On the Political Costs of Scientific Dissent

Some speech acts about science can result in many non-experts in a political community holding false or inaccurate empirical beliefs. But if people do hold false or inaccurate empirical beliefs, should we be concerned? If so, why should we be concerned? What’s wrong, morally and politically speaking, with speech acts that misrepresent scientific testimony, or that otherwise count as misinformation about science? Philosophers of science have largely neglected these questions, despite such questions often being tied to ‘dissent’ about science. Instead, they have almost exclusively focused on the epistemological implications and benefits of dissent for knowledge production and scientific progress. Even those philosophers of science who in recent years have displayed scepticism towards dissent have focused their arguments on its negative epistemic effects within, and on, the scientific community and science itself. Instead, the aim of this thesis is to provide a better understanding of the nature of the nonepistemic consequences of dissent and the broader phenomenon of misinformation about science for non-experts and for society more broadly. To achieve this, I bring contemporary analytic social and political philosophy into conversation with current debates about problematic speech acts about science within philosophy of science. I argue that some speech acts about science, including dissent, can interfere with and erode three core liberal democratic values: it can compromise personal autonomy; it can pre-emptively silence people, and thus constrain their freedom of speech; and it can undermine the democratic legitimacy of public policy. Moreover, I argue that these three consequences are interlinked. I conclude my thesis with an argument for maintaining a focus on communicative ethics, and by offering a basic framework for reasoning through the highly context dependent evaluations of, and judgments that need to be made about, scientific dissent within different parts of the public knowledge system

National Register of Historic Places Eligibility Testing of Site 41SM385 Within TxDOT\u27s Tyler District, Smith County, Texas

PBS&J, an Atkins company, was contracted by the North East Texas Regional Mobility Authority to conduct National Register of Historic Places eligibility testing of site 41SM385, a prehistoric campsite on a small rise above the floodplain of Indian Creek in western Smith County, Texas. Testing investigations were conducted during March and September 2009. The site was subjected to a systematic program of shovel testing, mechanical trenching, and hand excavation in an effort to identify cultural features or living surfaces and optimize recovery of diagnostic faunal, floral, and artifactual remains. The recovered cultural artifacts indicate that site 41SM385 represents a probable Woodland and Caddo‐aged occupation on a small rise on the creek floodplain. The Woodland component is based on recovered small Gary and Kent projectile points characteristic of Woodland culture of the region. The Caddo component is based on ceramic sherds of probable Early or Middle Caddo origin identified at the site. Radiocarbon dating of four ceramic sherds supports these assessments with three sherds dating to the Early to Middle Caddo periods and one sherd dating to the Woodland period. The lack of identified cultural features suggests that the Woodland component probably represents a series of ephemeral usages of the location, probably as short‐term campsites. The Caddo‐aged artifacts at the site probably represent a series of ephemeral usage of the location, either as a resource procurement locus ancillary to nearby site 41SM404 or as a short‐term campsite. The testing program failed to locate living surfaces or cultural features containing in situ artifactual or organic remains preserved on the site. The absence of cultural features and the paucity of lithic tools or ceramic remains make more‐meaningful functional interpretation infeasible. For this reason, the site lacks the data resources that would warrant National Register of Historic Places isting or designation as a State Archeological Landmark. No further work is recommended

It\u27s a Goodyear for Innovation

Innovation is nothing new to The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The near future will bring another phase of evolution as the focus of tires sales will shift with the growing popularity of ride sharing, car sharing, and autonomous vehicles. For the scope of our project, it initially seemed obvious to use Goodyear’s good name as a selling point for a partnership with car sharing companies. We surveyed students at several colleges across Ohio that have car sharing fleets on campus and asked them about how they utilize the vehicles. After discovering through these interviews that ride sharing was more popular, we expanded our research rather than relying on our intuition about car sharing. Ride sharing became the focus of our project, and we explored how Goodyear’s name, quality, and resources can be leveraged to entice ride share companies as well as their users and drivers

Investigation of improvement opportunities for Wee-Cycle Bartlesville, LLC. in Bartlesville, Oklahoma

The purpose of this report was to determine potential improvements to the operations and processes used during the set up and execution of the Wee-Cycle Bartlesville consignment sales. After identifying the areas of potential improvement, the report provides analysis and recommendations for the following areas: checkout line, sale floor organization, volunteer roles, setup processes, opportunities for additional revenue, and the accounting system.The team was introduced to the current situation through discussion with Wee-Cycle Bartlesville owner, Sara Freeman, and observation of the August 2016 sale. Sara identified her biggest concern to be the length of the checkout line during peak shopping hours of the sale. Additionally, she expressed interest in upgrading her current display equipment to accommodate more items. Volunteer roles, setup processes and an accounting system were other areas with potential improvement.In order to collect data related to the checkout line, the team observed peak shopping hours during the August 2016 sale. During the observations, the team identified a lack of consistency in the checkout processes of the various cashiers. Some cashiers completed transactions much faster than others, resulting in the team's recommendation to establish and use a standardized cashier process based on that of the fastest cashier. In addition, a volunteer helping bag items is recommended to decrease transaction time.To address Sara's interest in upgrading her sale floor equipment, the team observed the current clothing racks, tables and other display equipment used at the August 2016 sale. Her current clothing racks are a combination of saddle racks and Creform racks, with Creform racks having the ability to hold twice as many clothing items per linear foot. After weighing the cost to convert the remaining racks from saddle to Creform, the team recommends replacing all saddle racks with Creform racks. Along with the clothing racks, Wee-Cycle Bartlesville also displays items on standard 8-foot tables. The team also identified potential gain in display space if a simple shelf was placed on top of the display tables to allow for the display of additional items.Sara is often the first resource volunteers and customers seek out when a problem or question arises. She expressed great interest in being able to manage her sale, rather than spread herself thin working a register, briefing volunteers, and answering customer questions. To address this concern, the team focused on improving the volunteer roles. Roles currently lack definition and volunteers lack training, which limits the volunteer's understanding of their responsibilities. The team developed and documented volunteer role definitions and a brief training guide, the use of which are recommended to reduce confusion and questions to Sara.Another potential area investigated for improvement was the setup process. At this time, consignors drop off their items on either Tuesday or Wednesday based on the first letter of their last name anytime between 12:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Because consignors decide when to drop off their items, Sara and her staff experience idle time due to the variation in consignors' arrival times. To limit the employee idle time, the team recommends assigning consignor drop-off times. This change will allow Wee-Cycle Bartlesville to better anticipate how much time is needed for setup, and potentially open the sale a day early.Finally, Wee-Cycle Bartlesville does not have a formal accounting system. To address this, the team created an Excel-based accounting system which allows Sara to quickly enter and easily see her expenses and revenues. The accounting system can help capture expenses and identify cost trends and potential revenues in future Wee-Cycle Bartlesville operations.Implementing these changes requires a $3,068.12 investment and implementing the changes will provide an estimated$12,066.19 in additional revenue at the next sale for Wee-Cycle Bartlesville

Epistemology of ignorance: the contribution of philosophy to the science-policy interface of marine biosecurity

Marine ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human activity, yet successful management relies on knowledge. The evidence-based policy (EBP) approach has been promoted on the grounds that it provides greater transparency and consistency by relying on ‘high quality’ information. However, EBP also creates epistemic responsibilities. Decision-making where limited or no empirical evidence exists, such as is often the case in marine systems, creates epistemic obligations for new information acquisition. We argue that philosophical approaches can inform the science-policy interface. Using marine biosecurity examples, we specifically examine the epistemic challenges in the acquisition and acceptance of evidence to inform policy, discussing epistemic due care and biases in consideration of evidence

Weak Lensing with SDSS Commissioning Data: The Galaxy-Mass Correlation Function To 1/h Mpc

(abridged) We present measurements of galaxy-galaxy lensing from early commissioning imaging data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We measure a mean tangential shear around a stacked sample of foreground galaxies in three bandpasses out to angular radii of 600'', detecting the shear signal at very high statistical significance. The shear profile is well described by a power-law. A variety of rigorous tests demonstrate the reality of the gravitational lensing signal and confirm the uncertainty estimates. We interpret our results by modeling the mass distributions of the foreground galaxies as approximately isothermal spheres characterized by a velocity dispersion and a truncation radius. The velocity dispersion is constrained to be 150-190 km/s at 95% confidence (145-195 km/s including systematic uncertainties), consistent with previous determinations but with smaller error bars. Our detection of shear at large angular radii sets a 95% confidence lower limit $s>140^{\prime\prime}$, corresponding to a physical radius of $260h^{-1}$ kpc, implying that galaxy halos extend to very large radii. However, it is likely that this is being biased high by diffuse matter in the halos of groups and clusters. We also present a preliminary determination of the galaxy-mass correlation function finding a correlation length similar to the galaxy autocorrelation function and consistency with a low matter density universe with modest bias. The full SDSS will cover an area 44 times larger and provide spectroscopic redshifts for the foreground galaxies, making it possible to greatly improve the precision of these constraints, measure additional parameters such as halo shape, and measure the properties of dark matter halos separately for many different classes of galaxies.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, submitted to A

Epistemology of ignorance: the contribution of philosophy to the science-policy interface of marine biosecurity

Marine ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human activity, yet successful management relies on knowledge. The evidence-based policy (EBP) approach has been promoted on the grounds that it provides greater transparency and consistency by relying on ‘high quality’ information. However, EBP also creates epistemic responsibilities. Decision-making where limited or no empirical evidence exists, such as is often the case in marine systems, creates epistemic obligations for new information acquisition. We argue that philosophical approaches can inform the science-policy interface. Using marine biosecurity examples, we specifically examine the epistemic challenges in the acquisition and acceptance of evidence to inform policy, discussing epistemic due care and biases in consideration of evidence

Aberrant \u3ci\u3eAZIN2\u3c/i\u3e and Polyamine Metabolism Precipitates Tau Neuropathology

Tauopathies display a spectrum of phenotypes from cognitive to affective behavioral impairments; however, mechanisms promoting tau pathology and how tau elicits behavioral impairment remain unclear. We report a unique interaction between polyamine metabolism, behavioral impairment, and tau fate. Polyamines are ubiquitous aliphatic molecules that support neuronal function, axonal integrity, and cognitive processing. Transient increases in polyamine metabolism hallmark the cell’s response to various insults, known as the polyamine stress response (PSR). Dysregulation of gene transcripts associated with polyamine metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains were observed, and we found that ornithine decarboxylase antizyme inhibitor 2 (AZIN2) increased to the greatest extent. We showed that sustained AZIN2 overexpression elicited a maladaptive PSR in mice with underlying tauopathy (MAPT P301S; PS19). AZIN2 also increased acetylpolyamines, augmented tau deposition, and promoted cognitive and affective behavioral impairments. Higher-order polyamines displaced microtubule-associated tau to facilitate polymerization but also decreased tau seeding and oligomerization. Conversely, acetylpolyamines promoted tau seeding and oligomers. These data suggest that tauopathies launch an altered enzymatic signature that endorses a feed-forward cycle of disease progression. Taken together, the tau-induced PSR affects behavior and disease continuance, but may also position the polyamine pathway as a potential entry point for plausible targets and treatments of tauopathy, including AD

The Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Fifth Data Release (DR5) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). DR5 includes all survey quality data taken through June 2005 and represents the completion of the SDSS-I project (whose successor, SDSS-II will continue through mid-2008). It includes five-band photometric data for 217 million objects selected over 8000 square degrees, and 1,048,960 spectra of galaxies, quasars, and stars selected from 5713 square degrees of that imaging data. These numbers represent a roughly 20% increment over those of the Fourth Data Release; all the data from previous data releases are included in the present release. In addition to "standard" SDSS observations, DR5 includes repeat scans of the southern equatorial stripe, imaging scans across M31 and the core of the Perseus cluster of galaxies, and the first spectroscopic data from SEGUE, a survey to explore the kinematics and chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The catalog database incorporates several new features, including photometric redshifts of galaxies, tables of matched objects in overlap regions of the imaging survey, and tools that allow precise computations of survey geometry for statistical investigations.Comment: ApJ Supp, in press, October 2007. This paper describes DR5. The SDSS Sixth Data Release (DR6) is now public, available from http://www.sdss.or