{"title":"Response to Wehner et al. (2023).","authors":"Kelle Dhein","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"113 ","pages":"11-12"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144805093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Explaining with simulation models","authors":"Matthias Ackermann","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Computer simulations are commonly employed when researchers work with analytically intractable or practically unsolvable mathematical modeling equations. In such cases, scientists seem to deal with two different but interrelated kinds of models: a mathematical model and a simulation model. This raises at least two philosophically interesting questions. First, does one or the other model figure centrally in the activity of generating an explanation in such situations? And second, what could an account of explanation involving both mathematical models and simulation models look like? I will argue that, in a large set of cases, the simulation model serves the central role in explanatory discovery. On this basis, I will then present a counterfactual account of simulation model-induced explanation. I claim that on this approach, we often find that the simulation model possesses an explanatory autonomy from its underlying mathematical models and conclude by relating this notion to extant views on the autonomous role of scientific models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"113 ","pages":"Pages 1-10"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144721857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Embedded Ecology: The Partnership Flywheel for integrating local expertise","authors":"Jesse Hamilton , Jacqueline Mae Wallis","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.012","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.012","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There have been increasing calls to improve the integration of local expertise into both scientific research and evidence-based policy development, especially for urgent problems like climate change. There are both epistemic and ethical benefits of better involving local communities in these knowledge-generating processes. Here we present a community science process model for integrating the expertise of local communities, developed through field analysis of a community science endeavor in the Galápagos Islands. We call this kind of collaboration “embedded ecology.” The process of embedded ecology is modeled by what we call the Partnership Flywheel, which includes phases for ideation, planning, implementation, and learning. The importance of sustained collaboration between external practitioners and a local community cannot be overstated, which is one reason the flywheel is iterative, allowing the focus to be on sustained project generation and improvement. After discussing the practical elements of the Partnership Flywheel process model, we argue that its simplicity and replicability are essential for any process model aimed at improving the integration of local expertise in community science, thereby addressing both current and enduring challenges in the field. In sum, we present and explore a new community science process model thus advancing a recently growing literature on the theory of participatory research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 179-189"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144655790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communal philosophy? A possible framework for academia-community interaction","authors":"Yael Silver , Ayelet Shavit","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Interaction with local communities is commonly known as academia's \"third mission,\" yet academia-community rifts are still common, running deeper in marginalized communities. A first step toward bridging the gap is clarification. We review core concepts (e.g., 'outreach,' 'accessibility,' 'engagement'), sort them into two model frameworks – \"Ivory Tower\" and \"Reciprocal” or “Win-Win” – and describe their distinct structures. Both are helpful in relevant contexts. However, their default application hampers certain epistemic values, enacts unjust hierarchical boundaries, and indirectly ties diversity with personal alienation and ethnic divergence. Therefore, another model is suggested: “Communal Academia.” We unfold how this model foregrounds activism, heterogeneity, and pluralistic interaction. Imaginary and real-life examples demonstrate the practice-based advantages of this framework, and the philosophical relevance of a communal approach is reflected upon.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 161-169"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144604854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Questioning local wisdom in Indonesian Indigenous research","authors":"Rangga Kala Mahaswa , Ainu Syaja","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article explores the shifting dynamics of local wisdom (<em>kearifan lokal</em>) as a research category within Indonesian academic discourse, particularly as reflected in journal publications that prominently feature the term in their titles. Although local wisdom is frequently equated with Indigenous knowledge, such conflation remains only partially accurate. While there are points of intersection, notable conceptual divergences persist underscoring the need to examine how local wisdom is understood, invoked, and positioned within the epistemological landscape of Indonesian scholarship. Drawing on a brief survey conducted through <em>Publish or Perish</em> software, the article outlines a provisional typology that captures how local wisdom is articulated across academic contexts. These findings suggest that local wisdom functions less as a stable or singular body of knowledge, and more as a discursive space shaped by a range of intellectual idealisms, situated commitments, and methodological compromises. Researchers engaging with this theme appear to navigate a delicate tension: between preserving the emic, often orally transmitted dimensions of local knowledge, and responding to disciplinary expectations rooted in scientific rationalism. At the same time, there is evidence of a latent ethnonationalist sentiment that further complicates the positioning of local wisdom within broader efforts to decolonize knowledge production in Indonesia.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 170-178"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144614336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trialability","authors":"Sven Ove Hansson","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.07.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A directly action-guiding experiment (trial) is an experiment performed to determine whether or to what extent some potential practical intervention has the desired effects. Clinical trials and agricultural field trials are prominent examples. Directly action-guiding experiments have been used in farming and various crafts since long before modern science. The <em>trialability</em> of a desired outcome is the (degree of) facility with which interventions that bring it about can be found and experimentally verified. This article introduces a framework for analyzing trialability in terms of eleven dimensions. The framework is applied to a comparison between trialability in traditional agriculture and traditional (prescientific) medicine. It turns out that trialability is in several respects greater in agriculture than in medicine. This finding can contribute to explaining why directly action-guiding experiments were common in agriculture long before they were introduced in medicine.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 153-160"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144588657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does diversity promote exclusion?","authors":"Yael Silver , Ayelet Shavit","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We argue that the typical meanings and operationalizations of <em>diversity</em> are practically linked to <em>dichotomy</em> and hamper equity practices in the academia. Scientists and scholars in mainstream Western society widely agree that achieving social justice requires promoting diversity in science and society. Diversity refers to differences existing in a set of entities, and ‘human diversity’ in academic research and social practice typically refers to racial, ethnic or gender differences in designated groups. Diversity is expected to promote inclusion by recognizing these differences and demanding equal representation in science and society. However, we argue that the operationalization of ‘diversity’ is actually disposed to produce dichotomy, thus often ending in a stereotypic portrayal of underrepresented groups rather than promoting their inclusion. We describe the informal and formal meanings of diversity measures and their usage in an academic course devoted to equity in education. We explain – at least partly – why this discourse tends to dichotomize a complex social phenomenon, inadvertently exacerbating the challenges faced by underrepresented groups. To conclude: promoting social justice requires inclusion; inclusion requires diversity, yet the implementation of a particular set of practices of diversity leads to a dichotomy that increases divergence, distancing us from inclusion. Thus, current practices of ‘diversity’ may actually undercut rather than encourage the reduction of social injustice.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 133-140"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144580587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why did the dark matter hypothesis supersede modified gravity in the 1980s?","authors":"Antonis Antoniou","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the 1960s and 1970s a series of observations and theoretical developments highlighted the presence of several anomalies which could, in principle, be explained by postulating one of the following two working hypotheses: (i) the existence of dark matter, or (ii) the modification of standard gravitational dynamics in low accelerations. In the years that followed, the dark matter hypothesis as an explanation for dark matter phenomenology attracted far more attention compared to the hypothesis of modified gravity, and the latter is largely regarded today as a non-viable alternative. The present article takes an integrated history and philosophy of science approach in order to identify the reasons why the scientific community mainly pursued the dark matter hypothesis in the years that followed, as opposed to modified gravity. A plausible answer is given in terms of three epistemic criteria for the pursuitworthiness of a hypothesis: (a) its problem-solving potential, (b) its compatibility with established theories and the feasibility of incorporation, and (c) its independent testability. A further comparison between the problem of dark matter and the problem of dark energy is also presented, explaining why in the latter case the situation is different, and modified gravity is still considered a viable possibility.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 141-152"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144580588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The descent of blushing: On the connection between Darwin's anti-slavery positions and his explanation of the origin of emotional expression","authors":"Santiago Ginnobili","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Demond and Moore showed how Darwin's antislavery ideals made it possible to explain both the origin and the content of many of Darwin's ideas. In this paper, I will attempt to link Darwinian explanations of the origin of the expressions of emotion to such ideals, trying to show that there are deeper connections than the mere defense of monogenism. For Darwin's explanation of the evolutionary origin of blushing implies that all races and their common ancestry have similar mental capacities. Moreover, accepting Darwinian explanations for the origin of expressions provides a contingent image of evolution that implies the dissolution of the explanatory frameworks to which racist and slavery literature appealed. This literature presupposed absolute standards of perfection and beauty that made it possible to order different races in a chain of being.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 123-132"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144580586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A minimalist account of agency in physics","authors":"Ali Barzegar , Emilia Margoni , Daniele Oriti","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2025.06.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We adopt an approach to agency aimed at developing a minimalist, scalable and naturalized account of it. After providing a general definition, we explore possible extensions and refinements, domain of applicability, as well as a comparison with other recent accounts, finally tackling potential objections. With respect to what we classify as strong (such as Tononi’s) and weak (such as Rovelli’s) characterizations, our notion of agency situates itself in a middle position — our intent being precisely that of spelling out the advantages of this median account within a variety of contexts, such as the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the debate on the nature of physical laws and bayesianism.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"112 ","pages":"Pages 112-122"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144580585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}