There is considerable current debate about the need for replication in the science of social psychology. Most of the current discussion and approbation is centered on direct or exact replications, ...the attempt to conduct a study in a manner as close to the original as possible. We focus on the value of conceptual replications, the attempt to test the same theoretical process as an existing study, but that uses methods that vary in some way from the previous study. The tension between the two kinds of replication is a tension of values—exact replications value confidence in operationalizations; their requirement tends to favor the status quo. Conceptual replications value confidence in theory; their use tends to favor rapid progress over ferreting out error. We describe the many ways in which conceptual replications can be superior to direct replications. We further argue that the social system of science is quite robust to these threats and is self-correcting.
In this paper, we argue for a theoretical separation of the free-energy principle from Helmholtzian accounts of the predictive brain. The free-energy principle is a theoretical framework capturing ...the imperative for biological self-organization in information-theoretic terms. The free-energy principle has typically been connected with a Bayesian theory of predictive coding, and the latter is often taken to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception as unconscious inference. If our interpretation is right, however, a Helmholtzian view of perception is incompatible with Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle. We argue that the free energy principle and the ecological and enactive approach to mind and life make for a much happier marriage of ideas. We make our argument based on three points. First we argue that the free energy principle applies to the whole animal-environment system, and not only to the brain. Second, we show that active inference, as understood by the free-energy principle, is incompatible with unconscious inference understood as analagous to scientific hypothesis-testing, the main tenet of a Helmholtzian view of perception. Third, we argue that the notion of inference at work in Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle is too weak to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception. Taken together these points imply that the free energy principle is best understood in ecological and enactive terms set out in this paper.
The free-energy principle states that all systems that minimize their free energy resist a tendency to physical disintegration. Originally proposed to account for perception, learning, and action, ...the free-energy principle has been applied to the evolution, development, morphology, anatomy and function of the brain, and has been called a
postulate
, an
unfalsifiable principle
, a
natural law
, and an
imperative
. While it might afford a theoretical foundation for understanding the relationship between environment, life, and mind, its epistemic status is unclear. Also unclear is how the free-energy principle relates to prominent theoretical approaches to life science phenomena, such as organicism and mechanism. This paper clarifies both issues, and identifies limits and prospects for the free-energy principle as a first principle in the life sciences.
We critically engage two traditional views of scientific data and outline a novel philosophical view that we call the
pragmatic-representational (PR) view of data
. On the PR view, data are ...representations that are the product of a process of inquiry, and they should be evaluated in terms of their adequacy or fitness for particular purposes. Some important implications of the PR view for data assessment, related to misrepresentation, context-sensitivity, and complementary use, are highlighted. The PR view provides insight into the common but little-discussed practices of iteratively reusing and repurposing data, which result in many datasets’ having a phylogeny—an origin and complex evolutionary history—that is relevant to their evaluation and future use. We relate these insights to the open-data and data-rescue movements, and highlight several future avenues of research that build on the PR view of data.
It is proposed that we use the term “approximation” for inexact description of a target system and “idealization” for another system whose properties also provide an inexact description of the target ...system. Since systems generated by a limiting process can often have quite unexpected—even inconsistent—properties, familiar limit processes used in statistical physics can fail to provide idealizations but merely provide approximations.
This paper aims to distinguish two main types of coarse graining, and reveal the relationship between the notions of coarse graining and emergence. In physics, some forms of coarse graining seem to ...be indispensable to show a physical property, and the other merely changes our descriptions of the system. To clarify the notion of coarse graining, this article investigates the cases of the renormalization group method and irreversibility, both of which have been important topics in philosophy of science, and the case of the rigid body in classical mechanics, which is an elementary case including coarse graining. The case studies reveal the distinction between substantial and mere coarse-graining. This distinction clarifies the relationships between the notions of coarse graining and emergence and further provides some implications for the issues about emergence.
I argue that inferences from highly probabilifying racial generalizations (e.g. believing that Jones is a janitor, on the grounds that most Salvadoreans at the school are janitors) are not solely ...objectionable because
acting
on such inferences would be problematic, or they violate a moral norm, but because they violate a distinctively epistemic norm. They involve accepting a proposition when, given the costs of a mistake, one is not adequately justified in doing so. First I sketch an account of the nature of adequate justification—practical adequacy with respect to eliminating the
¬
p
possibilities from one’s epistemic statespace. Second, I argue that inferences based on demographic generalizations tend to disproportionately expose group members to the risks associated with mistakenly assuming stereotypical propositions, and so magnify the wrong involved in relying on such inferences without adequate justification.
While the use of archives is common as a research methodology in the history and philosophy of science (HPS), training in archival methods is more often encountered as part of graduate-level training ...than in the undergraduate curriculum. Because many HPS instructors are likely to have encountered archival methods during their own research training, they are uniquely positioned to make effective pedagogical use of archives in classes comprised of undergraduate science students. Further, because doing this may require changing the way HPS instructors think about the aims and varieties of archival research, archivists themselves can be valuable resources in developing archives-based learning activities for science students in HPS classrooms. In this article, we describe an archives-based learning activity developed for a population of primarily pre-medical students in a healthcare ethics class and discuss the pedagogical benefits of this activity. This activity was developed via a collaboration between an HPS instructor (Bursten) and an education archivist (Strandmark). Our hope is that this discussion may serve both as a proof of concept for the use of archives-based learning activities as tools for teaching HPS to science students, and as an argument for the unique benefits that archival engagement can impart to science students.
The wrong bin bag Woolgar, Steve; Lezaun, Javier
Social studies of science,
06/2013, Letnik:
43, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
There is in science and technology studies a perceptible new interest in matters of ‘ontology’. Until recently, the term ‘ontology’ had been sparingly used in the field. Now it appears to have ...acquired a new theoretical significance and lies at the centre of many programmes of empirical investigation. The special issue to which this essay is a contribution gathers a series of enquiries into the ontological and reflects, collectively, on the value of the analytical and methodological sensibilities that underpin this new approach to the make-up of the world. To what extent and in what sense can we speak of a ‘turn to ontology’ in science and technology studies? What should we make of, and with, this renewed interest in matters of ontology? This essay offers some preliminary responses to these questions. First, we examine claims of a shift from epistemology to ontology and explore in particular the implications of the notion of ‘enactment’. This leads to a consideration of the normative implications of approaches that bring ‘ontological politics’to centre stage. We then illustrate and pursue these questions by using an example–the case of the ‘wrong bin bag’. We conclude with a tentative assessment of the prospects for ontologically sensitive science and technology studies.
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