Again this year, Rotman Institute faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and alumni are presenting on a number of topics at the biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA). The conference takes place from November 2 – 6, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. Beyond presenting papers, Institute members are also presenting research posters related to philosophy of science education and outreach as part of a poster forum and reception.

The Institute is also co-sponsoring a public forum on race in medicine. How Should Race be Used in Medicine will explore how race should be used in medicine and in doing so display how philosophy and history of science are essential for addressing complex and important questions in science and society. Michael Yudell, a historian and Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health and Prevention at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, will argue that race should only be used to explore social causes of health, disease, and drug response. Robin Andreasen, a philosopher and Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware, will argue that race should be used to explore both social and genetic causes of health, disease, and drug response. Quayshawn Spencer (University of Pennsylvania) will introduce the topic and moderate the discussion.

At the PSA Poster Forum, Institute members will present on teaching philosophy to science students, the Institute’s innovative Lab Associates graduate training program, and the Institute’s recent series of themed public outreach events under the theme Einstein @ Rotman.

A full list of Institute presenters follows below:

Current Institute members presenting papers:

Gillian Barker – Contextual Interaction in Biological Explanation

Robert Batterman – Emergence, Autonomy, Multiscale Modeling

Yann Benétreau-Dupin – Simplicity and Unification in Cosmological Model Selection

Lucas Dunlap – The Information-theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Ontic Structural Realism

Fermin Fulda – Natural Selection, Mechanism, and the Statistical Interpretation

Doreen Fraser – The Applicability of Renormalization Group Methods From the Perspectives of Two Wilsons

Adam Koberinski – Reconciling Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory with Cutoff-dependent Particle Physics

Melissa Jacquart – Tracing the Path of Justification for LCDM

Jamie Shaw – A Tale of Two Pluralism: Why Science Needs Metaphysics

Chris Smeenk – GR, Effective at Cosmological Scales?

Jacqueline Sullivan – Understanding Scientific ‘progress’ and its problems  via the Case Study of Optogenetics

Current Institute members chairing sessions:

Michael Cuffaro

Nicolas Fillion

Craig Fox

Doreen Fraser

Institute alumni postdoctoral fellows and graduate students presenting papers:

Justin Bzovy (Mount Allison University)

Eric Curiel (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (LMU Munich)

Alkistis Elliott-Graves (University of Helsinki)

Nicolas Fillion (Simon Fraser University)

Kerry McKenzie (UC San Diego)

Current Institute members presenting at poster forum and reception:

Frédéric-Ismaël Banville – Science as a Problem Solving Activity: A Framework for Teaching Philosophy to Science Students
Doreen Fraser – Teaching SRPOS: University of Waterloo PhD in Applied Philosophy
Robert H C Moir – Advantageous Approximation: The Importance Of Feasible Reasoning In Pure And Applied Mathematics
Chris Smeenk – Einstein @ Rotman
Jessey Wright – The Lab Associates Program: Training and Preparing Graduate Students for Interdisciplinary Work with Neuroscientists