First session - 20th May 2026 This session of the seminar will feature: 15:00 - 16:00 (CET) Valeriya Chasova (Utrecht University), Deborinians and mechanists per se and as precursors to Western philosophers of science PRESENTATION ABSTRACT From mid-20th century on up to the recent times Western philosophers of science have been concentrating in particular on two questions: the choice between ordinary or scientific sources for metaphysics, and the emergence or reduction among branches of science (and their objects). It turns out that on either question they were preceded by the two groups of Soviet philosophers of science, dialectics or deborinians and mechanists. Their discussions date back already to the early 20th century, when the Western research was dominated by the anti-metaphysical Vienna Circle. Moreover, the Soviet debate also has its own originality which might be inspiring for philosophers of today. In the talk will be presented the context in which these now less-known groups of philosophers were existing, their own debate, and its comparison with modern ones.

📣 *Epistemic Diversity in European Philosophy of Science (2nd edition)*

20th May 2026, with Valeriya Chasova (Utrecht University):

Deborinians and mechanists per se and as precursors to Western philosophers of science

More info: philsci.eu/Epistemic-Di...

#philsci #diversity #HOPOS #HPS

Screenshot der SPIEGEL-Website: Artikel mit dem Titel "Nach Artemis-2-Sensation: Ungarn schießen Orban auf den Mond"

Für die deutschsprachige Community: Die SPIEGEL-Online-Redaktion (bzw. der Praktikant, der nachts für die Überschriften zuständig ist) ist heute ganz offensichtlich gut aufgelegt... :-)

This is the tenth article from the topical collection that Enno Fischer (@ennofischer.bsky.social) and I are editing for EJPS. Take this chance to browse the other papers that have been published and stay in the loop for the remaining additions to the collection! 👇 link.springer.com/collections/...

HPS26 - Yafeng Shan Yafeng Shan

Lots of great summer events coming up!
History and Philosophy of Science: Past, Present, and Future
24 - 26 June 2026
Academic Building, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
www.shanyafeng.com/hps26

Jan Baedke, The Organism | BJPS Review of Books Matthew Sims reviews The Organism, by Jan Baedke

A new review of Jan Baedke’s #OpenAccess Cambridge Element The Organism (@universitypress.cambridge.org), by Matthew Sims (@philosobio.bsky.social), has been published in @thebjps.bsky.social Review of Books! Check it out! 👇📕 www.thebsps.org/reviewofbook... #HPBio #philsky #HPS #evosky #booksky

Public engagement with science: a practical guide Public engagement with science has gained institutional prominence while remaining conceptually fragmented and difficult to operationalise. This review evaluates Public Engagement with Science by Ange...

Check out this nice review of the Element (short book) @mjacquart.bsky.social and I coauthored. A PDF of the Element is freely available from @universitypress.cambridge.org, here: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

#philsci #SciComm 🧪
jcom.sissa.it/article/pubi...

We discuss the extent to which precision medicine generates not “precision” but rather recalcitrant uncertainty that is potentially impossible to overcome, as it is rooted in the research approach itself.

Sorting out and navigating uncertainty in precision medicine - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences - Uncertainty has been highlighted as a paradoxical consequence of precision medicine (PM). In the life sciences and medicine, uncertainty is often...

🐣 Happy to announce another OA publication, co-written with Cornelius Borck (Lübeck) and published in HPLS:

*Sorting Out and Navigating Uncertainty in Precision Medicine*

doi.org/10.1007/s406...

#HPS #PhilMed #philsci

Screenshot of title and abstract for "Harm-Benefit Analysis for Animal Experiments Is Not Utilitarian". The abstract reads: The claim is commonplace that harm-benefit analysis (HBA), a weighing procedure widely used in ethics reviews of animal experiments, is utilitarian. We argue this is false and misleading for three reasons: (1) HBA does not compare, let alone maximize, utility across different options, but merely assesses whether the consequences of one option are net-positive, thereby ignoring opportunity costs; (2) HBA does not aggregate utility coherently, as it allows for varying degrees of speculation in the assessment of harms and benefits; (3) HBA is not concerned with moral evaluation or moral goodness. From our discussion, we derive positive suggestions for how to improve animal experimentation policy and public communications about it. Most straightforwardly, scholars and institutions should stop claiming that HBA is “utilitarian.”

🚨 New paper by myself and @tristankatz.bsky.social 🚨

"Harm-Benefit Analysis for Animal Experiments Is Not Utilitarian"

It's commonly claimed that HBA – used in the licensing of animal studies – is utilitarian. We say this vastly oversells the framework.

#animalexperimentation #animalresearch #3Rs

The paper addresses the prevailing meta-science critique of animal experimentation in biomedicine and attempts to show that this critique fails to do justice to contextual challenges of this research practice.

Reproducibility, questionable research practices and ethico-epistemic trade-offs in animal-based biomedicine - European Journal for Philosophy of Science European Journal for Philosophy of Science - I discuss reproducibility issues in animal-based research in biomedicine and scrutinise the notion that the causes of non-reproducible results are, by...

🤓 New OA publication in EJPS

*Reproducibility, questionable research practices and ethico-epistemic trade-offs in animal-based biomedicine*

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#philsci #animalexperimentation #metascience

Thesis Tales (8): Jelte interviewde studenten over het gebruik van designerdrugs - Vox magazine Weken, maanden, soms jaren zijn studenten bezig met hun scriptie. In de rubriek Thesis Tales zetten we het onderzoek van studenten in de spotlights. Aflevering 8: Jelte Schermer (27) deed voor zijn ma...

In @voxweb.bsky.social, our former Science in Society (SiS) student Jelte Schermer, talks about his SiS master thesis on designer drug use among students.

www.voxweb.nl/nieuws/thesi...

How to Get There From Here? Barriers and Enablers on the Road Towards Reproducibility in Research

“We recommend the development of guidelines for reproducibility (and/or transparency) practices tailored to specific domain, methodological and epistemic contexts.”

New work by Serge Horbach and colleagues

Ein Bild von Collien Fernandes mit dem Text "In Solidarität mit Collien Fernandes - 10 Forderungen an die Bundesregierung"

Gemeinsam mit über 250 Frauen aus Politik, Wirtschaft & Kultur stellen wir 10 Forderungen an die Bundesregierung.

Es braucht endlich ein digitales Gewaltschutzgesetz, das Verbot von Deep Fakes und eine konsequente Plattformregulierung.

Mehr Infos: centreforfeministforeignpolicy.org/2026/03/23/i...

How (and Why) to Organize a Conference in the Global South (guest post) - Daily Nous Conferences provide valuable opportunities to academics and can influence disciplinary agendas. But scholars have unequal access to conferences, often owing to where such conferences are held and the ...

Great guest post at @dailynous.com (Full disclosure: one of the authors is a former student whom I admire greatly.) One of the many ways in which academia systematically excludes people from the Global South is by hosting prestigious events only in rich countries->
dailynous.com/2026/03/10/h...

“On Liberty” Now Officially Has Two Authors - Daily Nous An edition of On Liberty published this month is the first to officially name Harriet Taylor Mill as a co-author alongside John Stuart Mill. The new volume is edited by Piers Norris Turner (Ohio State...

New edition of On Liberty published this month is the first to officially name Harriet Taylor Mill as a co-author alongside John Stuart Mill. dailynous.com/2026/03/19/o...

How to Bring a Bird’s Song Back From the Edge of Extinction

The need to preserve animal culture in conservation efforts. 🪶

Gift link.

We're hiring! Lecturer in Philosophy, AOS/AOC open, but should be able to teach courses titled "Logic and Critical Thinking" and "Science and Values."

Applications due Mar. 30.

philjobs.org/job/show/31125

Manfred #weber erklärt übrigens gerade in jedes Mikrofon, dass er nicht mit der AFD zusammenarbeitet, außer wenn er es für richtig hält. Wer #cducsu wählt, bekommt #afd . Auch gerade in der Kommunalpolitik.

New on the Archive:

Broeks, Daphne and Knuuttila, Tarja and De Regt, Henk (2024) Understanding, virtually: How does the synthetic cell matter? Perspectives on Science, 32 (3). pp. 394-414. ISSN 1063-6145

https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/28646/

Now out: Cultural evolution and Social Ontology: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Routledge), edited by Martina Valković and me. Available (with discount code below) at: www.routledge.com/Cultural-Evo...

Habermas - Philosoph und Europäer - Die ganze Doku | ARTE Von den Studentenunruhen der 60er Jahre über die sozialen Bewegungen der 70er und 80er bis zur Wiedervereinigung und zur aktuellen Lage Europas: Für den deutschen Bundespräsidenten Frank-Walter Steinm...

Zum Tod von Jürgen #Habermas wieder online - das Doku-Porträt des großen Philosophen und Denkers:

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

We’ll combine brief presentations from the contributing authors and Q&A sessions.

👩‍🏫 Speakers
Anne Fenoy • Mara Floris • Cristina Ganz • Noemi Paciscopi • Wendy Rogers • Mary Jean Walker • Sloane Wesloh

🔗Zoom link
polimi-it.zoom.us/j/9934976800...

Evolutionary Theory in the Sociocultural Domain and Its Criticism | 3 Evolutionary approaches to explaining socio-cultural phenomena abound. These diverse research programs import concepts, research strategies, and/or methods from

Featuring a chapter by Martina and me:

"Evolutionary Theory in the Sociocultural Domain and Its Criticism" 🤓

www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

Cultural Evolution and Social Ontology | Interdisciplinary Perspective This volume explores connections between two growing and complementary fields of research: cultural evolutionary theory and social ontology. It sheds light on

📖 Published today (ebook):

*Cultural Evolution and Social Ontology*

Edited by Martina Valković & @thomasreydon.bsky.social

www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/1...

#philsci #socialontology #culturalevolution

Please re-skeet!

Lauren Wilson Welcome!

For tomorrow’s ISiS Colloquium, we will have Lauren Wilson from University of Exeter to give a talk titled “Diversity within Genetic Studies of Complex Traits”. If you wish to join, please send us a message!

www.lhwilson.com

International Women's Day: there is much to be done in NL - DutchNews.nl As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, how does the Netherlands fare in international gender equality rankings?  According to the most recent Global Gender Gap report published by the Worl...

#InternationalWomensDay

www.dutchnews.nl/2026/03/inte...

Workshop poster with an image of a hand holding an organ-on-a-chip. (Title) Understanding Challenges and Opportunities for the Transition Beyond Animal Experimentation in Research and Safety Testing: What‘s New? What‘s Next? Animal use in science and safety testing persists at high levels – despite decades of advocacy and innovation in alternatives. Apart from technical challenges, this also raises urgent philosophical, ethical, legal, and social-scientific issues. This two-day online workshop focuses on new perspectives that can help to understand the intersection of scientific and human obstacles that slow down transition. Join the discussions to broaden your perspective on the animal experimentation transition and help to explore pathways to a future of innovative, responsible science. Organised by Love Hansell, Radboud U; Simon Lohse, Radboud U; Nico D. Müller, U of Basel Online, 19–20 March 2026 13:30–17:00 CET each day Register by 17 March: tinyurl.com/nam-workshop

📣 Upcoming Online Workshop, 19–20 March 2026

*Understanding Challenges and Opportunities for the Transition Beyond #AnimalExperimentation in Research and Safety Testing: What‘s New? What‘s Next?*

Register by 17 March: tinyurl.com/nam-workshop

#NAM #animalethics #philsci #animalstudies #STS

World Conferences on Research Integrity (@wcrifoundation.bsky.social) Official account of the World Conference on #ResearchIntegrity #WCRI2026 Vancouver, Canada 3-6 May 2026 https://wcri2026.org/ ✒️ @gengyantang.bsky.social‬

Our colleague Serge Horbach is part of the newly formed @thelancet.com & @wcrifoundation.bsky.social commission on #ResearchIntegrity. The commission is tasked to describe current threats to RI and propose evidence-based solutions.