Kevin J. S. Zollman

The Communication Structure of Epistemic Communities

Increasingly, epistemologists are becoming interested in social structures and their effect on epistemic enterprises, but little attention has been paid to the proper distribution of experimental results among scientists. This paper will analyze a model first suggested by two economists, which nicely captures one type of learning situation faced by scientists. The results of a computer simulation study of this model provide two interesting conclusions. First, in some contexts, a community of scientists is, as a whole, more reliable when its members are less aware of their colleagues’ experimental results. Second, there is a robust tradeoff between the reliability of a community and the speed with which it reaches a correct conclusion.

The role of forgetting in the evolution and learning of language

Lewis signalling games illustrate how language might evolve from random behaviour. The probability of evolving an optimal signalling language is, in part, a function of what learning strategy the agents use. Here we investigate three learning strategies, each of which allows agents to forget old experience. In each case, we find that forgetting increases the probability of evolving an optimal language. It does this by making it less likely that past partial success will continue to reinforce suboptimal practice. The learning strategies considered here show how forgetting past experience can promote learning in the context of games with suboptimal equilibria.

Talking to Neighbors: The Evolution of Regional Meaning*

In seeking to explain the evolution of social cooperation, many scholars are using increasingly complex game‐theoretic models. These complexities often model readily observable features of human and animal populations. In the case of previous games analyzed in the literature, these modifications have had radical effects on the stability and efficiency properties of the models. We will analyze the effect of adding spatial structure to two communication games: the Lewis Sender‐Receiver game and a modified Stag Hunt game. For the Stag Hunt, we find that the results depart strikingly from previous models. In all cases, the departures increase the explanatory value of the models for social phenomena.

Between cheap and costly signals: the evolution of partially honest communication

Costly signalling theory has become a common explanation for honest communication when interests conflict. In this paper, we provide an alternative explanation for partially honest communication that does not require significant signal costs. We show that this alternative is at least as plausible as traditional costly signalling, and we suggest a number of experiments that might be used to distinguish the two theories.

Evolutionary dynamics of Lewis signaling games: signaling systems vs. partial pooling

Transfer of information between senders and receivers, of one kind or another, is essential to all life. David Lewis introduced a game theoretic model of the simplest case, where one sender and one receiver have pure common interest. How hard or easy is it for evolution to achieve information transfer in Lewis signaling?. The answers involve surprising subtleties. We discuss some if these in terms of evolutionary dynamics in both finite and infinite populations, with and without mutation.

Research at the Auction Block: Problems for the Fair Benefits Approach to International Research

The “fair benefits” approach to international research is designed to produce results that all can agree are fair without taking a stand on divisive questions of justice. But its appealing veneer of collaboration masks ambiguities at both a conceptual and an operational level. An attempt to put it into practice would look a lot like an auction, leaving little reason to think the outcomes will satisfy even minimal conditions of fairness.

Dynamic stability and basins of attraction in the Sir Philip Sidney game

We study the handicap principle in terms of the Sir Philip Sidney game. The handicap principle asserts that cost is required to allow for honest signalling in the face of conflicts of interest. We show that the significance of the handicap principle can be challenged from two new directions. Firstly, both the costly signalling equilibrium and certain states of no communication are stable under the replicator dynamics (i.e. standard evolutionary dynamics); however, the latter states are more likely in cases where honest signalling should apply. Secondly, we prove the existence and stability of polymorphisms where players mix between being honest and being deceptive and where signalling costs can be very low. Neither the polymorphisms nor the states of no communication are evolutionarily stable, but they turn out to be more important for standard evolutionary dynamics than the costly signalling equilibrium.

Social network structure and the achievement of consensus

It is widely believed that bringing parties with differing opinions together to discuss their differences will help both in securing consensus and also in ensuring that this consensus closely approximates the truth. This paper investigates this presumption using two mathematical and computer simulation models. Ultimately, these models show that increased contact can be useful in securing both consensus and truth, but it is not always beneficial in this way. This suggests one should not, without qualification, support policies which increase interpersonal contact if one seeks to improve the epistemic performance of groups.

Introduction, SI of Synthese “The collective dimension of science”

Scientists are not isolated agents: they collaborate in laboratories, research networks and large-scale international projects. Apart from direct collaboration, scientists interact with each other in various ways: they follow entrenched research programs, trust their peers, embed their work into an existing paradigm, exchange concepts, methods and results, compete for grants or prestige, etc. The collective dimension of science has been discussed by philosophers of science in various ways, but until recently, the use of formal methods has been restricted to some particular areas, such as the treatment of the division of scientific labor, the study of reward schemes or the effects of network structures on the production of scientific knowledge. Given the great promise of these methods for modeling and understanding of the dynamics of scientific research, this blind spot struck us as surprising. At the same time, social aspects of the production and diffusion of knowledge have been

The Independence Thesis: When Individual and Social Epistemology Diverge*

Several philosophers of science have argued that epistemically rational individuals might form epistemically irrational groups and that, conversely, rational groups might be composed of irrational individuals. We call the conjunction of these two claims the Independence Thesis, as they entail that methodological prescriptions for scientific communities and those for individual scientists are logically independent. We defend the inconsistency thesis by characterizing four criteria for epistemic rationality and then proving that, under said criteria, individuals will be judged rational when groups are not and vice versa. We then explain the implications of our results for descriptive history of science and normative epistemology.