Workshop “The Experimental Side of Modeling” (2)

San Francisco State University HUM 587 March 30-31, 2010

Free but registration is required. Contact: Isabelle Peschard

Click here to see the program and videos of lectures of the
Workshop “The Experimental Side of Modeling” (1)

This second workshop in the series will focus on questions related to data in the assessment of models or/and empirical characterization of phenomena. Questions to be addressed include what are relevant data, what are the relevant physical parameters of the system under study, i.e. those that make a difference that should not be neglected or shielded off but rather be accounted for. Are there scientific controversies about this, how are they resolved?

We aim to have these sorts of questions addressed in different scientific disciplines, with attention to differences in how they are approached and dealt with there. Elizabeth Lloyd will take up those issues as they arise in climate modeling, Alan Love and Roberta Millstein in biology. Anthony Chemero, Isabelle Peschard, and Bas van Fraassen will address foundations and applications of dynamics in such diverse areas as fluid mechanics and cognitive science.

ABSTRACTS: click here for all, or on individual links below

SCHEDULE:

Tuesday March 30, 2010

coffee at 9:30

10:00 Anthony Chemero (Franklin and Marshall College, Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind Program)
Dynamics, Data and Noise in the Cognitive Sciences.
11:30 Isabelle Peschard (San Francisco State University)
Data Model, Reliability, and the Neglected Relevance of Relevance
AFTERNOON lunch 1:00- 1:50
2:00 Roberta Millstein (University of California at Davis, Science and Technology Studies)
Obtaining Data on Natural Selection and Random Drift in the Wild: The Case of the Great Snail Debate
3:30 Alan Love (University of Minnesota, Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science)
       Modeling Experimental Evidence in Studies of Ontogeny: Idealization, Abstraction, and Whole Mount In Situ Hybridization
Wednesday March 31        [APA Pacific Conf begins in San Francisco late afternoon that day]
MORNING           coffee at 9:30
10:00 Bas van Fraassen (San Francisco State University)
Modeling and measurement: the criterion of empirical grounding
11:30 Elizabeth Lloyd (University of Indiana, Arnold and Maxine Tanis Professor of History and Philosophy of Science)
When the models are right and the data are wrong: Climate modeling of the troposphere

Commentators at large: Arthur Fine (U. Washington), James Griesemer (UC Davis), Jenann Ismael (U. Arizona), Edward MacKinnon (CSU East Bay), Elizabeth Potter (Mills College), Shannon Vallor (Santa Clara U.), Andrea Woody (U. Washington)