LSE Conjectures and Refutations Inaugural Workshop: Scientific Modelling

We are pleased to announce that the Conjectures and Refutations workshop series will hold its inaugural session on Scientific Modelling on 2 April 2026, organised by the PhD community in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.  

Models play a central role across the sciences and in philosophy itself, yet fundamental questions remain about how they represent, explain, and produce understanding. This workshop brings together four talks spanning the spectrum from the philosophy of modelling to concrete modelling practices.  

Date: Thursday, 2 April 2026

Venue: Lakatos Building, Room 2.06, LSE  

Schedule:  

11:00–12:00 Keynote: Roman Frigg(LSE)    

Lunch  

13:30–15:00 Robert Northcott (Birkbeck, University of London), “Modelling,  Fragility, and Cherry-Picking”          

      Response: Vita Kudryavtseva (LSE), followed by Q&A  

15:15–16:45 Tarja Knuuttila (University of Vienna), “The Abstractness of Network Motifs"       

       Response: Jonathan Coull (LSE), followed by Q&A  

17:00–18:30 Emily Sullivan (University of Edinburgh), “Decomposing Machine Learning Models”     

        Response: Franco Menares-Paredes (LSE), followed by Q&A  

18:30–19:00 Reception  

The workshop is open to all. To attend, please register here: https://forms.gle/wWhMep57yMwfgCLK7    

We very much hope to see you there! Please feel free to circulate this announcement to anyone who might be interested.