Models and Decisions

Mathematical and computational models are central to decision-making in a wide-variety of contexts in science and policy: They are used to assess the risk of large investments, to evaluate the merits of alternative medical therapies, and are often key in decisions on international policies – climate policy being one of the most prominent examples. In many of these cases, they assist in drawing conclusions from complex assumptions. While the value of these models is undisputed, their increasingly widespread use raises several philosophical questions: What makes scientific models so important? In which way do they describe, or even explain their target systems? What makes models so reliable? And: What are the imports, and the limits, of using models in policy making? This conference will bring together philosophers of science, economists, statisticians and policy makers to discuss these and related questions. Experts from a variety of field will exchange first-hand experience and insights in order to identify the assets and the pitfalls of model-based decision-making. The conference will also address and evaluate the increasing role of model-based research in scientific practice, both from a practical and from a philosophical point of view.

ORGANIZERS: Mark Colyvan, Paul Griffiths, Stephan Hartmann, Kaerin Nickelsen, Roland Poellinger, Olivier Roy, and Jan Sprenger

PUBLICATION: We plan to publish selected papers presented at the conference in a special issue of a journal or with a major a book publisher (subject to the usual refereeing process). The submission deadline is 1 July 2013. The maximal paper length is 7000 words.

GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS: A few travel bursaries for graduate students are available (up to 500 Euro).