RESEARCH
Philosophy of Science
The Tangle of Science: Reliability beyond Method, Objectivity, and Rigour, (2022, Book, Oxford University Press)
With N Cartwright, E Montuschi, J Hardie and M Soleiman
Science creates multitudes of products that do what you expect of them: theories, models, concepts, experiments, measurement procedures, technological devices, social policy evaluations, approximation techniques and many, many more. What underwrites their reliability? We group the standard answers under the headings ‘scientific method’, ‘rigour’, and ‘objectivity’. Though they have a role to play, these ‘usual suspects’, we argue, are not up to the job of supporting the effectiveness of these products, whether individually or in combination with other such products.
There is far more to the inner workings of science that can yield reliability than what these traditional pillars point to. But to get it, the enterprise needs to be re-conceived. The standard approach to the question ‘What makes science so trustworthy?’, both in philosophy and in the detailed methodologies of the various sciences, is to ask ‘What constitutes confirmation for scientific claims’? We urge a dramatic broadening of focus: from concentrating on claims and theories to focussing on all the products of science and not on their truth but on their reliability. Most of these products—e.g. methods, measures, experiments, classification schemes, approximation techniques, and technological devices—are not candidates for truth in the first place. Yet it is vitally important that they be able to do what is expected of them.
So this book does not concentrate on claims but rather locates the bulk of reliable science elsewhere, in all the products that science creates: in models; measurement definitions, procedures, and instruments; concept development and validation; data collection, analysis, and curation; experimental and non-experimental studies; statistical techniques; methods of approximation; case studies; narratives; etc.; etc.; etc. And especially in the complex ways in which these interweave.
Available for purchase here.
How Research Harms (under review) [Draft]
Scientific research harms us. We largely lack, however, a clear understanding of what those harms are, and under what contexts they instantiate. This is due in large part to a bias in science and policy which takes most scientific harms to be the result of applying scientific research to the real world, rather than the research itself. Moreover, while some philosophers have tackled instances of research harm, there isn't any broad work that gathers and contextualises these projects under a clear structure. Here I create a preliminary classification system for research harms, ranging from physical harms to human test-subjects, to psychological, social, and moral hazards. Each category is demonstrated using current examples from science, and it is suggested that research which causes one or more of these harms ought to be carefully navigated as, while these harms may not warrant banning the research, scientists and policy-makers still have a moral obligation to acknowledge and, where possible, minimise these damages.
With N Cartwright, E Montuschi, J Hardie and M Soleiman
Science creates multitudes of products that do what you expect of them: theories, models, concepts, experiments, measurement procedures, technological devices, social policy evaluations, approximation techniques and many, many more. What underwrites their reliability? We group the standard answers under the headings ‘scientific method’, ‘rigour’, and ‘objectivity’. Though they have a role to play, these ‘usual suspects’, we argue, are not up to the job of supporting the effectiveness of these products, whether individually or in combination with other such products.
There is far more to the inner workings of science that can yield reliability than what these traditional pillars point to. But to get it, the enterprise needs to be re-conceived. The standard approach to the question ‘What makes science so trustworthy?’, both in philosophy and in the detailed methodologies of the various sciences, is to ask ‘What constitutes confirmation for scientific claims’? We urge a dramatic broadening of focus: from concentrating on claims and theories to focussing on all the products of science and not on their truth but on their reliability. Most of these products—e.g. methods, measures, experiments, classification schemes, approximation techniques, and technological devices—are not candidates for truth in the first place. Yet it is vitally important that they be able to do what is expected of them.
So this book does not concentrate on claims but rather locates the bulk of reliable science elsewhere, in all the products that science creates: in models; measurement definitions, procedures, and instruments; concept development and validation; data collection, analysis, and curation; experimental and non-experimental studies; statistical techniques; methods of approximation; case studies; narratives; etc.; etc.; etc. And especially in the complex ways in which these interweave.
Available for purchase here.
How Research Harms (under review) [Draft]
Scientific research harms us. We largely lack, however, a clear understanding of what those harms are, and under what contexts they instantiate. This is due in large part to a bias in science and policy which takes most scientific harms to be the result of applying scientific research to the real world, rather than the research itself. Moreover, while some philosophers have tackled instances of research harm, there isn't any broad work that gathers and contextualises these projects under a clear structure. Here I create a preliminary classification system for research harms, ranging from physical harms to human test-subjects, to psychological, social, and moral hazards. Each category is demonstrated using current examples from science, and it is suggested that research which causes one or more of these harms ought to be carefully navigated as, while these harms may not warrant banning the research, scientists and policy-makers still have a moral obligation to acknowledge and, where possible, minimise these damages.
Environmental Ethics and Technology
When Extinction is Warranted: Invasive Species, Suppression-Drives, and the Worst-Case Scenario (2020, Ethics, Policy, and Environment)
[Preprint] [Article]
Most current techniques to deal with invasive species are ineffective or have highly damaging side effects. To this end suppression-drives based on clustered regularly inter-spaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9) have been touted as a potential silver bullet for the problem, allowing for a highly focused, humane and cost-effective means of removing a target species from an environment. Suppression-drives come with serious risks, however, such that the precautionary principle seems to warrant us not deploying this technology. The focus of this paper is on one such risk – the danger of a suppression-drive escaping containment and wiping out the target species globally. Here, I argue that in most cases this risk is significant enough to warrant not using a gene-drive. In some cases, however, we can bypass the precautionary principle by using an approach that hinges on what I term the ‘Worst-Case Clause’. This clause, in turn, provides us with a litmus test that can be fruitfully used to determine what species are viable targets for suppression-drives in the wild. Using this metric in concert with other considerations, I suggest that only three species are currently possible viable targets – the European rabbit, ship rat and Caribbean Tree Frog.
Killing Nature to Save It: Australian Waterways, European Carp, and the Conservation Paradox (working paper)
The recently published National Carp Control Plan released by the Australian Government details ongoing efforts to remove invasive European Carp from the Murray Darling Basin. It examines the viability of using Carp Herpes for population control in what is being referred to as 'Carpageddon'. This disease is deadly, but also causes significant and prolonged suffering in the target species, prompting questions of what ethical obligations we owe to the carp themselves, and how these obligations weigh up against our obligations towards native ecosystems and species. Perhaps surprisingly, of the 120 page document, only a single paragraph is dedicated to animal welfare, where the publication gestures at the need for further work on the topic. Using tools from philosophy I examine the European carp case as an example of the 'conservation paradox' - that we need to cause significant harm to nature in order to save it. I argue that given the current state of the Murray Darling we are warranted in using things like the herpes virus against European carp, but we also have a long-term obligation to explore less harmful approaches including novel techniques offered by synthetic biology.
Get Angry about Climate Change (under review)
The environmental crisis is an immediate existential threat. It is also, however, psychologically overwhelming. This combination is potentially deadly - we need to act fast, but instead members of the public often find themselves paralysed, drowning in anxiety, angst, and despair as they stare down the barrel of catastrophic changes they feel they cannot combat. These negative eco-emotions, and subsequent inaction, have increasingly been the focus of academic research and public articles. To combat them, the standard narrative in academia is that we ought to turn to eco-hope and eco-optimism. Here, I argue that while both of these emotions are important, researchers have left an important tool for combating paralysis off the table: eco-anger. I survey the history of anger as a force for social change, and as a means of motivating action in the face of overwhelming negative emotions, arguing that it needs to be pushed to the fore of our eco-emotion conversations. I then show what features eco-anger must have to be productive, distinguish between anger as action-motivating and anger as action-guiding, and respond to worries that anger may be a counter-productive emotion.
[Preprint] [Article]
Most current techniques to deal with invasive species are ineffective or have highly damaging side effects. To this end suppression-drives based on clustered regularly inter-spaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9) have been touted as a potential silver bullet for the problem, allowing for a highly focused, humane and cost-effective means of removing a target species from an environment. Suppression-drives come with serious risks, however, such that the precautionary principle seems to warrant us not deploying this technology. The focus of this paper is on one such risk – the danger of a suppression-drive escaping containment and wiping out the target species globally. Here, I argue that in most cases this risk is significant enough to warrant not using a gene-drive. In some cases, however, we can bypass the precautionary principle by using an approach that hinges on what I term the ‘Worst-Case Clause’. This clause, in turn, provides us with a litmus test that can be fruitfully used to determine what species are viable targets for suppression-drives in the wild. Using this metric in concert with other considerations, I suggest that only three species are currently possible viable targets – the European rabbit, ship rat and Caribbean Tree Frog.
Killing Nature to Save It: Australian Waterways, European Carp, and the Conservation Paradox (working paper)
The recently published National Carp Control Plan released by the Australian Government details ongoing efforts to remove invasive European Carp from the Murray Darling Basin. It examines the viability of using Carp Herpes for population control in what is being referred to as 'Carpageddon'. This disease is deadly, but also causes significant and prolonged suffering in the target species, prompting questions of what ethical obligations we owe to the carp themselves, and how these obligations weigh up against our obligations towards native ecosystems and species. Perhaps surprisingly, of the 120 page document, only a single paragraph is dedicated to animal welfare, where the publication gestures at the need for further work on the topic. Using tools from philosophy I examine the European carp case as an example of the 'conservation paradox' - that we need to cause significant harm to nature in order to save it. I argue that given the current state of the Murray Darling we are warranted in using things like the herpes virus against European carp, but we also have a long-term obligation to explore less harmful approaches including novel techniques offered by synthetic biology.
Get Angry about Climate Change (under review)
The environmental crisis is an immediate existential threat. It is also, however, psychologically overwhelming. This combination is potentially deadly - we need to act fast, but instead members of the public often find themselves paralysed, drowning in anxiety, angst, and despair as they stare down the barrel of catastrophic changes they feel they cannot combat. These negative eco-emotions, and subsequent inaction, have increasingly been the focus of academic research and public articles. To combat them, the standard narrative in academia is that we ought to turn to eco-hope and eco-optimism. Here, I argue that while both of these emotions are important, researchers have left an important tool for combating paralysis off the table: eco-anger. I survey the history of anger as a force for social change, and as a means of motivating action in the face of overwhelming negative emotions, arguing that it needs to be pushed to the fore of our eco-emotion conversations. I then show what features eco-anger must have to be productive, distinguish between anger as action-motivating and anger as action-guiding, and respond to worries that anger may be a counter-productive emotion.
Astronomy and Physics
Big Science Collaborations Must Include Humanities and Social Sciences, (2023, Nature: Human Behaviour, with A. Marcoci et al.)
[Correspondence]
How to (Ethically) Site a Telescope (Ongoing Project for the HPC working group of the next generation Event Horizon Telescope)
The decision of where to build a telescope is often presented as a technical question dependent on factors like atmospheric thickness, air quality, cost, and access. Once potential sites have been narrowed down, however, it is critical that scientists also factor in other non-technical aspects such as how the telescope will affect and be received by local communities and individuals, and the environmental impacts of the site. Drawing on success stories from other areas of science including gene-drives, renewable energies, and large-scale physics collaborations like LIGO and the LHC, I examine what ethical obligations astronomers have during the siting process and beyond, and how to best approach fulfilling these obligations via outreach, engagement, and environmentally friendly policies.
Circular Spaces and Privileged Times: What the Video Game Asteroids Can Tell Us About Time (2023, Synthese)
[Article]
Presentism has long struggled with the results of special relativity. One proposed solution is to stipulate the existence of an ontologically or metaphysically privileged frame which defines the global present for all observers. Recently this proposal has cropped up in literature on spatially closed universes (SCUs) which seem to naturally instantiate such structures. This paper examines the privileged frame proposal through the lens of SCUs, arguing that even in these topologies which seem overwhelmingly friendly to presentism the theory fails. It is then shown how these failures are fundamental to the project, rather than specific to the SCU case.
HPC Collaboration Publications:
The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: History, Culture and Philosophy, (2023, Galaxies)
[Article]
The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: Key Science Goals (2023, Galaxies)
[Article]
[Correspondence]
How to (Ethically) Site a Telescope (Ongoing Project for the HPC working group of the next generation Event Horizon Telescope)
The decision of where to build a telescope is often presented as a technical question dependent on factors like atmospheric thickness, air quality, cost, and access. Once potential sites have been narrowed down, however, it is critical that scientists also factor in other non-technical aspects such as how the telescope will affect and be received by local communities and individuals, and the environmental impacts of the site. Drawing on success stories from other areas of science including gene-drives, renewable energies, and large-scale physics collaborations like LIGO and the LHC, I examine what ethical obligations astronomers have during the siting process and beyond, and how to best approach fulfilling these obligations via outreach, engagement, and environmentally friendly policies.
Circular Spaces and Privileged Times: What the Video Game Asteroids Can Tell Us About Time (2023, Synthese)
[Article]
Presentism has long struggled with the results of special relativity. One proposed solution is to stipulate the existence of an ontologically or metaphysically privileged frame which defines the global present for all observers. Recently this proposal has cropped up in literature on spatially closed universes (SCUs) which seem to naturally instantiate such structures. This paper examines the privileged frame proposal through the lens of SCUs, arguing that even in these topologies which seem overwhelmingly friendly to presentism the theory fails. It is then shown how these failures are fundamental to the project, rather than specific to the SCU case.
HPC Collaboration Publications:
The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: History, Culture and Philosophy, (2023, Galaxies)
[Article]
The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: Key Science Goals (2023, Galaxies)
[Article]