Farid Saberi

Farid Saberi, BA, MA, is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at Western University.

His research focuses on scientific explanation in biology and economics. His doctoral dissertation examines causal models and explanation within the major evolutionary transitions tradition in evolutionary biology, with particular attention to major transitions in brain evolution and what they can tell us about the human brain and natural intelligence. He is interested in how scientists explain, and how they invoke scientific authority, when their work bears on how we organize economic life or study the mind. The question of what makes a good scientific explanation is central to both, and it is the thread that ties his work together. His aim is to offer a clear philosophical account of that question, one that helps us judge when scientific explanations deserve our trust. 

Tell us a little about your current research. What questions or problems are you interested in?

I am a philosopher of science who studies how scientific explanations work in biology and economics: what makes an explanation good, how to choose between competing ones, and what each can legitimately support. 

My PhD focuses on Major Cognitive Transitions, an emerging area of evolutionary modeling that asks how nervous systems and cognition evolved, from the small brains of worms and flies to the large brains of mammals. I examine what kinds of models researchers use, which do what best, whether they compete or can be integrated, and what inferences about the function and diseases of the present human brain the evolutionary past can legitimately support. This gives neurobiologists studying behavior and cognition in insects, birds, and primates a clearer basis for comparing their models. 

I am also interested in explanation in economics, particularly what we can and cannot explain by invoking “neoliberal” or welfare policies for problems such as health inequity, the housing crisis, and the wealth gap. 

 

How does your research connect to issues or challenges outside of academia?

Organizations constantly act on explanations: why a problem exists, which factors drive it, and which interventions will work. My research offers practical tools for examining those explanations. 

One application is evolutionary medicine. Some neurobiologists propose that conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are linked to human cortical expansion, so the strength of evolutionary explanations matters clinically. Another is policy and program evaluation, where governmental and non-governmental organizations must judge which factors are doing explanatory work and what statistical and causal evidence can actually support. I also thrive in science communication and critical-thinking education, where the same skills help the public distinguish well-supported claims from pseudo-science. 

 

Why are you interested in exploring a research partnership with a not-for-profit, public-sector organization, or industry partner?

Many problems outside academia depend on decisions about evidence, causes, and explanations. What is causing this problem? Which factors matter? What evidence should we trust? 

A partnership would let me learn how practitioners answer these questions under real constraints, including incomplete information, competing priorities, and uncertainty, and how they weigh competing explanations and combine different kinds of evidence. In return, I could contribute expertise in analyzing explanations, causal claims, and inference. I want to connect philosophical analysis to the practical work of evidence-based decision-making. 

 

What skills or research expertise could you bring to a collaborative research project?

I bring expertise in philosophy of science, particularly explanation, causation, modeling, and inference. I ask what models and explanations are designed to do, what assumptions they rest on, what conclusions they support, and where their limits lie. 

Working across philosophy, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and economics has required me to engage closely with literature outside my home discipline, compare different theoretical and methodological approaches, and work in interdisciplinary groups. On a collaborative project, I could critically evaluate explanations and models, distinguish stronger from weaker causal claims, and assess what evidence can establish. 

I also bring practical skills. I have written reports and grants, I work in Python and Excel, and I have taught and facilitated workshops, which has made me comfortable explaining complex ideas to non-specialists and helping mixed groups work toward a shared goal. I enjoy translating across disciplines, which supports research interpretation, evaluation, and evidence-based recommendations. 

 

What is one thing you wish more organizations knew about the kind of research you do? 

I wish more organizations knew that philosophy of science can be useful even when it does not produce new empirical data. My research examines the structure of explanations: what is claimed as a cause, what assumptions connect evidence to conclusions, what alternatives exist, and what the evidence can actually establish. 

This matters because organizations often must act on explanations before those explanations have been fully examined. A broad claim such as “neoliberalism,” “poor management,” or “market failure” may point to something important, but it does not tell us which mechanisms are operating, how to distinguish that explanation from alternatives, or which interventions would address the problem. Philosophy of science provides conceptual and methodological scrutiny: making explanations more precise, clarifying what evidence supports them, and identifying where conclusions go beyond what the evidence warrants.