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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

I'm looking to hire two postdoctoral researchers on The Consensus Project. Full-time research positions for three years. Preferably people in social/formal epistemology and/or philosophy of science. Please share widely! More here: philjobs.org/job/show/31193 #philsci #philsky

philjobs.org

Postdoctoral fellowships, University of Iceland - PhilJobs:JFP Postdoctoral fellowships, University of Iceland

An international database of jobs for philosophers

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

The project is on consensus in science -- when it's a reliable sign of truth, how to use it in science communication, and how to progress science via consensus. We'll be hiring two postdocs and two MA-students, hosting several events, and be doing lots of exciting collaborative research!

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Some professional news: I'm delighted to share that I've been awarded a "grant of excellence" from the Icelandic Research Fund (Rannís). This is the largest type of research grant that's available in Iceland; only a couple of these are awarded each year across all disciplines.

island.is

Allocation from the Icelandic Research Fund for the financial year 2026 | The Icelandic Centre for Research

The Board of The Icelandic Research Fund has completed the allocation of grants for new research projects for 2026. A total of 414 valid applications were received, 70 of which were funded, or 17%.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Although this wasn't our goal, I was extra pleased that our results end up largely vindicating a suggestion I had made in a previous paper, which I called Evidentially Robust IBE. doi.org/10.1017/psa....

doi.org

Inferring to the Best Explanation from Uncertain Evidence | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core

Inferring to the Best Explanation from Uncertain Evidence

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

@boruttrpin.bsky.social and I have a new paper out in Philosophical Quarterly. We had both written on how inference to the best explanation could work with uncertain evidence. So we teamed up to test some suggestions for how to do that using computer simulations: academic.oup.com/pq/article/d...

academic.oup.com

Testing abductions from uncertain evidence

Abstract. Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is traditionally conceived of as a rule of inference, in which one infers to the hypothesis that provides

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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Finnur Dellsén got a nice pic of me on my standard Q&A slide, so now I have a stock reply to any time anyone disagrees with me.

Me in a red jumper talking into a mic and holding my hand up. Behind me is a slide with the words "You tell me I am wrong. // Who are you, who is anybody, to tell me I am wrong? // I am not wrong."

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Oscar @oscarw.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Helen Longino giving the first Annual Institute of Philosophy and Duke University Research Talk at the University of Iceland! The talk was titled “Why Center Interaction? (In science and elsewhere)”

A speaker (Helen Longino) giving a talk to an audience, standing behind a lectern and in front a lecture slides with pictures of lichens and dodders

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

It's definitely a good one! I also like what Einstein says somewhere about internal and external considerations in favor of a theory (or something to that effect). Fits IBE quite well, I think.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Sounds great, I look forward to reading this.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

A weirdly underappreciated problem about Inference to the Best Explanation is how it can handle uncertain evidence. This new paper, now forthcoming in Philosophy of Science, proposes a strategy for doing that (and argues that Einstein may have used it). #philsky #philsci doi.org/10.1017/psa....

doi.org

Inferring to the Best Explanation from Uncertain Evidence | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core

Inferring to the Best Explanation from Uncertain Evidence

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Nicholas Emmerson @nicemm.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Curious why my latest paper left one notable astrobiologist "unpleasantly surprised"? Follow the link and you might just find out! #philsci #philsky #astrobiology www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Scientific Progress, Astrobiology and the Pursuit of Knowledge | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core

Scientific Progress, Astrobiology and the Pursuit of Knowledge

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

And we argue, on that basis, that the debate about scientific progress should be seen as central to the various debates about scientific realism.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

We show, among other things, that scientists' views about various forms of scientific realism are best predicted by their views on scientific progress -- as opposed to, for instance, their views on the epistemic status of current theories, the no-miracles argument, or the pessimistic induction.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Tomorrow at U. of Iceland: James Beebe talks about how and ehy to make epistemic autonomy reflective. #philsky english.hi.is/research-tal...

english.hi.is

Research Talk in Philosophy: James R. Beebe

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Chris Crandall @chriscrandall.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

This is hilarious, and makes a good point.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

There was some sort of transition from one paper handling system to another, during which my paper seems to have just been forgotten about for a good while. Phil Imprint is doing the best they can with very limited resources so I have lots of sympathy for them.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

In the paper I argue for the heretical view that there is a way in which accommodated data provides more support than predicted data. How could that possibly be right? Read the paper to find out. (It's fully open access.)

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

I wasn't able to make thismone open access. Preprint available here: philpapers.org/archive/BEDI...

philpapers.org

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

New paper now forthcoming in PPR, co-authored with Bob Beddor. Argues that inquiry, especially in science, needs to be construed as a more social/egalitarian endeavor: the point of inquiring is often to confer epistemic benefits on others. #philsky #philsci onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Inclusive inquiry

What is the point of inquiry? Some say that the aim of inquiring into some question is to come to know its answer; others, that the aim is to attain justified belief, epistemic improvement, or some o...

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

And although we frame the argument as focusin on methods in philosophy specifically, it easily generalizes to other disciplines, and indeed to any systematic research.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

The model we use to show this is a sort of extension/elaboration/improvement on the models that Kitcher and Strevens use to model the benefits of cognitive diversity in science.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Should every researcher (in philosophy, for instance) be using the 'best' method available? We show, from surprisingly modest assumptions (e.g. about what 'best' amounts to), that resources should often be spread around to those using other methods, even when we know they're not 'best'.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

New paper forthcoming in Analysis on methodological pluralism! Co-authored with the rest of the "Philosophical Meth. Lab" (Sam Baron, Tina Firing, and James Norton)! #philsky #philsci #metascience academic.oup.com/analysis/adv...

academic.oup.com

Philosophical methodology: a plea for tolerance

Abstract. Many prominent critiques of philosophical methods proceed by suggesting that some method is unreliable, especially in comparison to some alternat

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

#Gaza is often described as an open-air prison. That analogy is no longer accurate: prisoners are not systematically shot, bombed, and starved to death. Gaza is now an open-air death camp.

msf.org

Mass starvation spreads across Gaza | MSF

More than 100 organisations are sounding the alarm to allow lifesaving aid into Gaza.

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British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

New issue, new Editors' Choice article (free to read): Finnur Dellsén, ‘Consensus versus Unanimity: Which Carries More Weight?’ Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #philsci #philsky #hps

ABSTRACT. Around 97% of climate scientists endorse anthropogenic global warming (AGW), the theory that human activities are partly responsible for recent increases in global average temperatures. Clearly, this widespread endorsement of AGW is a reason for non-experts to believe in AGW. But what is the epistemic significance of the fact that some climate scientists do not endorse AGW? This article contrasts expert unanimity, in which virtually no expert disagrees with some theory, with expert consensus, in which some non-negligible proportion either rejects or is uncertain about the theory. It is argued that from a layperson’s point of view, an expert consensus is often stronger evidence for a theory’s truth than unanimity. Several lessons are drawn from this conclusion, for example, concerning what laypeople should infer from expert pronouncements, how journalists should report on scientific theories, and how working scientists should communicate with the public.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Many good and interesting points made here, including the final point about research papers soon being written by AIs, reviewed by AIs, and then subsequently summarized for us by AIs. At some point we'll need to rethink the current model of the ~10k word research article. #philsci #philsky

theguardian.com

Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published

Widespread mockery of AI-generated rat with giant penis in one paper brings problem to public attention

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Andrew Zeppa @andrewzeppa.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Have you ever wanted to visualize how belief polarization might occur in scientific communities? Then check out this simulator, based on the model developed by @cailinmeister.bsky.social and @jamesowenweatherall.com in their (2018) paper on polarization #philsci #philsky #metasci

zeppaphisci.github.io

Epistemic Community Simulation

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

I'm probably a bit late to this party, but I found this excellent podcast recently. Great if you need an intro to some of the ethical issues with AI; should work well for intro courses, for instance. #ai #philosophy

vox.com

The AI revolution is here. Can we build a Good Robot?

The battle over artificial intelligence is just beginning.

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Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

I'm hereby making an honest attempt at using this platform. It's all quite confusing to me, making me feel very old. But so be it; here goes!

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