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Colloquia
Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science
2012–2013
53rd Annual Program
40th Anniversary of the First Osgood Hill Conference on Quantum Gravity
Monday, October 15, 9:00am-5:00pm
Barristers Hall, Law School
765 Commonwealth Ave.
9:00am-12:00pm
“Introduction: Forty Years After”
John Stachel Center for Einstein Studies, Boston University
With a special pre-recorded presentation:
“Quantum Gravity? Or Quantum and Gravity from New Physics?”
Roger Penrose Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford
“The Meaning of Background Independence”
Tian Yu Cao Philosophy, Boston University
“Quantum or Emergent Gravity?—Key Issues”
Bei-Lok Hu Physics, University of Maryland
“Simplicial Gravity and Strings”
John Swain Physics, Northeastern University
2:00pm-5:30pm
“Some Features of a Good Quantum Gravity Theory”
George Ellis Mathematics, University of Capetown
“The Problem of Space in Quantum Gravity”
Christian Wüthrich Philosophy, Science Studies, UC San Diego
“Quantum Gravity Phenomenology”
Giovanni Amelino-Camelia Physics, University of Rome La Sapienza
“Meaning and Measurement in Quantum Gravity”
John Stachel Center for Einstein Studies, Boston University
“Unimodular Conformal and Projective Relativity”
Kaća Bradonjić Physics, Wellesley College
Co-sponsored by the Center for Einstein Studies.
Turing 100
Sunday, November 11 and Monday, November 12
Photonics Center, 9th floor Colloquium Room
8 St. Mary's Street, Room 906
(Conference Poster)
Sunday, 10:00am-12:00pm
I. Turing's Philosophical and Logical Foundations
“On Formalism Freeness: A Meditation on Gödel's 1946 Princeton Bicentennial Lecture ” (slides)
Juliette Kennedy Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki “Turing, Church, Gödel, a personal perspective ” (slides)
Michael Rabin Computer Science, Harvard University “Turing and Wittgenstein” (slides)
Juliet Floyd Philosophy, Boston University
Sunday, 1:45pm-3:45pm
II. Turing and Mathematics: Computability and Definability
“Universality is Ubiquitous” (slides)
Martin Davis Courant Institute, NYU; Mathematics, UC Berkeley “Collapsing Sentences”
Gerald Sacks Mathematics, Harvard University and MIT “The Hierarchy of Definability: An Extended Thesis” (slides)
Theodore Slaman Mathematics, UC Berkeley
Sunday, 4:00pm-6:00pm
III. Turing and Cryptography
“Rational Proofs”
Silvio Micali Computer Science, MIT “Turing and the Growth of Cryptography” (slides)
Ronald Rivest Computer Science, MIT “Alan Turing and Voice Encryption”
Craig Bauer Mathematics, York College of Pennsylvania
Monday, 9:30am-12:15pm
IV. Turing and AI
Title TBA
Marvin Minsky Media Arts and Sciences, MIT “Why Neanderthals Couldn't Pass Turing's Test and When Computers Will”
Patrick Henry Winston Computer Science, MIT “Embodying Computation at Higher Types” (slides)
S. Barry Cooper Mathematics, University of Leeds
Monday, 2:00pm-4:00pm
V. The Church-Turing Thesis
“Normal Forms for Puzzles: an Enigmatic Variant of Turing's Thesis”
Wilfrid Sieg Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University “Exploring the Computational Universe”
Stephen Wolfram Wolfram Research “Is there a Church-Turing Thesis for Social Algorithms?” (slides)
Rohit Parikh Computer Science, Mathematics, Philosophy, CUNY
Monday, 4:15pm-6:30pm
VI. Turing, Physics, and Probability
“Algorithmic Randomness and Turing's Work on Normality” (slides)
Rod Downey Mathematics, Victoria University of Wellington “Spacetime Physics and Non-Turing Computers”
Mark Hogarth Philosophy, Cambridge University “The Mysterious Thesis” (paper 1; paper 2)
Leonid Levin Computer Science, Boston University
Organized in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science and the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering. Financial support has been provided by the Hariri Institute (http://www.bu.edu/hic).
Updates about the conference and more information about Alan Turing will be posted on the conference website (http://www.bu.edu/hic/turing100/), hosted by the Hariri Institute.
How Can the History and Philosophy of Science Contribute to Contemporary U.S. Science Teaching?
Friday, December 7, 2012
Photonics Center, 9th Floor Colloquium Room
8 St. Mary's Street, Room 906
Public Conference
AM Sessions (PHO 906)
9:00 – 10:10 Introductory Comments/Panel I: History of HPS in Science Education
The Neglected Mandate: Teaching Science as Part of our Culture
Gerald Holton, Harvard University
HPS & ST: Looking Back and Going Forward
Michael Matthews, University of New South Wales
Panel Participants: Sevan Terzian, University of Florida; David Rudge, Western Michigan University
10:15 – 11:25 Panel II: HPS and the Science Frameworks
Framing the Learning/Teaching of Science and Nature of Science: Practices-Core Ideas-Crosscutting Concepts
Richard Duschl, NSF
Philosophy of Science and Science Education Reform
Gregory Kelly, Penn State
Panel Participants: Michael Ford, University of Pittsburgh; Jacob Foster, Mass DOE; Katherine McNeill, Boston College
11:30 – 12:40 Panel III: Teaching and Learning with HPS I: Outcomes for Teachers and Students
What History Teaches Us About Using History of Science to Teach About Nature of Science
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Science With a Background
Fanny Seroglou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Panel Participants: Katherine Brading, University of Notre Dame; Ricardo Lopes Coelho, University of Lisbon
Lunch 12:45 – 2:00 (Barrister’s Hall) — Invitees only
Plenary Speaker:
On the importance of defining before maligning: a case study from early science education
David Klahr, Carnegie Mellon University:
Public Conference
PM Sessions (PHO 906)
2:15 – 3:25 Panel IV: Teaching and Learning with HPS II: Outcomes for Teachers and Students
Using the History of Scientists to Inspire or Motivate STEM Learning
Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, Columbia University
HPS from the Teacher’s Perspective: Three Approaches to Teaching the Nature of Science
Douglas Allchin, University of Minnesota
Panel Participants: Frank Keil, Yale University; Michael Clough, Iowa State
3:30 – 4:40 Panel V: Using HPS in the Classroom: Ethical Reasoning and Modeling
Integrating Bioethics into Secondary Science Education: Content, Pedagogy and Lessons Learned
Mildred Solomon, The Hastings Center
Patterns of Cognitive Engagement that Interact with the Nature of Science to Complicate Public Understanding of Complexity and Scientific Research
Tina Grotzer, Harvard University
Panel Participants: Jeanne Chowning, Northwest Association for Biomedical Research
4:45 – 5:55 Panel VI: HPS in K-12 Professional Development
History of Science in the Classroom – a Story of Obstacles to Overcome
Dietmar Höttecke, Universität Hamburg
Assessing the Impact of a Historically Based Unit on Preservice Teachers’ Views of the Nature of Science
David Rudge, Western Michigan University
Panel Participants: John Clement, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Barbara Crawford, University of Georgia
Co-sponsored by the Boston University School of Education. We gratefully acknowledge the support of a REESE grant from the National Science Foundation.
More information, including a list of speakers and their profiles, is available at the conference website (http://www.bu.edu/hps-scied/).
The Robert S. Cohen Forum
The Science of Music: 150 Years Since Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone
Friday, March 22, 2013
Terrace Lounge, 2nd Floor, George Sherman Union
775 Commonwealth Ave.
1:00-5:00 pm
“The Reception of Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone: Celebrity vs. Enlightenment”
David Cahan History, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
“Sympathetic Resonance: The Influence of Helmholtz's Theory of Acoustics”
Lydia Patton Philosophy, Virginia Tech
“Pitched Battles: Helmholtz, Rayleigh, and Beyond”
Eric J. Heller Chemistry, Physics, Harvard University
“Musical Illusions, Perfect Pitch, and Other Mysteries”
Diana Deutsch Psychology, UC San Diego
The annual Robert S. Cohen Forum on Contemporary Issues in Science Studies is named in honor of the Center's cofounder and first director.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Boston University Center for the Humanities.
The Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy
A Symposium on John Broome's Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World
Thursday, April 11, 2013
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
2:00pm-6:00pm
John Broome White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford,
with commentators Stephen Gardiner (University of Washington), Caspar Hare (MIT), and David Roochnik (Boston University).
The Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy is named in honor of Steven Karbank, an alumnus and generous benefactor of the Philosophy Department and this symposium.
The Alfred I. Tauber Forum
Stereotype Threat: Philosophy, Psychology, and the Self
Monday, April 29, 2013
Terrace Lounge, 2nd Floor, George Sherman Union
775 Commonwealth Ave.
1:00-6:00pm
“Stereotype Threat: What it is, how it affects students' achievement over time, and how to fix it”
Greg Walton Psychology, Stanford University
“Stereotype Threat: Implications for the assessment of merit and for affirmative action”
Steven Spencer Psychology, University of Waterloo
“Why Are There So Few Women in Philosophy?”
Louise Antony Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Stereotype Threat and Intentional Performance”
Ron Mallon Philosophy, Washington University, St. Louis
“Using Knowledge: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives on Stereotype Threat”
Tamar Gendler Philosophy, Yale University
The annual Alfred I. Tauber Forum on Integrating Scientific Knowledge with Human Needs is named in honor of the Center's second director.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Boston University Center for the Humanities.
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