The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science

Today on the podcast, Mauricio Suárez talks with Samara about his new book - Inference and Representation: A study in Modelling Science.

Mauricio is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, a life member at Clare Hall Cambridge and research associate at the London School of Economics. 

Mauricio has a long standing interest in the ways scientists represent the phenomena they study, in particular, through modelling, and his book seeks to answer the question: How should we best understand the relationship between a scientific model and the aspect of the world the model is intended to represent?

Are there substantive criteria – a set of necessary and sufficient conditions  – that a model must meet to serve as an adequate representation?

Or, as Mauricio argues, is it better to take a more pragmatic and deflationary approach.

In this approach, the search for a ‘defining condition for representation’ is abandoned. Instead,  the effectiveness of a model is understood to not be determined by substantive criteria, but rather by the models ability to enable appropriate, fruitful scientific inferences relevant for the phenomena under consideration.

Transcript of the episode available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/mauricio-suárez-transcript

Resources related to the episode:

• Inference and Representation: A Study in Modeling Science, Suárez (uchicago.edu)
• Mauricio Suárez (personal website)
• 'An Inferential Conception of Scientific Representation' | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core (2022)
• Scientific Representation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Welcome to the final episode of Season 2 (with a bonus ep coming next week!). We take a moment in this episode to reflect on the first year of the HPS podcast.

Just a few weeks ago Sam and Indi attended the biannual AAHPSSS (The Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science) conference at the University of Sydney. In this episode they reflect on their time at the conference, featuring interviews with various conference attendees and presenters.

HPS Scholars featured in this episode are:

• Rebecca Mann
• Dr Rachael Brown
• Jacob Hall
• Zoe Cosker
• Dr Jacinthe Flore
• Gemma Lucy Smart
• Dr Alan Jurgens
• Dr Marilyn Stendera
• Jules Rankin
• Dr Sophie Ritson

The 2023 conference program provides more information on the presentations of those mentioned, as well as everyone who we didn’t get a chance to interview! The program can be found here: https://aahpsss.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/AAHPSSS2023_Program.pdf

The transcript for this episode is also available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/aaphsss-transcript-s2-ep12

We would like to thank everyone who has helped the HPS have a successful first year, either by listening to the podcast, engaging on social media, or by being on it! We look forward to what the next year and season will bring. 

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

"We get this instinct that true science must start from a firm foundation. Time and again, that's what I see NOT happening in the practice of science. We start from where we stand. The foundation is never indubitable, the foundation is provisional."

Our very special guest today is Hasok Chang. Hasok is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and his research focuses on 'taking the most obvious items of scientific knowledge and asking how we came to know such things. Usually, such a line of questioning reveals that even the most mundane piece of knowledge was hard won through the most challenging and fascinating investigations and debates.'

As well as being well know for his books, Inventing Temperature, Is Water H2O?, Realism for Realistic People, and his upcoming work How does a Battery Work? Hasok has taken a leading role in HPS, as both a founding member of the Committee for Integrated HPS and the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice. 

In today’s episode we discuss Hasok’s notion of ‘Epistemic Iteration’ – the idea that we do not start our inquiries from a solid foundation, but rather begin from an imperfect position and then use the outcomes of our inquiry to refine and correct that original starting point.

Transcript of the episode available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/hasok-chang-transcript-s2-ep-11

Resources related to the episode:

• Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice
• The Committee for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science
• Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress | Oxford Academic
• Is Water H2O?: Evidence, Realism and Pluralism | SpringerLink
• Realism for Realistic People | Cambridge
• 'Epistemic iteration and natural kinds: Realism and pluralism in taxonomy' Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry IV: Classification of Psychiatric Illness | Oxford Academic
• 'The Rising of Chemical Natural Kinds through Epistemic Iteration' Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice 

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

"Philosophers of science are really good about thinking about causation and trying to figure out what the mechanisms are that make something work"

Today we welcome Katherine Furman, who talks to Indi about the philosophy of public health. Katherine is a lecturer of Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Liverpool. She is currently on research leave to work with the SOCRATES project in Hanover, Germany.

Katherine explores with us the intricacies of implementing public health measures in the face of epidemics. When there is resistance to these programs, the cause is rarely as simple as an information deficit. Katherine draws on her South African background in her focus on the South African AIDS epidemic and how various case studies of rejection of public health programs may be applicable to the wider philosophy of science.

Transcript of the episode available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/katherine-furman-transcript-s2-e10

Resources related to the episode:

Katherine's Website: https://katherinefurman.com/

SOCRATES Centre: https://www.socrates.uni-hannover.de/en/ 

Maya Goldenberg's Book: Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science

Benjamin Black's Book: Belly Woman: Birth, Blood & Ebola - the Untold Story

Article on Ebola: Ebola: failures, flashpoints and focus | | Africa at LSE

Jonny Steinberg's Book: Three Letter Plague

Heidi Larson's Book: Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start - and Why They Don't Go Away

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Today's guest is Professor Carl Bergstrom from the University of Washington. Carl has been touring Australia over the last few weeks and we were delighted when he agreed to join us while he was in Melbourne.

Carl works across evolutionary biology, informatics and science studies and has become particularly well-known for his work concerning the spread of misinformation and what we can do about it. Together with his colleague Jevin West, Carl developed a university course named ‘Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World’, which they have since developed into a best selling book.

In this episode Carl discusses a range of topics including the role institutional norms and incentive structures play in shaping science, the challenges of studying misinformation and why he believes we must urgently turn our collective attention to the study of collective human behaviour if we hope to address our current information crisis.

Transcript of the episode available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/carl-bergstrom-transcript-s2-ep9

Resources related to the episode:

Carl's Website: https://ctbergstrom.com/

'Calling Bullshit' Website: https://callingbullshit.org/

Guardian Article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/01/carl-bergstrom-people-are-using-data-to-bullshit

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Welcome to another week of the HPS podcast. This week's guest is Gerhard Wiesenfeldt of the University of Melbourne. He joins us as he discusses the benefits and pitfalls of studying those in the history of science who are less well known.

The popular narratives in the history of science tend to centre around a few key figures on whom extensive research and work has been done, those such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin. However, for every household name there were a legion of other scientists also working in their respective fields.

By studying these scientists we gain insight not only into an understudied piece of history, but also into the everyday working of the science machine, and the workers who kept it going.

The transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/gerhard-weisenfeldt-transcript-s2-e8

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

This week's guest is Ian Hesketh, an intellectual historian and historian of science at the University of Queensland. His work in HPS revolves around 19th century scientific practices and their intricacies. He works to situate this science not only in its temporal history, but to delve into the ways in which the practice itself helped to form the science of the day.

He joins the podcast to discuss how scientific and historical writing practices can effect the way in which science itself is shaped, as well as the rich tradition of science history present in the discipline of science itself. To demonstrate how the writing of science history can shape how science is produced, he turns to the Darwinian Revolution. Darwin was not simply a scientist, but was well versed in the history of his field as well as its changing nature, a fact integral to his development of the theory of evolution.

Transcript of the episode is now available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/ian-hesketh-transcript-s2-e7

Resources related to the episode:

Book: The Science of History in Victorian Britain: Making the Past Speak https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1dnppv7  

Book: Imagining the Darwinian Revolution: Historical Narratives of Evolution from the Nineteenth Century to the Present https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2k4fwpr

Ian's Chapter: Imagining the Darwinian Revolution https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:005e875

Article:  From Copernicus to Darwin to you: history and the meaning(s) of evolution https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4d9ee19

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Today's guest is Sarah Qidwai, a Postdoctoral Researcher in the history of science who focuses on British Imperialism, Science and Colonialism, the relation of Science and Islam, as well as the history of evolutionary biology. Sarah’s dissertation focussed on how the Muslim polymath, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, engaged with science and science popularisation. 

In this week’s episode Sarah introduces us to the topic of Science and Colonialism – a crucial area of research for understanding many of the features of modern science, as well as reconfiguring our understanding of its history – expanding our vision and challenging many traditional Eurocentric notions of what it takes to really come to grips with understanding this thing we call science.

Transcript of the episode is now available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/sarah-qidwai-transcript-s2-e6

Resources related to the episode:

• Sarah's Website:  https://sarahqidwai.com/
• Sarah's Article: 'Re-examining Complexity: Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Interpretation of 'Science' in Islam' in Rethinking History, Science, and Religion (2019)
• Sarah's Article: 'Darwin or Design? Examining Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Views on Human Evolution' in The Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan (2019)
• Marwa Elshakry's Book: Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950
• Sujit Sivasundaram's Article: On Global Histories of Science, Isis: Vol 101, No 1
• Further reading: The Routledge Handbook of Science and Empire

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Today's guest on the podcast is Dr Adrian Currie, senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Exeter. Much of Adrian's research revolves around the question 'How do Scientists successfully generate knowledge in tricky circumstances?'

Much of Adrian's work has focused on the historical sciences, such as palaeontology and archeology. In this episode Adrian talks about how scientists in these fields have developed a range of creative and opportunistic ways of developing knowledge - even when evidence is thin on the ground.

A transcript of this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/adrian-currie-transcript-s2-e5

Additional resources:

Adrian's website - https://sites.google.com/site/adrianmitchellcurrie/

Blog - Extinct: The Philosophy of Palaeontology Blog - http://www.extinctblog.org/

Book - Rock, Bone & Ruin: An Optimist's Guide to the Historical Sciences (2018) - https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262037266/rock-bone-and-ruin/

Book - Scientific Knowledge & the Deep Past: History Matters (2019) 

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

"Everything on the land is reflected in the sky. So if you want to learn about indigenous astronomy, You have to learn about everything."

This week we welcome Duane Hamacher to the HPS podcast as he discusses Indigenous science and its importance in the Australian context.

Duane is a professor of astronomy who focuses on Indigenous astronomy, its history, and its present role in our knowledge systems. He works with elders from Indigenous groups across the world to bring to light the history of astronomy in their culture, and how we can appreciate and learn from it today.

He discusses with us the importance of considering Indigenous knowledge systems, be they oral, dance, or art, and their validity amongst Western science, and the importance of not dismissing that which looks different from what we might have previously been taught. At the University of Melbourne, Duane teaches a course called Indigenous Astronomy, run through the physics department, which highlights for students that there is more than one way of knowing, the synergy which exists between different modes of knowing, and how this fits in with the rest of their schooling at the university. Indigenous and Western ways of knowing are not disparate ideas, but run in parallel.

A transcript of this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/duane-hamacher-transcript-s2-e4

Some links related to this episode can be found below:

• Book - Disciplining the Savages: Savaging the Disciplines by Martin Nakata 
• Book - The First Astronomers - How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars by Duane Hamacher
• Article - Stars that vary in brightness shine in the oral traditions of Aboriginal Australians (theconversation.com) by Duane Hamacher 
• Book Chapter - Safeguarding Indigenous Sky Rights from Colonial Exploitation by Karlie Alinta Noon, Krystal De Napoli, Peter Swanton, Carla Guedes, Duane Hamacher
• Article - Dismantling the Divide Between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge by Arun Agrawal

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds. 

This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org