The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science

Today's guest is Professor Carl Bergstrom from the University of Washington. Carl has been touring Australia over the last few weeks and we were delighted when he agreed to join us while he was in Melbourne. Carl works across evolutionary biology, informatics and science studies and has become particularly well-known for his work concerning the spread of misinformation and what we can do about it. Together with his colleague Jevin West, Carl developed a university course named ‘Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World’, which they have since developed into a best selling book. In this episode Carl discusses a range of topics including the role institutional norms and incentive structures play in shaping science, the challenges of studying misinformation and why he believes we must urgently turn our collective attention to the study of collective human behaviour if we hope to address our current information crisis.Transcript of the episode available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/carl-bergstrom-transcript-s2-ep9 Resources related to the episode:Carl's Website: https://ctbergstrom.com/'Calling Bullshit' Website: https://callingbullshit.org/Guardian Article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/01/carl-bergstrom-people-are-using-data-to-bullshitThanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Welcome to another week of the HPS podcast. This week's guest is Gerhard Wiesenfeldt of the University of Melbourne. He joins us as he discusses the benefits and pitfalls of studying those in the history of science who are less well known. The popular narratives in the history of science tend to centre around a few key figures on whom extensive research and work has been done, those such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin. However, for every household name there were a legion of other scientists also working in their respective fields. By studying these scientists we gain insight not only into an understudied piece of history, but also into the everyday working of the science machine, and the workers who kept it going.The transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/gerhard-weisenfeldt-transcript-s2-e8Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

This week's guest is Ian Hesketh, an intellectual historian and historian of science at the University of Queensland. His work in HPS revolves around 19th century scientific practices and their intricacies. He works to situate this science not only in its temporal history, but to delve into the ways in which the practice itself helped to form the science of the day.He joins the podcast to discuss how scientific and historical writing practices can effect the way in which science itself is shaped, as well as the rich tradition of science history present in the discipline of science itself. To demonstrate how the writing of science history can shape how science is produced, he turns to the Darwinian Revolution. Darwin was not simply a scientist, but was well versed in the history of his field as well as its changing nature, a fact integral to his development of the theory of evolution.Transcript of the episode is now available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/ian-hesketh-transcript-s2-e7 Resources related to the episode:Book: The Science of History in Victorian Britain: Making the Past Speak https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1dnppv7  Book: Imagining the Darwinian Revolution: Historical Narratives of Evolution from the Nineteenth Century to the Present https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2k4fwprIan's Chapter: Imagining the Darwinian Revolution https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:005e875Article:  From Copernicus to Darwin to you: history and the meaning(s) of evolution https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4d9ee19Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Today's guest is Sarah Qidwai, a Postdoctoral Researcher in the history of science who focuses on British Imperialism, Science and Colonialism, the relation of Science and Islam, as well as the history of evolutionary biology. Sarah’s dissertation focussed on how the Muslim polymath, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, engaged with science and science popularisation. In this week’s episode Sarah introduces us to the topic of Science and Colonialism – a crucial area of research for understanding many of the features of modern science, as well as reconfiguring our understanding of its history – expanding our vision and challenging many traditional Eurocentric notions of what it takes to really come to grips with understanding this thing we call science.Transcript of the episode is now available here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/sarah-qidwai-transcript-s2-e6Resources related to the episode:Sarah's Website:  https://sarahqidwai.com/Sarah's Article: 'Re-examining Complexity: Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Interpretation of 'Science' in Islam' in Rethinking History, Science, and Religion (2019)Sarah's Article: 'Darwin or Design? Examining Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Views on Human Evolution' in The Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan (2019)Marwa Elshakry's Book: Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950Sujit Sivasundaram's Article: On Global Histories of Science, Isis: Vol 101, No 1Further reading: The Routledge Handbook of Science and EmpireThanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Today's guest on the podcast is Dr Adrian Currie, senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Exeter. Much of Adrian's research revolves around the question 'How do Scientists successfully generate knowledge in tricky circumstances?'Much of Adrian's work has focused on the historical sciences, such as palaeontology and archeology. In this episode Adrian talks about how scientists in these fields have developed a range of creative and opportunistic ways of developing knowledge - even when evidence is thin on the ground.A transcript of this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/adrian-currie-transcript-s2-e5 Additional resources:Adrian's website - https://sites.google.com/site/adrianmitchellcurrie/Blog - Extinct: The Philosophy of Palaeontology Blog - http://www.extinctblog.org/Book - Rock, Bone & Ruin: An Optimist's Guide to the Historical Sciences (2018) - https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262037266/rock-bone-and-ruin/ Book - Scientific Knowledge & the Deep Past: History Matters (2019) Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

"Everything on the land is reflected in the sky. So if you want to learn about indigenous astronomy, You have to learn about everything."This week we welcome Duane Hamacher to the HPS podcast as he discusses Indigenous science and its importance in the Australian context. Duane is a professor of astronomy who focuses on Indigenous astronomy, its history, and its present role in our knowledge systems. He works with elders from Indigenous groups across the world to bring to light the history of astronomy in their culture, and how we can appreciate and learn from it today. He discusses with us the importance of considering Indigenous knowledge systems, be they oral, dance, or art, and their validity amongst Western science, and the importance of not dismissing that which looks different from what we might have previously been taught. At the University of Melbourne, Duane teaches a course called Indigenous Astronomy, run through the physics department, which highlights for students that there is more than one way of knowing, the synergy which exists between different modes of knowing, and how this fits in with the rest of their schooling at the university. Indigenous and Western ways of knowing are not disparate ideas, but run in parallel.A transcript of this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/duane-hamacher-transcript-s2-e4Some links related to this episode can be found below:Book - Disciplining the Savages: Savaging the Disciplines by Martin Nakata Book - The First Astronomers - How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars by Duane HamacherArticle - Stars that vary in brightness shine in the oral traditions of Aboriginal Australians (theconversation.com) by Duane Hamacher Book Chapter - Safeguarding Indigenous Sky Rights from Colonial Exploitation by Karlie Alinta Noon, Krystal De Napoli, Peter Swanton, Carla Guedes, Duane HamacherArticle - Dismantling the Divide Between IndigenousThanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Season 2 of the HPS podcast welcomes back friend of the podcast, Kristian Camilleri. This time he joins us to discuss the turn to practice in the philosophy of science.The "turn to practice" is a common name for the shift in philosophy of science theory when philosophers and social scientists moved from studying science through broad theories and began to analyse how science is actually conducted by practising scientists. By shifting their focus here, philosophers of science were better able to understand the inner workings of scientific practice.This often lead to interesting analysis of the ways in which discoveries were made. No one creates new ideas out of a vacuum, and by monitoring the steps of progress made by scientists, philosophers learnt more about how we come to create new scientific theories. This episode with Kristian provides a neat sequel to his Season 1 episode on the Disunity of Science. Some links related to this episode can be found below:Book – Science after the Practice Turn in the Philosophy, History, and Social (routledge.com)Article – ‘The Shaping of Inquiry: Histories of the Exact Sciences after the Practical Turn’ - https://www.scirp.org/pdf/AHS_2015050715404250.pdfSociety for the Philosophy of Scientific Practice - https://philosophy-science-practice.org/about/mission-statement A transcript of this episode can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/kristian-camilleri-transcript-s2-e3Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

"Scientists are not born, they are made" David Kaiser Today's guest on the podcast is David Kaiser, Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Physics at MIT. In history of science, David is best known for his books on the history of modern physics including Drawing Theories Apart, Quantum Legacies, and a personal favourite, How the Hippies Saved Physics, which in part looks at how changing cultural conditions in 1970s USA, including severe cutbacks in the funding of physics and the emergence of counterculture, gave rise to an unusual group of physicists who helped rejuvenate more speculative physics.In a fitting follow up to Rachel Ankeny’s episode last week on research repertoires, today David discusses the role of education, scientific training, and pedagogy in the production of scientific knowledge. Some links related to this episode can be found below:Profile: David I. Kaiser » MIT Physics 2005 Book: Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics2011 Book: How the Hippies Saved Physics2020 Book: Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain WorldEdited Book: Pedagogy and the Practice of SciencePaper: The Postwar Suburbanization of American PhysicsOpen Course: Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the 20th CenturyMIT Case Studies on Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing: SERCA transcript of this episode can be found here: www.hpsunimelb.org/post/transcript-s2-e2Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

Welcome to season 2 of the HPS Podcast! To ease you into a new season, Samara and Indigo sit down to reflect on the first season. They take a look at how the season performed, with listernership outstripping their expectations, both in terms of numbers and global reach. They discuss what we have to look forward to in season 2, with new events, guests and topics. But most importantly, it is a chance to catch back up with your two favourite podcast hosts before they are swept away into the whirlpool of podcasting for another 12 weeksThanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org

"That's what ‘repertoires’ is trying to force philosophers to look at - that whole ecosystem that encompasses the doing of science." Prof. Rachel Ankeny We start season 2 with the wonderful Rachel Ankeny discussing scientific change and the concept of research repertoires.Rachel is professor of History and Philosophy at the University of Adelaide, with wide ranging expertise across HPS, bioethics and science policy, as well as food studies. Rachel is also editor in chief of the journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science and is past president of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology. In this episode Rachel introduces us to the concept of 'Research Repertoires', a notion she develop with Sabina Leonelli as a way to better understand the complex composition of research communities. In particular, Rachel and Sabina introduce the notion of  repertoires to highlight how important the practice of science is to understanding how scientific knowledge making works and changes over time.The repertoire of a scientific community incorporates many different components, including the typical skills, methods, materials and technologies that community members use, the institutional structures they practice in, the geographical locations they are dispersed across, the common language they share, the organizations they subscribe to, and the ways in which they typically publish.Some links related to this episode can be found below:Profile: Professor Rachel Ankeny | Researcher Profiles (adelaide.edu.au)Research Repertoires: Repertoires: A post-Kuhnian perspective on scientific change and collaborative research (Ankeny & Leonelli, 2016)Repertoires and Model Organisms (Sect 5): Model Organisms (cambridge.org)Repertoires in Jazz:  The Jazz Repertoire (Faulkner & Becker 2006)Kuhn's Concept of Paradigm: Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyA transcript of this episode can be found here: www.hpsunimelb.org/post/transcript-s2-e1Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast. You can find more about us on our website, Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook feeds.  This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.Music by ComaStudio. Website HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org