2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

PSA Abstracts
Branden Fitelson University of Wisconsin-Madison
A Bayesian Account of Independent Evidence with Applications
A Bayesian account of independent evidential support is outlined. This account
is partly inspired by the work of C.S. Peirce. I show that a large class of (but
surprisingly not all) quantitative Bayesian measures of confirmation satisfy
the basic desiderata laid down by Peirce for adequate accounts of independent
evidence. I argue that by considering further natural constraints on a
probabilistic account of independent evidence, all but a very small class of
Bayesian measures of confirmation can be ruled-out as failing to adequately
cope with cases of independent evidence. In closing, another application of
our account to the problem of evidential diversity is also discussed.
Owen Flanagan Duke University
Is the Neural Level Privileged in the Explanation of the Mental?
A critical discussion of pragmatic and non-pragmatic arguments, given by
Putnam, Dennett, and Churchland, for privileging the neural level in
explanations of the mental. Assuming that the neural level provides the most
precise explanation of what is going on in the mind, what implications does
this have for our ontological commitments to explanations of mental
phenomena in terms of mental causes such as beliefs and desires?
Lisa Gannett University of California, Davis
Human Genome Diversity Research: The Ethical Limits of “Population
Thinking”
This paper questions the prevailing historical understanding that scientific
racism “retreated” in the 1950s when anthropology adopted the concepts and
methods of population genetics and race was recognised to be a social construct
and replaced by the concept of population. More accurately, a “populational”
concept of race was substituted for a “typological one” - this is demonstrated
by looking at the work of Theodosius Dobzhansky circa 1950. The potential
for contemporary research in human population genetics to contribute to racism
needs to be considered with respect to the ability of the typological-population
distinction to arbitrate boundaries between racist society and nonracist, even
anti-racist, science. I point out some ethical limits of “population thinking” in
doing so.
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