Philosophy and the Sciences

Philosophers, Epidemiologists & Others Call for Human Challenge Trials for COVID-19 Vaccine

125 experts in various fields have signed a letter to the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, calling for the U.S. government “to undertake immediate preparations for human challenge trials” for a vaccine for COVID-19. (more…)

Philosopher Appointed to Federal Advisory Committee on Biosecurity

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) is a federal advisory committee that “addresses issues related to biosecurity and dual use research at the request of the United States Government.” (more…)

Countenancing Segregation Based on Imaginary Science (guest post)

“Papers like this should be left ignored, and certainly not mistaken for brave declarations of inconvenient truths.” (more…)

A Philosopher Takes on Evolutionary Psychology

“Evolutionary psychological inferences commonly fail to satisfy reasonable epistemic criteria.” The failures are so significant that good evolutionary psychology may not be possible. (more…)

Advocating for Tech Firms to Hire Philosophers

I have spent the better half of the last two years trying to convince companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, DeepMind, and OpenAI that they need to hire philosophers. (more…)

“Philosophers for Future” – Focusing Philosophical Work on Climate Change

There is now a call for philosophers to join with others who have been protesting the lack of action on climate change.

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Philosophers On a Physics Experiment that “Suggests There’s No Such Thing As Objective Reality”

Earlier this month, MIT Technology Review published an article entitled “A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality.” It was one of several publications to excitedly report on a recent experiment conducted by Massimiliano Proietti (Heriot-Watt University) and others. (more…)

How Science Can Get the Philosophy It Needs

A recent essay in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by an interdisciplinary group of scholars argues that philosophy has had “an important and productive impact on science” and provides recommendations for how to facilitate cooperation between philosophers and scientists.

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New Group: Philosophers for Sustainability

Philosophers for Sustainability is a new group of philosophy faculty and graduate students interested in working toward environmental sustainability and combating climate change in practice, especially within academia. (more…)

Naturalism, Science, and the Possibility of Philosophy

“It is perfectly possible to do philosophy (even metaphysics or epistemology) if you do not believe that your views about mind, language, and reality can be used to ground (or dismiss) science.” (more…)

An Out of this World Philosophy PhD Opportunity

J. Adam Carter and Neil McDonnell, both faculty in philosophy at the University of Glasgow, have received funding from the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to partner with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to create a new doctoral studentship. (more…)

MIT Launches Billion Dollar Ethics-Oriented AI Initiative

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is establishing a new college focused on the development and “ethical application” artificial intelligence. (more…)

Lessons on Disagreement from a Psychologist of Human Error

Lee Ross (Stanford), an influential social psychologist, reflects on his career of studying error and disagreement in a new essay at Perspectives on Psychological Science. (more…)

When Scientists Read Philosophy, Are They Reading The “Wrong Philosophers”?

“The trouble with physicists who denigrate philosophy is that they read the wrong philosophers, which sad to say is most philosophers.”

That’s Clark Glymour (Carnegie Mellon) in an interview with Richard Marshall at 3:AM Magazine. (more…)

Freaky Audio Illusions In The News

By now, you’ve probably heard of the “laurel/yanny” audio illusion making the rounds. If not, you can hear it on the page of this article about it at The New York Times that embeds a helpful tool to modify its frequencies in various ways to adjust which of the two words it sounds more like. (more…)

Resurrecting Brains: Philosophical Questions and New Ethical Territory (guest post)

A team of scientists led by Nenad Sestan (Yale) have “restored circulation to the brains of decapitated pigs and kept the reanimated organs alive for as long as 36 hours,” reports MIT Technology Review. The method used to keep pigs’ brains alive outside the body will work on other animals, including primates, Sestan said. The following is a guest post * by Carolyn Di..

Philosophical Implications of New Thought-Imaging Technology

The CBC reports on recent work on thought-imaging technology, the use and development of which would raise various questions in ethics, and which would possibly be relevant to work in philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, philosophy of science, philosophy of action, and other areas of philosophy. (more…)

Helpful Remarks Regarding Implicit Bias

Some common criticisms of implicit bias are mistaken, argue John Doris (Washington Univ., St. Louis), Laura Niemi (Duke), and Keith Payne (UNC Chapel Hill) in a recent column at Scientific American. (more…)

Philosophers Write In Support of Compensating Plasma Donors

A group of philosophers and economists have published an open letter to Expert Panel on Immune Globulin Product Supply and Related Impacts in Canada opposing legislation that would make it illegal to pay people for blood plasma donations. (more…)

Recent Science of Possible Interest to Philosophers

Are there relatively recent scientific developments or findings that should be getting more attention from philosophers (and not just philosophers of science)? What are some good examples of philosophers taking up relatively recent, but perhaps not widely known or appreciated, scientific developments or findings? (more…)

New Interdisciplinary Institute for Science & Technology Studies

The Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology & Society (AJI) has been launched at the University of South Carolina. (more…)

Why Science Education Needs Philosophy

Many of the young people who attend my classes think that philosophy is a fuzzy discipline that’s concerned only with matters of opinion, whereas science is in the business of discovering facts, delivering proofs, and disseminating objective truths. Furthermore, many of them believe that scientists can answer philosophical questions, but philosophers have no busines..

What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Do for Philosophy

Adina Roskies, professor of philosophy at Dartmouth College, discusses neuroscience and philosophy in a recent interview with Richard Marshall at 3AM:Magazine. (more…)

Scientism’s Threat To Philosophy

So, just as naturalism-as-opposed-to-apriorism succumbs to scientism when it falsely assumes that whatever isn’t a priori must be science, naturalism-as-opposed-to-supernaturalism succumbs to scientism when it falsely assumes that whatever isn’t religion must be science. Granted, theological “explanations” don’t really explain anything; but it doesn’t follow, and it..

Beliefs About Genetic & Environmental Determinism By Discipline

Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, a new journal, has published the results of a survey of academics, sorted by discipline, regarding their views about genetic and environmental determinism and the explanatory power of science. (more…)