1,882 research outputs found
Simulating What?
Any attempt to simulate science has first to say what science is. This involves asking three questions: 1) The Scope Question: What bit of science is the target? It is immensely confusing (as the history of these debates shows), if one simulates some little aspect of science, as in the case of BACON, and then claims that one has built a machine that can 'do science'. 2) The Micro-World Question: Is the criterion of success the reproduction of human science â with all the same findings turning up â or the simulation of something that is believed to be a scientific process with results that pertain only to the world of the simulation which do not correspond to the outcome of human science as we know it? If the latter it will be important to be sure that one is not merely developing a 'micro-world' â a world so tidied up for the purposes of simulation that it does not bear on human science. 3) The Chess Question: Even if the idea to reach the same results as has been reached by human science, does it have to be by 'the same' means in order to count as a simulation of human science? I call it the 'chess question' because Deep Blue does not play in the same way as human grand masters but is still better at winning.Science, Language, Demarcation, Micro-World, BACON, Chess
Interactional Imogen: language, practice and the body
Here I try to improve on the available answers to certain long-debated questions and set out some consequences for the answers. Are there limits to the extent to which we can understand the conceptual worlds of other human communities and of non-human creatures? How does this question relate to our ability to engage in other culturesâ practices and languages? What is meant by âthe bodyâ and what is meant by âthe brainâ and how do different meanings bear on the questions? The central answer developed here is that it is possible, given the right circumstances, for a competent human from any human group to understand the culture of any other human group without engaging in their practices though there are barriers when it comes to communication across species. This answer has important social and political consequences and consequences for the debate about artificial intelligence
An Imitation Game concerning gravitational wave physics
The 'Imitation Game' is a Turing Test played with a human participant instead
of a computer. Here the author, a sociologist, who has been immersed in the
field of gravitational wave physics since 1972, tried to pass an Imitation Game
as a gravitational wave physicist. He already passed such a test in mid-2000s
but this test was more elaborate and compared his performance with that of
other kinds of physicists and with other sociologists as well as gravitational
wave physicists. The test was based on 8 technical questions about
gravitational wave physics asked by Professor Sathyprakash of Cardiff
University. Collins marks compared well with that of the other gravitational
wave physicists and were markedly better than that of other classes of
respondent. Collins also marked the test and it can be seen that the way he
marked was also much closer to the gravitational wave physicists than other
categories. Though Collins's expertise can be shown to have degraded a little
in the last ten years it seems not to have degraded a lot. This is important
for his most recent book on the detection of gravitational waves from a black
hole binary, this being Chapter 14 of this book, which is due to by published
my MIT Press in February 2017.Comment: 11 pages, 1 tabl
Preserving a Space for Science in an Age of Democracy
How should scientific advice be incorporated into the political decision-making process? Harry Collins explores this question in his review of The Paradox of Scientific Authority
You cannot be serious! Public understanding of technology with special reference to âHawk-Eyeâ
Public understanding of science, though it approaches the specialist knowledge of experts only in rare circumstances, can be enhanced more broadly in respect of the processes of science and technology. The public understanding of measurement errors and confidence intervals could be enhanced if âsports decision aids,â such as the Hawk-Eye system, were to present their results in a different way. There is a danger that Hawk-Eye as used could inadvertently cause naĂŻve viewers to overestimate the ability of technological devices to resolve disagreement among humans because measurement errors are not made salient. For example, virtual reconstructions can easily be taken to show âexactly what really happened.â Suggestions are made for how confidence levels might be measured and represented and âhealth warningsâ attached to reconstructions. A general principle for the use of sports decision aids is put forward. A set of open questions about Hawk-Eye is presented which, if answered, could help inform discussions of its use and accuracy
How Might We Overcome âWesternâ Resistance to Eating Insects?
Entomophagy, the consumption of insects as a food source, occurs at a global scale with over 2Â billion people seeing it as traditional. This practice does not extend into mainstream Western culture where its introduction is often met by a range of barriers, leaving entomophagy often seen as a taboo. The âdisgust responseâ of food neophobia and a lack of social and cultural contexts that reduce adoption may be overcome by strategic application of tools arising from innovation diffusion theory: relative advantage; compatibility; low complexity; trialability and observability. This chapter accessibly reviews known barriers to uptake and outlines the potential application of these concepts in promoting the wider acceptance of entomophagy
Enhancing Reflective Teaching Practices: Implications for Faculty Development Programs
Reflecting on oneâs teaching practice is often an implicit goal for faculty development programs. Yet very little has been documented how programs for diverse groups of university teachers actually engage faculty in such reflection. This paper examines how theoretical constructs of reflective practice were applied in the context of an 8-month UBC Faculty Certificate Program on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (FCP). The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) was particularly useful for providing faculty cohort members with a means of looking more deeply at the underlying values and assumptions that constituted their philosophical orientations to teaching. Furthermore, a change in faculty membersâ TPI scores indicate that participants reflected more comprehensively on their teaching at the end of the program, than they did at the beginning of the program. Barriers to facilitating reflection included inadequate time allocation, unclear expectations and goals for reflection activities, and varying cultural norms for reflective teaching practices within academe.RĂ©fl Ă©chir sur sa propre pratique dâenseignement est souvent un objectif implicite des programmes de dĂ©veloppement du corps professoral. Il existe cependant Ă ce jour trĂšs peu de recherches documentĂ©es sur la maniĂšre dont les programmes Ă©tablis pour divers groupes dâenseignants universitaires engagent vĂ©ritablement le corps professoral dans une telle rĂ©fl exion. Ce document examine la maniĂšre dont les concepts thĂ©oriques de la pratique rĂ©fl ective ont Ă©tĂ© appliquĂ©s dans le contexte dâun UBC Faculty Certifi cate Program on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (FCP - Programme de certifi cat du corps professoral de lâUBC sur lâenseignement et lâapprentissage dans lâenseignement supĂ©rieur) de huit mois. LâInventaire des perspectives de lâenseignement (TPI) a Ă©tĂ© particuliĂšrement utile pour fournir aux membres de la cohorte du corps professoral les moyens dâĂ©tudier plus en profondeur les valeurs et hypothĂšses sous-jacentes qui ont constituĂ© leurs orientations philosophiques sur lâenseignement. De plus, la modifi cation des scores TPI des membres du corps professoral indique que les participants ont rĂ©fl Ă©chi de maniĂšre plus dĂ©taillĂ©e sur leur enseignement Ă la fi n du programme quâau dĂ©but du programme. Les barriĂšres qui empĂȘchaient la facilitation de la rĂ©fl exion comprenaient une attribution de temps inadĂ©quate, des attentes et objets peu clairs pour les activitĂ©s de rĂ©fl exion ainsi que des normes culturelles variables pour les pratiques dâenseignement rĂ©fl ectif au sein du monde universitaire
- âŠ