iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

This should be an interesting event with Jacob Stegenga. Online and open to. You just need to preregister. Link in poster and in comment below.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

It is in fact a fantastic book. I read a couple of different drafts.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

This is a project that started in 2006 and literally took forever--which statistical mechanics says is impossible.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Why did they induct him in the first place. For his flying car? Or his Hyperloop train?

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Trump is going to make Canada go to war somehow? What does this mean?

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

a crackpot conspiracy theory? What forces allow the scientific community to be so fundamentally distorted that they can not only achieve consensus on a falsehood, but consensus that the truth is an obvious crackpot conspiracy theory. Otherwise we learn nothing.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Everyone is falling in line in the obvious truth here. But don't let them conceal the details. What was the project? Was it project DEFUSE? Who funded it? NIH? NIAID? Who covered it up? What caused the entire scientific community to endorse the claim that the truth was ...

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Oh wow, that is a bit much back to back.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

We can't all be fancy not-up-the-hill colleges, like Kings.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

cool, thanks. but yeah, this is mostly for something steph is working on.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

This is a slightly self indulgent post, but if you have used anything written by myself and Stephanie Harvard, or the movie "moral models" in one of your classes, could you note so below? I would appreciate it. (Also if you know of someone else who hasn't posted).

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

This definitely sounds interesting bsky.app/profile/stel...

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Haha, since the days of the paper in synthese about non-classical logics being as bad as homosexuality (or something equally bonkers) guest editors have less leway than they used to.

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Reposted by Eric Winsberg

Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

"Science, which we may understand broadly as the natural, social and human sciences, depends on gatekeeping to maintain its epistemic credentials. It must keep out pretenders while remaining porous to outside-the-box insights and to criticisms of its own shibboleths."

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Don't be so sure. We might have a paper on parapsychology.

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Reposted by Eric Winsberg

Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Great framing for a special issue #metascience #philsci #histsci #sts

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Would love a submission from you.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Katherine Dormandy and I are officially editing a special issue of *Synthese* on Gatekeeping in Science. The call for papers is attached. It should be a fun issue. link.springer.com/collections/...

link.springer.com

Gatekeeping in Science

Science, which we may understand broadly as the natural, social and human sciences, depends on gatekeeping to maintain its epistemic credentials. It must keep ...

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Well, see here we have two parallel disagreements. I think it must be their values. And that's why I say "expression of". I don't know what it means to act on someone else's values precisely because my values just are half of my dispositions to act.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

But don't phrase it as if theres some objectively correct standard that they raise it from. It just that they are using a higher standard than the public would given their different values.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I think this almost certainly happens. And yes, in this case they should be incentivized not to do this if the public values other things more. At the very least because otherwise you get backlash. (As we've seen).

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Also why is everything about the culture war du jour?

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

"approval of vaccines" isn't a value, it's a substantive position. The relevant values are things like "avoiding disease in yourself" "avoiding spreading disease in others" "avoiding side effect" "willingness to pay" etc.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Im agnostic about whether should implies can, but it certainly doesn't imply "will".

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

If the VFI reads "cultivate being the kind of person who only cares about informing the public" that's another unattainable ideal.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

That's obviously right. Will they do it? No, because they often have other values that motivate their decisions as well. They need to be incentivized to do it and they very often aren't.

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Reposted by Eric Winsberg

Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

There's a bit of a grad seminar going on under this post. Such good value. Following with interest...

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

And irrespective of how you answer, you've already said it's job of the scientist to act ("inform") so you've eliminated the possibility than anyone is committing Levis "fallacy".

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I don't have omniscient 1st person access to my credences. I can't just reveal them to you. I can only act on a combination of my credences and values. My credences just are my dispositions to "bet". That's my view. If you a different view you owe me a theory of what credences are.

value.ls

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

How do you convey information without acting?

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Take your pick. Tell me what the job of a scientist qua scientist is that doesn't amount to something that can be done quietly innl the dark.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

What matters is a scientists actions, including endorse claims full stop or endorsing claims about the strength of evidence. the "fallacy" is not involved. I thought you agreed that you "spoke too loosely" earlier when framing it this way.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

He's making the same mistake I pointed to above. You can have whatever cognitive attitudes you like and this might be value free, but endorsing a claim is a action. Rudner picked the unfortunate word "accept". But acceptance is irrelevant. That's sitting quietly in the dark.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

But anyway, Levi didn't "show" this because he didn't frame the issue correctly.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

"Better to spin a coin". *Better* for whom on what preference structure?

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

'This point merits reiterating: no experiment has ever actually seen an atom in two places at once, let alone a cat being both alive and dead." This is basically false. www.nature.com/articles/nat...

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

an expression of a complex mixture of credences about rain and values of staying dry and having a heavier load to carry. It's not different when I decide to express a strength of evidence claim.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I actually disagree with this. I don't like the phrase value judgement. It's McMullens and he's deliberately obfuscating. There are scientific judgements, and they are all value laden, and thus are (partially) and expression of values. Just as when I bring an umbrella it's...

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

(and I don't understand in what sense you "spoke loosely".). You said that people who equate action with belief are being fallacious. So you were trying to maintain that there's something scientists can do without acting. Otherwise, I have no idea what the fallacy is.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Incentivized in a way that aligns them with something like public values. It's a hard problem in cases where scientists assert things that intersect with issues the public has strong interest in.

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Eric Winsberg @ewinsberg.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

If not, you are in exactly the same place as before. But the answer is: people should be careful. They should look for clues as to whether or not the assertions made by scientists are robust accross the ways their values differ. And they should make very sure that scientists are...

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