Phi-Geo Group presents at the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) conference on November 14-17
The Philosophy of the Geosciences research group (Φ-Geo Group) led by professor Alisa Bokulich has just presented at the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) conference on November 14-17 in New Orleans, LA. The conference had a 36% acceptance rate this year, so congratulations to the following professors, graduate students, and alumni!
- Professor Alisa Bokulich will be part of a symposium titled “Philosophy of Seismology: models and Measurements”
- Professor Miguel Ohnesorge, who will be joining the department in Fall 2025, will present “We Should Not Align Quantitative Measures with Stakeholder Values”
- Grad student Matthew Brewer will present “When Should Absence of Evidence be Evidence of Absence? A Case Study from Paleontology”
- Grad student Leticia Castillo Brache will present “Parachute Science in Paleontology as Distributive Epistemic Injustice”
- Grad student Matilde Carrera will present “When do Data Count as Evidence? A Taxonomy of Evidential Criteria in Human Evolution Research”
- Alumni members of the group Federica Bocchi and Aja Watkins will also be presenting as part of a symposium titled “From Data and Evidence to Policy and Action in the Environmental Sciences” and alumnus Katherine Valde will be part of a session called “Biological Individuals”
Statement from Professor Alisa Bokulich:
“We have lots of exciting news coming from the Philosophy Department’s F-Geo (Philosophy of Geosciences) Research Group: All five current members of the Phi-Geo group (graduate students Leticia Castillo Brache, Matt Brewer, Matilde Carrera, and faculty members Miguel Ohnesorge, and Alisa Bokulich) and two Phi-Geo alums (Federica Bocchi and Aja Watkins) all had their papers accepted for presentation at the upcoming Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) Biennial Meeting. This is remarkable given that this year’s acceptance rate for the conference was only 36% of submissions. Leticia will be presenting material from her dissertation on “Parachute Science in Paleontology as Distributive Epistemic Injustice”. Matt is also presenting from his dissertation “When Should Absence of Evidence Be Evidence of Absence? A Case Study from Paleogeology”. Matilde is presenting her paper “When Do Data Count as Evidence? A Taxonomy of Evidential Criteria in Human Evolution Research.” Miguel had his paper on how seismologists quantified earthquake size precisely by excluding stakeholder values from measure design & testing accepted; and Alisa her paper accepted “C.S. Peirce, Abduction, & Inverse Problems in the Geosciences.”
Talks this past summer by members of the Phi-Geo Group: Both Matilde and Matt gave talks at the Philosophy of Paleosciences conference. Alisa gave several invited lectures, including at the University of Exeter on “Reconstructing Extinct Life: Analogues, Homologues, and Biomechanical Models,” at Sapienza Università di Roma on “Charles S. Peirce, Geodesy, and the Dynamical View of Accuracy”, at the University of Minnesota on “C.S Peirce’s Social Epistemology”, and last weekend at Western University on Pragmatism and Philosophy of Science.
Publications coming out of the Phi-Geo Research Group include the following: Leticia’s paper “Parachute Science in Paleontology as Distributive Epistemic Injustice” and Matt’s paper “When Should Absence of Evidence Be Evidence of Absence? A Case Study from Paleogeology” were both accepted for publication in the top-ranked journal Philosophy of Science—congratulations Leticia and Matt! Leticia and Alisa co-authored a chapter “Models, Data Models, & Big Data” in the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Scientific Modeling, which is available open access. Matt and Matilde co-authored a review of Mauricio Suárez’s book Inference and Representation is forthcoming in the British Journal for the History of Science. Alisa and Federica co-authored Bokulich, Alisa and Federica Bocchi (2024) “Kuhn’s ‘5th Law of Thermodynamics’: Measurement, Data, and Anomalies” in Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions at 60, ed. by K. Brad Wray. Cambridge University Press. In addition, Matt wrote a popular piece for Extinct, a philosophy of paleosciences blog titled “Ancient Plates and Pirate Anchors: When Should we Treat Absence of Evidence as Evidence of Absence?’”