Elisabeth Lloyd: Robustness as a confirmatory virtue

Lecture organized by the Department of Theoretical Philosophy

Both climate scientists and philosophers have been working hard to understand how the huge multidimensional global climate models can be tested and confirmed. The convergence of multiple climate models on a single outcome or result has provided a key feature in these discussions. Philosophers of science tend to think that such convergence, or “robustness,” is not confirmatory, because the models could converge and still all be wrong.

Climate scientists, on the other hand, do tend to see the convergence of climate models on a result as confirmatory. I will offer a defense and generalization of the climate scientists’ position, while differentiating their style of robustness from others considered by philosophers.

Elisabeth Lloyd

Elisabeth Lloyd holds the Arnold and Maxine Tanis Chair of History and Philosophy of Science and is also Professor of Biology, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University. She received her B.A. from the University of Colorado and her Ph.D. from Princeton University. She has received numerous awards and grants, including several from the National Science Foundation. Her research interests are primarily in the philosophy of biology, general philosophy of science, the role of models in science, and gender issues in science. Her publications include the book The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution.

When & where?

Thursday, 22 May, 15.15-17.00
Faculty of Philosophy, room Alfa