March 2018 Lunchtime Abstracts & Details

Mermin in Bananaworld: Bub on Quantum Mechanics
Michel Janssen
University of Minnesota
Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract:  In the 1980s, David Mermin derived a simple example of a Bell inequality and showed that it is violated in measurements on entangled quantum systems. In this talk, I reanalyze Mermin’s example, using correlation arrays, the workhorse in Jeffrey Bub’s Bananaworld (2016). For the class of all non-signaling correlations conceivable in the kind of experiment considered by Mermin, I derive both the Bell inequality, a necessary condition for such correlations to be allowed classically, and the Tsirelson bound, a necessary condition for them to be allowed quantum-mechanically. I show that the Tsirelson bound for these experiments follows directly from the geometry going into their quantum-mechanical analysis. I use this example to promote Bubism (not to be confused with QBism though both are information-theoretic approaches to the foundations of quantum mechanics). I do so by comparing the rules for probabilities in quantum mechanics, illustrated by my Bubist reanalysis of Mermin’s example, to the rules for spatio-temporal behavior in special relativity.

The Perils of P-Hacking and the Promise of Pre-Analysis Plans
Jacob Stegenga
University of Cambridge, History & Philosophy of Science
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract:  P-hacking involves the manipulation of methods and data to find statistically significant results. Many claim that p-hacking is a problem in science, especially in the medical and social sciences. On the other hand, some successful sciences seem to rely on methods akin to p-hacking. The problem with p-hacking is usually articulated from a frequentist perspective. In this paper we articulate the epistemic peril of p-hacking using three philosophical resources: predictivism, Bayesian confirmation theory, and model selection theory. We draw on these resources to explain the precise conditions under which p-hacking is epistemically pernicious, and those conditions under which it is fine. This requires a novel understanding of Bayesianism, since a standard criticism of Bayesian confirmation theory is that it cannot accommodate the influence of biased methods. A methodological device widely used to mitigate the peril of p-hacking is a pre-analysis plan.  Some say that following a pre-analysis plan is epistemically meritorious while others deny this, and in practice pre-analysis plans are often violated. We use the formal groundwork developed earlier in the paper to resolve this debate, offering a modest defense of the use of pre-analysis plans. Further, we argue that pre-registration of plans can be epistemically valuable even if the plan is not strictly followed. 
(Paper co-authored with Zoë Hitzig, Harvard University)

 
What is Philosophy of Biology?: A Data-Driven Account
Phillip Honenberger, Postdoctoral Associate
University of Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science
Friday, March 30, 2018
Postponed until April 3
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
 
Abstract:  As an evolving discipline with ambiguous and contestable boundaries, the philosophy of biology is a challenging object for historical analysis. Here I use a variety of data sources and methods to reconstruct the history of the philosophy of biology as a globally distributed network of more than 4000 individuals, hundreds of institutions, and 50,000 publications, as well as a dynamic entity with shifting membership and research programs. The approach gives new representations of such features as individual authors’ contributions to the field (through publication counts and citation counts); breakdown of geographical, disciplinary, and institutional affiliations of contributors; extent and form of collaboration between biologists and philosophers; and topical breakdown as manifest in publication keywords, conference presentations, textbooks, and syllabi. The results also provide data-based perspectives on oft-made claims about the field – for instance, that it has been especially male, especially American, especially interdisciplinary, especially collaborative, or especially useful to biologists – and raise the methodological bar for HOPOS (“history of the philosophy of science”) accounts in general.