Heather Douglas

Reintroducing Prediction to Explanation

Although prediction has been largely absent from discussions of explanation for the past 40 years, theories of explanation can gain much from a reintroduction. I review the history that divorced prediction from explanation, examine the proliferation of models of explanation that followed, and argue that accounts of explanation have been impoverished by the neglect of prediction. Instead of a revival of the symmetry thesis, I suggest that explanation should be understood as a cognitive tool that assists us in generating new predictions. This view of explanation and prediction clarifies what makes an explanation scientific and why inference to the best explanation makes sense in science.

Science, hormesis and regulation:

While hormesis is an intriguing scientific hypothesis, this paper argues that it is not yet an acceptable basis for policy-making. Two reasons are given for this assessment. First, although hormesis has suggestive explanatory power, it does not yet have the predictive successes that indicate a general reliability sufficient for policy-making. Second, the regulatory agenda for chemical exposures is usually focused, for good ethical reasons, on protecting people from involuntary and potentially harmful exposures, rather than focused on maximizing public health benefits.

Engagement for progress: applied philosophy of science in context

Philosophy of science was once a much more socially engaged endeavor, and can be so again. After a look back at philosophy of science in the 1930s–1950s, I turn to discuss the current potential for returning to a more engaged philosophy of science. Although philosophers of science have much to offer scientists and the public, I am skeptical that much can be gained by philosophers importing off-the-shelf discussions from philosophy of science to science and society. Such efforts will likely look like efforts to do applied ethics by merely applying ethical theories to particular contexts and problems. While some insight can be gained by these kinds of endeavors, the most interesting and pressing problems for the actual practitioners and users of science are rarely addressed. Instead, I recommend that philosophers of science engage seriously and regularly with scientists and/or the users of science in order to gain an understanding of the conceptual issues on the ground. From such engagement, flaws in the traditional philosophical frameworks, and how such flaws can be remedied, become apparent. Serious engagement with the contexts of science thus provides the most fruit for philosophy of science per se and for the practitioners whom the philosophers aim to assist. And if one focuses on contexts where science has its most social relevance, these efforts can help to provide the thing that philosophy of science now lacks: a full-bodied philosophy of science in society.

Reshaping science: The trouble with the corporate model in Canadian government

Since taking office in 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has transformed science in Canada, particularly for government scientists. The author describes and assesses these changes, from revised communication policies for government scientists, to the closure of scientific facilities and offices, to the altered landscape for science funding. In these changes, one can see an importation of a corporate model into governance, with government practices streamlined to ensure near-exclusive focus on the particular agenda of the government. But democracies should not be run like corporations; they require greater openness and acceptance of divergent interests within government science. In particular, government research is often crucial to the assessment of government actions and policies, and citizens require access to this information to be able to assess their government at times of election. The author articulates four implementable principles that can help maintain science’s important place in democratic governance.

Book ReviewKevin Elliott,Is a Little Pollution Good for You?Oxford: Oxford University Press (2011), 264 pp.,

While Kevin Elliott’s book does not actually answer the question posed in the title, it does give philosophers of science plenty to think about. In particular, the book poses crucial questions concerning how the social practices of science should function in a democratic society. The book does not give ironclad answers to the questions it poses, but it will provide plenty of grist to those willing to take up the challenge. The book’s title and central case study derive from the issue of hormesis, the theory that at low doses, some (or perhaps most?) toxic chemicals reduce effects to rates below what a control organism would experience. If this is true, then for some chemicals, low doses might actually be better for us than no exposure at all. But, as Elliott details the case for hormesis and examines in detail the evidence provided for it, he shows how the uncontroversial claim that some chemicals exhibit hormetic effects gets expanded to most chemicals, which then gets expanded to the idea that hormesis is the dominant dose-response model, which is further expanded to claims about how to reform chemical regulation. Elliott nicely disambiguates these claims and, by examining the evidence for them, shows how different judgments at different points in the performance and assessment of the relevant studies lead to different conclusions about what to make of the phenomena. What to make of this pervasive problem of judgment? Elliott turns to the values-in-science literature, describing evenhandedly the current terrain of that debate. He then makes the limited and readily defensible claim that in cases like the hormesis case, regardless of what you make of the distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values and given either arguments from general underdetermination or arguments concerning the significance of error, social and ethical values should not be excluded at any of the four key points of judgment he uses to describe his case: (1) the choice of projects and the design of studies, (2) the development of terminology and categories, (3) the interpretation and evaluation of studies, and (4) the application of research. Elliott’s consideration of not just the usual locations of 1, 3, and 4 but also 2, the way in which language choices shape our knowledge, is a welcome addition to the values-in-science debate, as considerations of language choices have been mostly the province of the philosophy of social science. Elliott shows that philosophers concerned with the natural sciences need to think about these choices too.

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Science is one of the most important forces in contemporary society. The most reliable source of knowledge about the world, science shapes the technological possibilities before us, informs public policy, and is crucial to measuring the efficacy of public policy. Yet it is not a simple repository of facts on which we can draw. It is an ongoing process of evidence gathering, discovery, contestation, and criticism. I will argue that an understanding of the nature of science and the scientific process should be the central goal for scientific literacy, rather than a grasp of specific (often disciplinary) facts. With this understanding of science as a backdrop, the paper then turns to modes for citizen engagement with science. This paper articulates different ways citizens can engage with science, including four avenues for legitimate contestation of scientific claims. I then look more closely at contestation of science on the basis of values. That science can be legitimately contested by non-experts on a range of grounds means that science communication should not just aim at getting citizens to accept scientific claims, but rather to engage in a more robust two-way conversation about science.

Science, Values, and Citizens

The importance of science for guiding policy decisions has been an increasingly central feature of policy-making for much of the past century. But which science we have available to us and what counts as adequate science for policy-making shapes substantially the specific impact science has on policy decisions. Policy influences which science we pursue and how we pursue it in practice, as well as how science ultimately informs policy. Values inform our choices in these areas, as values shape the research agendas scientists pursue, the issues debated as we decide on policy, and what counts as sufficient warrant in any given case. And what we value is shaped by our empirical understanding of what is, what is possible, and what is feasible. The interrelationships between values (what we care about), policy (how our institutions and practices are structured), and science (our best source of empirical knowledge) requires careful philosophical attention.

Science, Policy, Values: Exploring the Nexus

In his latest book, Philip Kitcher is asking all the right questions. As he writes in the first chapter ‘[w]e urgently need a theory of the place of Science in a democratic society’ (pp. 25–6, emphasis his). In response, Kitcher offers a systematic account of science in society. The central problem of science in a democracy, as Kitcher conceives it, is how to manage the necessary division of epistemic labour (p. 21). Because neither complete epistemic equality nor complete epistemic elitism is a plausible picture, some division is needed (pp. 20–5). What should it look like? Should citizens have a say over which research gets pursued? If so, how and to what extent? Should citizens have a way to engage with, criticize, and even reject expert assessments of empirical matters? If so, how? And how should science reach the citizens that need it? Science should be given some special epistemic authority in society, but on what is that authority based, what is its nature, and what kinds of interactions with citizens are thus legitimate? One basis for the special epistemic authority of science, that science is valuefree, is discarded early. Kitcher argues that ‘value-judgments are deeply embedded in the practice of science’ (p. 34). He ‘resist[s] the suspicion that the incursion of values inevitably undermines scientific authority’ (p. 40). Instead, he turns to sketching an account of values that could be considered public and, in some sense, objective. The bulk of Kitcher’s work on values has been published elsewhere (Kitcher [2011]). He summarizes and draws from it here, providing an evolving utilitarian perspective. The human ethical project, as Kitcher conceives it, is our developing awareness of, and concern for, the implications of our actions Brit. J. Phil. Sci. 64 (2013), 901–905