Models of Scientific Communities and Social Epistemology:
I am building formal models of scientific communities to answer questions like: how can industry influence the public understanding of science? How do communication structures impact the emergence of scientific consensus? And: What can idealized models tell us about complicated scientific communities? In addition to the work here, look under the next heading for models of diverse groups in science. And see my book projects The Misinformation Age and Modeling Scientific Communities.
Fake News!, with James Weatherall, for Philosophy Compass
The Best Paper You’ll Read Today: Media Bias and the Public Understanding of Science, with Aydin Mohseni and James Weatherall, Philosophical Topics, forthcoming
Can Confirmation Bias Improve Group Learning?, with Nathan Gabriel, Philosophy of Science, forthcoming
How Should We Promote Transient Diversity in Science?, (official link) with Jingyi Wu, Synthese, 2023
The Cultural Evolution of Science, with Jingyi Wu and Paul Smaldino, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution, forthcoming
Interdisciplinarity Can Aid the Spread of Better Methods Between Scientific Communities (official link) with Paul Smaldino, Collective Intelligence, 2022
The Dynamics of Retraction in Epistemic Networks, with Travis LaCroix and Anders Geil, Philosophy of Science, 2021 (see a related talk)
Modeling How False Beliefs Spread, with Jim Weatherall, The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, 2021
Social Epistemology, with Alvin Goldman, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019
False Beliefs and the Social Structure of Science: Some Models and Case Studies, with James Owen Weatherall, In Groupthink in Science, 2020
How to Beat Science and Influence People, (official link) with James Owen Weatherall and Justin P. Bruner, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2018 (a talk on this paper) (and a related talk)
Endogenous Epistemic Factionalization, (official link) with James Owen Weatherall, Synthese, 2020 (a talk on this paper, and a related talk)
Conformity in Scientific Networks, (official link) with James Owen Weatherall, Synthese, 2020, NOTE, this version was updated in 2023 to correct a small error
The Natural Selection of Conservative Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A, 2019
Scientific Polarization, (official link) with James Owen Weatherall, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 2018 (a talk on this paper)
In Epistemic Networks, Is Less Really More?, (official link) with Sarita Rosenstock and Justin P. Bruner, Philosophy of Science, 2017
Intellectual Vice and Social Networks, (official link) for the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2020
Modeling Inequality:
I’m using evolutionary modeling to understand issues related to diversity such as: How do discriminatory norms arise between social groups? How does power influence strategic behavior between academics? How do gender and class emerge in societies? Also, check out my book project The Origins of Unfairness.
Why Natural Social Contracts are Not Fair, for New Social Contract Theory, forthcoming
On the Stability of Racial Capitalism, with Liam K. Bright, Nathan Gabriel, and Olufemi Taiwo, Ergo, Forthcoming
Measuring Conventionality, (official link) Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2021
Inequality and Inequity in the Emergence of Conventions. (official link) with Calvin Cochran, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 2019
Power By Association, with Travis Lacroix, Ergo, Forthcoming
Modeling Minimal Conditions for Social Ills, Working Paper 2021
Promoting Diverse Collaborations, with Michael Schneider and Hannah Rubin, In The Dynamics of Science: Computational Frontiers in History and Philosophy of Science, Forthcoming
The Emergence of Intersectional Disadvantage, (official link) with Liam K. Bright and Justin P. Bruner, Social Epistemology, 2019 (a talk on this paper)
Discrimination and Collaboration in Science, (official link) with Hannah Rubin, Philosophy of Science, 2018 (also see this video of a talk on this paper)
The Cultural Red King Effect, (official link) Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 2017, note this version was updated in 2019 to correct a small error
Dynamics and Diversity in Epistemic Communities, (official link) with Justin P. Bruner, Erkenntnis, 2017
Power, Bargaining, and Collaboration, with Justin P. Bruner, in Scientific Collaboration and Collective Knowledge, 2017
Moral Emotions and Naturalized Ethics:
I’m using tools from evolutionary modeling to assess and expand work in philosophy on the evolution of moral emotions.
Methods Models and the Evolution of Moral Psychology, in Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology, 2022
The Evolution of Guilt: a Model Based Approach, (official link) Philosophy of Science, 2015
When it’s Good to Feel Bad: An Evolutionary Model of Guilt and Apology, (official link) with Sarita Rosenstock, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2018
Guilt, Games, and Evolution, (official link) for Emotions Researcher, 2016
Deus Ex Machina: a Cautionary Tale For Naturalists , (official link) with P. Kyle Stanford, Elliott Wagner, and Nathan Fulton, Analyse & Kritik, 2012
Categories, Generalization, and Vagueness:
In my thesis project, I completed a cluster of related papers which applied the same game theoretic model – the sim-max game – to several interrelated problems including the evolution of linguistic vagueness, linguistic ambiguity, perceptual categories, learning generalization, and cluster kinds terms.
The Evolution of Vagueness, (official link), Erkenntnis, 2014 (a talk on this paper)
Evolving Perceptual Categories, (official link) Philosophy of Science, 2014
Evolving to Generalize: Trading Precision for Speed, (official link) BJPS, 2017
Ambiguity is Kinda Good, Sometimes, (official link) Philosophy of Science, 2015
Games and Kinds, (official link) BJPS, 2017
Experimental Philosophy:
I use methods from behavioral economics and social psychology to investigate philosophical questions.
Moral Judgments Impact Perceived Risks from COVID-19 Exposure, (official version) with Daniel P. Relihan, Ashley Thomas, Peter H. Ditto, P. Kyle Stanford, and James O. Weatherall, Collabra 2023
Communication without Common Interest: A Signaling Experiment, with Hannah Rubin, Justin P. Bruner, and Simon Huttegger, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science C, 2020
On the Emergence of Minority Disadvantage: Testing the Red King Hypothesis, (official version) with Aydin Mohseni and Hannah Rubin, Synthese, 2019
Experimental Economics for Philosophers, (link to volume) with Hannah Rubin and Justin Bruner, in Methodological Advances in Experimental Philosophy, 2019
David Lewis in the Lab: Experimental Results on the Emergence of Meaning, (official link) with Justin Bruner, Hannah Rubin, and Simon Huttegger, Synthese, 2014
Reviews:
Review of Samir Okasha’s Agents and Goals in Evolution, (official link) Philosophy of Science, 2020
Black Holes, Black-Scholes, and Prairie Voles: as Essay Review of Simulation and Similarity by Michael Weisberg, (official link) with Jim Weatherall, Philosophy of Science, 2017
Review of Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Philosophy of Biology, (official link) Philosophy of Science, 2015
Review of Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Darwinian Populations, (official link) Philosophy of Science, 2012
White Papers and Policy Recommendations:
Technology and Democracy, science for policy report for the JRC, the European Commission’s knowledge service, with twelve interdisciplinary authors, 2020
Fair Elections During a Crisis, white paper with twenty-five interdisciplinary authors, 2020
White Paper: Deep Fakery – an Action Plan, with fifteen interdisciplinary researchers, 2020
Sexual Selection: a NESCent Catalyst Meeting, with fifteen interdisciplinary researchers, 2013