This reading group explores philosophical topics related to scientific experimentation. We meet on Thursdays from 11am to 12noon in the Board Room. All welcome!
Organised by Niall Roe (nrr32), Cameron Dashwood (cdd39) and Marta Halina (mh801).
Lent Term 2026 – Quarks: Evidence and Error
Last term, we focused on Hacking's notion of experimentation. Hacking was talking about electrons when he said, "if you can spray them, then they are real". But elections were sprayed with the aim of discovering quarks, this term's topic.
We begin our reading with a paper from Massimi, using quarks to critique Hacking's entity realism. This is followed by four papers on the history and philosophy of the experimental investigation of quarks, giving diverse perspectives on the topic. In the final paper we read last term, Hacking noted that "the repetition of [the quark] example is now becoming embarrassing". In hopes of avoiding embarrassment, our final three papers focus on the use of statistical methodology. Initially as it was used in discovering the top quark, but with an ultimate focus on the use of statistics in science of any type.
29 January
Massimi, Michela. 2004. 'Non-Defensible Middle Ground for Experimental Realism: Why We Are Justified to Believe in Colored Quarks'. Philosophy of Science 71 (1): 36–60.
5 February
Pickering, Andrew. 1981. 'The Hunting of the Quark'. Isis 72 (2).
12 February
Pickering, Andrew. 1999. 'Living in the Material World'. In The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences, edited by David Gooding. Cambridge University Press.
19 February
Gooding, David. 2003. 'Putting Agency Back into Experiment'. In The Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation, by Hans Radder. University of Pittsburgh Press.
26 February
Staley, Kent W. 2002. 'What Experiment Did We Just Do? Counterfactual Error Statistics and Uncertainties about the Reference Class'. Philosophy of Science 69 (2): 279–99.
But see also:
- Staley, Kent W. 1996. 'Novelty, Severity, and History in the Testing of Hypotheses: The Case of the Top Quark'. Philosophy of Science 63 (S3): S248–55.
- Staley, Kent W. 2004. 'Robust Evidence and Secure Evidence Claims'. Philosophy of Science 71 (4): 467–88.
5 March
Staley, Kent W. 2017b. 'Pragmatic Warrant for Frequentist Statistical Practice: The Case of High Energy Physics'. Synthese 194 (2): 355–76.
12 March
Mayo, Deborah G. 1997. 'Error Statistics and Learning From Error: Making a Virtue of Necessity'. Philosophy of Science 64 (S4): S195–212.
19 March
Mayo, Deborah G. 1996. 'The Experimental Basis from Which to Test Hypotheses: Brownian Motion'. Chapter 7 of Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge. Science and Its Conceptual Foundations. University of Chicago Press.