides an innovative approach to establishing the optimal distribution of cognitive labor in scientific communities, using an epistemic landscape. In the paper, we provide a critical examination of ELM. First, we show that the computing mechanism for ELM is correct insofar as we are able to replicate the results using another programming language. Second, we show (...) that small changes in the rules that determine the behavior of individual agents can lead to important changes in simulation results. Accordingly, we claim that ELM results are robust with respect to the computing mechanism, but not necessarily across parameter space. We conclude by reflecting on the possible lessons to be gained from ELM as a class of simulations or cluster of models. (shrink)

The article examines the idea that commercialized science is a central factor in the erosion of trust in science. I claim that commercial interests have a negative impact on the trustworthiness of...

Background: Over the last several decades, scientists and social groups have frequently raised concerns about politicization or political interference in regulatory science. Public actors (environmentalists and industry advocates, politically aligned public figures, scientists and political commentators, in the United States as well as in other countries) across major political-regulatory controversies have expressed concerns about the inappropriate politicization of science. Although we share concerns about the politicization of science, they are frequently framed in terms of an ideal of value-free science, according (...) to which political and economic values have no legitimate role to play in science. For several decades, work in philosophy of science has identified serious conceptual and practical problems with the value-free ideal. -/- Objectives: Our objectives are to discuss the literature regarding the conceptual and practical problems with the value-free ideal and offer a constructive alternative to the value-free ideal. -/- Discussion: We first discuss the prevalence of the value-free ideal in regulatory science, then argue that this ideal is self-undermining and has been exploited to delay protective regulation. To offer a constructive alternative, we analyze the relationship between the goals of regulatory science and the standards of good scientific activity. This analysis raises questions about the relationship between methodological and practical standards for good science, tensions among various important social goods, and tensions among various social interests. We argue that the aims of regulatory science help to legitimize value-laden choices regarding research methods and study designs. Finally, we discuss how public deliberation, adaptive management, and community-based participatory research can be used to improve the legitimacy of scientists as representatives of the general public on issues of environmental knowledge. -/- Conclusions: Reflecting on the aims of regulatory science—such as protecting human health and the environment, informing democratic deliberation, and promoting the capacities of environmental justice and Indigenous communities—can clarify when values have legitimate roles in regulatory science. (shrink)

The shooting bias hypothesis aims to explain the disproportionate number of minorities killed by police. We present the evidence mounting in support of the existence of shooting bias and then focus on two dissenting studies. We examine these studies in light of Biddle and Leuschner’s “inductive risk account of epistemically detrimental dissent” and conclude that, although they meet this account only partially, the studies are in fact epistemically and socially detrimental as they contribute to racism in society and to a (...) social atmosphere that is hostile to science as scholars working on issues of racism come under attack. We emphasize this final point via recourse to Kitcher’s “Millian argument against the freedom of research.”. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to examine some of the key contributions of feminist philosophers of science to the study of ignorance. First, I provide a brief introduction to agnotology and its critical stance to traditional epistemology. Then, I illustrate how the study of ignorance can serve as a tool for feminist epistemology through an examination of case studies. In the third section, I examine the importance of ignorance studies for the feminist project in philosophy of science. Finally, in (...) the fourth section I suggest some new directions worth pursuing in this area. (shrink)

With an innovative perspective on the social character of ignorance production, agnotology has been a fruitful approach for understanding the social and epistemological consequences of the interaction between industry and scientific research. In this paper, I argue that agnotology, or the study of ignorance, contributes to a better understanding of commercially driven research and its societal impact, showing the ways in which industrial interests have reshaped the epistemic aims of traditional scientific practices, turning them into mechanisms of ignorance production. To (...) do so, I examine some of the main contributions to agnotology and provide a taxonomy of practices of ignorance construction common in commercially driven research today. In particular, I present the tobacco industry’s campaign against the health hazards of smoking as a paradigmatic case of ignorance production, identifying five central strategies. I then argue that the same strategies have been used in three other cases—global warming, pharmaceuticals, and the 2008 financial crisis. (shrink)

Due to its allegedly diverse population and strong doctor–patient relations, Latin America has become one of the most attractive locations for international clinical trials. In the paper, I examine the case of recruitment of women and minority patients to serve as subjects of international clinical trials, through CROs operating in Latin America. In particular, the paper examines some of the strategies that CROs use to expand their services in the Latin American medical market, illuminating the mechanisms through which the current (...) organization of medical research contributes to power imbalances in the Global South. After analyzing the epistemic and ethical shortcomings of such endeavor, I show how Latin American patients participating in clinical trials are located in a position of double disadvantage. First, they suffer the consequences of a lack of appropriate understanding of symptoms and reaction to treatment. Second, they suffer the consequences of being subjects in clinical trials which are not designed to meet their needs, but the needs of patients in the Global North. Accordingly, I conclude by highlighting the importance of this double disadvantage and suggesting that the problem can be understood in terms of a misalignment of commercial, ethical, and epistemic concerns in clinical research. (shrink)

Edward Said writes that Orientalism is a Western style for dominating the East. Richard Rorty proposes that intellectuals should be modern liberals in their politics but postmodern ironists in their intellectual lives. Rebecca Catz argues that Fern?o Mendes Pinto's Peregrination, a sprawling account of travels in the East first published in 1614, is a ?plea for toleration?. How do these theories stand up when confronted with the text? Once as well known as Cervantes's Don Quixote, this text has been (...) undeservedly overlooked in the study of political ideas, and that is a loss because it might make Saidians, Rortians and toleration theorists rethink some of their ideas. It is wrong to take Mendes Pinto's criticisms of Asians as Orientalism, partly because Mendes Pinto is equally critical of the Portuguese and other Europeans. It is wrong to think that irony can provide a comfortable intellectual home, partly because Mendes Pinto's life and text provide examples of a much more subtle and nihilistic irony than Rorty imagines. And finally, it is wrong to think that Mendes Pinto's text is a ?plea for toleration? in any but the most attenuated sense. (shrink)

The conference “The Special Role of Science in Liberal Democracy” was held November 21–22 2013 at the University of Copenhagen. The conference was organized by Julie Zahle and Klemens Kappel as part of a research project on this topic, funded by the Carlsberg Foundation.There were six plenary speakers: James Bohman, Heather Douglas, Harold Kincaid, Martin Kusch, Eleonora Montuschi and Erik Weber. The other speakers at the conference were: Manuela Fernandez-Pinto, Anton Froeyman, Heidi Grasswick, Rico Hauswald, Oier Imaz, Kristen (...) Intemann, Saana Jukola, Klemens Kappel, Arnon Keren, Loren King (Wilfrid Laurier Un.. (shrink)

v. 1. El tiempo histórico de Mario Hernández Sánchez-Barba -- v. 2. Generaciones y mentalidades. Estudios de teoría de la Historia.

This article details the personal involvement of the author in the early stages of the infamous Pinto fire case. The paper first presents an insider account of the context and decision environment within which he failed to initiate an early recall of defective vehicles. A cognitive script analysis of the personal experience is then offered as an explanation of factors that led to a decision that now is commonly seen as a definitive study in unethical corporate behavior. The main (...) analytical thesis is that script schemas that were guiding cognition and action at the time precluded consideration of issues in ethical terms because the scripts did not include ethical dimensions. (shrink)

We previously showed that owner personality and human-dog relationship predicted the performance of a human-dog dyad in a practical task. Based on the same data set we presently investigate the effects of individual and social factors on the social attraction of dogs to their owners. Twenty-two male and female owners and their intact male dogs were observed during a “picture viewing” test, where we diverted the owner's attention away from their dog whilst it was permitted to move freely around the (...) room. Owner personality axis “neuroticism” and dog personality axis “vocal and aggressive” were, respectively, positively and negatively related to the time the dog stayed in proximity to the owner. Quality of relationship and attachment also had significant effects on this proximity. We conclude that personality and the nature of the human-dog relationship may all influence dogs' social attraction to their owners. (shrink)

We previously showed that owner personality and human–dog relationship predicted the performance of a human–dog dyad in a practical task. Based on the same data set we presently investigate the effects of individual and social factors on the social attraction of dogs to their owners. Twenty-two male and female owners and their intact male dogs were observed during a “picture viewing” test, where we diverted the owner’s attention away from their dog whilst it was permitted to move freely around the (...) room. Owner personality axis “neuroticism” and dog personality axis “vocal and aggressive” were, respectively, positively and negatively related to the time the dog stayed in proximity to the owner. Quality of relationship and attachment also had significant effects on this proximity. We conclude that personality and the nature of the human–dog relationship may all influence dogs’ social attraction to their owners. Keywords: companion animals; dog–human attachment; dyadic relationships; human-animal interactions; human–dog attachment; human–dog relationship; human–dog social interactions; personality; pets. (shrink)

Fern Logan’s collection of photographic portraits documents the emergence of the African American artist into mainstream American art. The Artist Portrait Series captures sixty significant artists from the late twentieth century.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault provides a backup of seed collections from genebanks around the world. It’s unique character has made it iconic in the public imagination as a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for crop plants. Its remote location and strict controls on access have, however, also lent it an air of mystery, swirling with conspiracy theories. In this paper, I first clarify the aims of the Vault, the history of its development and the policies and practices of its current operation. Given (...) concerns around its potential links to the biotechnology industry, I go on to ask whether GM crops are currently stored in the Vault. Presenting several reasons for why GM crops are formally excluded, while indicating the potential for both change and unintentional contamination, I am compelled to question whether GM crops should be excluded. Answering this requires an interrogation of their potential conservation value as modern contributors to crop biodiversity. In exploring this issue, I suggest that there has been surprisingly little discussion of the moral status and conservation value of bio-technological crop plants and indeed, of how we care for all the techno-lifeforms we are currently engaged in co-creating. I suggest that these are becoming important issues as biotechnological techniques and applications begin to rapidly evolve and diversify. Emphasizing the scope for a refreshed interdisciplinary research agenda exploring the interface between biotechnology and biodiversity conservation, I conclude the article by proposing new concepts of synbiodiversity and symbiodiversity to encourage further debate. (shrink)

Modern society is characterised by rapid technological development that is often socially controversial and plagued by extensive scientific uncertainty concerning its socio-ecological impacts. Within this context, the concept of ‘responsible research and innovation’ is currently rising to prominence in international discourse concerning science and technology governance. As this emerging concept of RRI begins to be enacted through instruments, approaches, and initiatives, it is valuable to explore what it is coming to mean for and in practice. In this paper we draw (...) attention to a realm that is often backgrounded in the current discussions of RRI but which has a highly significant impact on scientific research, innovation and policy—namely, the interstitial space of international standardization. Drawing on the case of nanoscale sciences and technologies to make our argument, we present examples of how international standards are already entangled in the development of RRI and yet, how the process of international standardization itself largely fails to embody the norms proposed as characterizing RRI. We suggest that although current models for RRI provide a promising attempt to make research and innovation more responsive to societal needs, ethical values and environmental challenges, such approaches will need to encompass and address a greater diversity of innovation system agents and spaces if they are to prove successful in their aims. (shrink)

This book brings together the basic documents needed for reaching an informed judgment on the central ethical question in the Pinto case: did Ford Motor Company act ethically in designing the Pinto fuel system and in deciding not to upgrade the integrity of that system until 1978? The five parts of this book cover the case, cost-benefit analysis, whistle blowing, product liability, and government regulations.

In the contemporary context of increasing inequality and various forms of segregation, this volume analyzes the transition to neoliberal politics in Santiago de Chile. Using an innovative methodological approach that combines georeferenced data and multi-stage cluster analysis, Méndez and Gayo study the old and new mechanisms of social reproduction among the upper middle class. In so doing, they not only capture the interconnections between macro- and microsocial dimensions such as urban dynamics, schooling demands, cultural repertoires and socio-spatial trajectories, but also (...) offer a detailed account of elite formation, intergenerational accumulation, and economic, cultural, and social inheritance dynamics. (shrink)

We study the SIS and SIRI epidemic models discussing different approaches to compute the thresholds that determine the appearance of an epidemic disease. The stochastic SIS model is a well known mathematical model, studied in several contexts. Here, we present recursively derivations of the dynamic equations for all the moments and we derive the stationary states of the state variables using the moment closure method. We observe that the steady states give a good approximation of the quasi-stationary states of the (...) SIS model. We present the relation between the SIS stochastic model and the contact process introducing creation and annihilation operators. For the spatial stochastic epidemic reinfection model SIRI, where susceptibles S can become infected I, then recover and remain only partial immune against reinfection R, we present the phase transition lines using the mean field and the pair approximation for the moments. We use a scaling argument that allow us to determine analytically an explicit formula for the phase transition lines in pair approximation. (shrink)

This paper discusses entanglements of science and ethics in the regulation of genetically modified crops. Using the 2009 German ban of genetically modified maize MON810 and debates concerning the q...

This paper presents a pedagogical framework for teaching cross-cultural clinical ethics. The approach, offered at the intersection of anthropology and bioethics, is innovative in that it takes on the “social sciences versus bioethics” debate that has been ongoing in North America for three decades. The argument is made that this debate is flawed on both sides and, moreover, that the application of cross-cultural thinking to clinical ethics requires using the tools of the social sciences within a principles-based framework for clinical (...) ethics. This paper introduces the curriculum and provides guidelines for how to teach cross-cultural clinical ethics. The learning points that are introduced emphasize culture in its relation to power and underscore the importance of viewing both biomedicine and bioethics as culturally constructed. (shrink)

Nous remercions chaleureusement Manuela Ivone Cunha et la revue Terrain. Revue d'ethnologie de l'Europe de nous avoir autorisés à reproduire ce texte. Celui-ci a déjà paru dans Terrain, N° 29, 1997, p. 59-68 et été mis en ligne ici. Résumé : Le temps est une référence omniprésente de la vie en prison, l'un et l'autre étant parfois assimilés. L'emprisonnement entraîne un changement du rapport à un temps qui devient plus objectivé. Multiforme, ce rapport varie selon les diverses périodisations mises (...) en œuvres - Anthropologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)