We’re thrilled to begin our news for this month with two exciting announcements. First, Gillian Barker was the winner of the 2018 PSA Women’s Caucus Prize in Feminist Philosophy of Science for her recent book, Beyond Biofatalism: Human Nature for an Evolving World. The full announcement from the PSA Women’s Caucus can be seen here. Please join us in congratulating Gillian on this fantastic accomplishment!

We’d also like to congratulate Michael Anderson, who was among the Fall 2018 CRCs officially announced this month. Mike is the recipient of a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Philosophy of Science. His research, along with the other CRCS at Western, was highlighted in a Western News article, World-changing research fueled by new CRCs.

Several Rotman members and alumni took part in PSA2018: The 26th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, held November 1-4, in Seattle, Washington. Details on their talks and symposia can be found on the PSA2018 meeting program.

  • Michael Anderson – Neural Reuse and the Society of Mind
  • Justin Bzovy – Species Concepts as Tools: Local Classificatory Consilience as a Meta-Heuristic
  • Justin Bzovy (moderator) – Coevolution of Sexual Display and Desire Symposium
  • Klodian Coko – Robustness, Invariance, and Multiple Determination
  • Michael Cuffaro – The Open Systems View as Fundamental
  • Craig Fox – On the Role of Narratives in Isotope Geochemistry
  • Daniel Hicks – Why Baier? Feminism, Trust, and Political Critiques of Science
  • Daniel Hicks (moderator) – Epistemic Injustice in Science Symposium
  • Models, Computer Simulation, and Dark Matter Symposium (organized by Marie Gueguen):
    • Chris Smeenk – Epistemology of N-Body Cosmological Simulations
    • Marie Gueguen – Alternatives to Robustness
    • Helen Meskhidze – Can machine learning provide understanding?: How cosmologists use machine learning to explain observations of the universe
    • Melissa Jacquart – Observing Dark Matter Through Computer Simulations
  • Joshua Luczak – It’s My Model and I’ll Represent if I Want To
  • Kerry McKenzie – Doing Metaphysics Without the Fiction of Fundamentality: Towards a Coherent Scientific Structuralism
  • Philippos Papagiannopoulos – Algorithms and Real Computation: A Quest for Foundations
  • Jamie Shaw – Duhem on Good Sense and Theory Pursuit: From Virtue to Social Epistemology
  • Chris Smeenk (moderator) – President’s Plenary Symposium: Shedding Light on Dark Matter

All other news for our members is listed below alphabetically:

Rotman alumnus Andrew Chater has a new publication: “An Examination of the Framing of Climate Change by the Government of Canada, 2006-2016.” Canadian Journal of Communication 43, no. 4 (2018): 583-600.

A preprint of Michael Cuffaro‘s paper, “Kantian and Neo-Kantian First Principles for Physical and Metaphysical Cognition“, is available on the PhilSci Archive.

The advance access version of Michael Cuffaro‘s paper “Information Causality, the Tsirelson Bound, and the ‘Being-Thus’ of Things” was published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics.

A book chapter by Michael Cuffaro,  “Universality, Invariance, and the Foundations of Computational Complexity in the light of the Quantum Computer” (and also the whole book) has been published and made available for download through your local library.

The Ethics of Pragmatic Trials research team has three new open access publications:

Taljaard M, Weijer C, Grimshaw JM, Ali A, Brehaut JC, Campbell MK, Carroll K, Edwards S, Eldridge S, Forrest CB, Giraudeau B, Goldstein CE, Graham ID, Hemming K, Hey SP, Horn AR, Jairath V, Klassen TP, London AJ, Marlin S, Marshall JC, McIntyre L, McKenzie JE, Nicholls SG, Paprica PA, Zwarenstein M, Fergusson DA. Developing a framework for the ethical design and conduct of pragmatic trials in healthcare: a mixed methods research protocol. Trials 2018; 19:525.

Nicholls SG, Carroll K, Brehaut JC, Weijer C, Hey SP, Goldstein CE, Zwarenstein M, Graham ID, McKenzie JE, McIntyre L, Jairath V, Campbell MK, Grimshaw JM, Fergusson DA, Taljaard M. Stakeholder views regarding ethical issues in the design and conduct of pragmatic trials: study protocol. BMC Medical Ethics 2018; 19:90.

Hemming K, Taljaard M, McKenzie JE, Hooper R, Copas A, Thompson JA, Dixon-Woods M, Aldcroft A, Doussau A, Grayling M, Kristunas C, Goldstein CE, Campbell MK, Girling A, Eldridge S, Campbell MJ, Lilford RJ, Weijer C, Forbes AB, Grimshaw JM. Reporting of stepped wedge cluster randomized trials: extension of the CONSORT 2010 statement with explanation and elaboration. British Medical Journal 2018;363:k1614.

Cory Goldstein, Monica Taljaard and Charles Weijer held a workshop on November 21st, entitled “Ethical issues in cluster randomised trials” at the annual meeting for Current Developments in Cluster Randomised Trials and Stepped Wedge Designs.

Nicole Fice went to Ottawa to advocate for changes to EI parental leave benefits for adoptive parents, kin, and customary caregivers, as a part of her work on the research project Time to Attach. She and the Time to Attach team, which included researchers from Western and representatives from Adopt4Life: Ontario’s Adoptive Parents Association and Adoption Council of Canada, met with several MPs and policy advisors to discuss a 15-week “attachment leave” for adoptive parents and other permanent caregivers.

Diane O’Leary has two new papers: “Bodily distress syndrome: Concerns about scientific credibility in research and implementation“, in a special issue on scientific integrity in the Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry, and “Ethical Classification of ME/CFS in the United Kingdom”, forthcoming in Bioethics.

Rotman alumnus Philippos Papagiannopoulos gave a talk, titled “Are algorithms always effective procedures?”, at the 5th Panhellenic Conference for the Philosophy of Science, in Athens, held November 29 – December 1.

Rotman alumnus Jamie Shaw has a new paper, titled “Feyerabend’s well-ordered science: how an anarchist distributes funds“, published in Synthese.

On November 9, Rotman alumna Catherine Stinson gave a keynote address, titled “Frankenstein’s Progeny: AI’s Culture of Exceptionalism”, at A Forum Celebrating 200 Years of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, held at Texas Christian University.

Chris Viger spoke about his current research at this month’s joint Rotman-BMI coffee break, held on November 27.

Pictured above: Chris Smeenk (left) at the Presidential Plenary Symposium at PSA2018; Marie Gueguen presenting at PSA2018; Craig Fox presenting at PSA2018; a tour of the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Washington, including members of the New Directions in Philosophy of Cosmology research group Craig Fox, Marie Gueguen, Mike Schneider (UCI), and Kevin Kadowaki (UCI); Chris Viger presents at the November 2018 joint Rotman-BMI coffee break; Evidence Reversals: How Fragile is the Evidence Base?, presented by Dr. Janet Martin on November 30, as part of the annual Rotman Speakers Series.