Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation 3 (PSX3)

Experiments play essential roles in science. Philosophers of science have emphasized their role in the testing of theories but they also play other important roles. They are, for example, essential in exploring new phenomenological realms and discovering new effects and phenomena. Nevertheless, experiments are still an underrepresented topic in mainstream philosophy of science. This conference on the philosophy of scientific experimentation, the third in a series, is intended to give a home to philosophical interests in, and concerns about, experiment. Among the questions that will be discussed are the following: How is experimental practice organized, around theories or around something else? How independent is experimentation from theories? Does it have a life of its own? Can experiments undermine the threat posed to the objectivity of science by the thesis of theory-ladenness, underdetermination, or the Duhem-Quine thesis? What are the important similarities and differences between experiments in different sciences? What are the experimental strategies scientists use for making sure that their experiments work correctly? How are phenomena discovered or created in the laboratory? Is experimental knowledge epistemically more secure than observational knowledge? Can experiments give us good reasons for belief in theoretical entities? What role do computer simulations play in the assessment of experimental background? How trustworthy are they? Do they warrant the same kind of inferences as experimental knowledge? Are they theory by other means?

Program:

Friday

9:00 AM
Opening Comments: Stein Sture, Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Colorado at Boulder
Chair:
Questions about a textbook experiment
9:00 Eric Cornell
JILA, University of Colorado Physics, Nobel Laureate (Physics) 2001
10:00-10:15  Coffee
10:15 Experimentation On Analogues
Susan Sterrett, Carnegie Mellon University
11:15 Analogy in Experimental Practice: The Perplexing Case of Muriatic Acid
Amy Fisher, University of Puget Sound
12:15  Lunch
Chair: Emily Griffith
2:00 The False Dichotomy Between Experiment and Observation: The Case of Comparative Cognition
Irina Meketa, Boston University
3:00 The Theory Ladenness of Scientific Experimentation: Evidence from the History of Science and from Cognitive Psychology
William Brewer, University of Illinois
4:00 Coffee
4:15 Explanation and Prediction in Historical Natural Science
Carol Cleland, University of Colorado

Saturday

9:00 Exploratory Experiments
Friedrich Steinle, Technical University of Berlin
10:00 Coffee
Chair: Mike Zarella
10:15 Experimental Cosmology
James Mattingly, Georgetown University
11:15 Experiment in Cosmology: Model Selection, Error-Elimination and Robustness
Genco Guralp, Johns Hopkins University
12:15 Lunch
Chair: Nicholas Casalbore
1:15 Modeling Data-Acquisition in Experimentation: The Case of the ATLAS Experiment
Koray Karaca, University of Wuppertal
2:15 Extrapolation Claims in Experimental Evolution
Emily Parke, University of Pennsylvania
3:15 Coffee
3:30 Metabolism of error, standard controls and the growth of experimental techniques
Christopher Diteresi, George Mason University
4:30 Discussion

Small travel grants, a minimum of $200, will be available to help defray travel expenses for presenters of contributed papers. Details will be available later.

For any questions concerning the conference please contact Allan Franklin at [email protected] or any of the members of the Program Committee. They are:

Deborah Mayo       [email protected]
John Norton        [email protected]
Wendy Parker       [email protected]
Slobodan Perovic   [email protected]
Samuel Schindler   [email protected]
Marcel Weber       [email protected]

Further information about the conference is available at: