Workshops and Conferences
Explanation, Prediction, and Confirmation in Biology and Medicine
University of Konstanz,
October 2-4 2009,
Team B: Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Workshop Description
This workshop examines the nature of explanations as well as methodological issues in biology and medicine. Eight pre-circulated papers will be presented, commented and discussed that examine causal explanations in medicine, reductive explanations in biology as compared to physics, evolutionary explanations, mechanistic explanation, conceptual issues in behavioral and psychiatric genetics, the demarcation of creationism and science with the help of Bayesian confirmation theory, and confirming the efficacy of treatments in medicine.
Meeting Programme
FRIDAY, OCT 2
14:30-16:00 Raffaella Campaner (Bologna)
On Causal Explanation in the Health Sciences
Commentator: Samuel Schindler (Konstanz)
16:00-16:30 Coffee
16:30-18:00 Andreas Hüttemann (Münster)
Reductive Explanation in Physics and Biology
Commentator: Marcel Weber (Konstanz)
SATURDAY, OCT 3
9:30-11:00 Peter McLaughlin (Heidelberg)
The Arrival of the Fittest: What Natural Selection Explains
Commentator: Thomas Reydon (Hannover)
11:00-11:30 Coffee
11:30-13:00 Daniel Sirtes (Basel / Konstanz)
An Ontic-Pragmatic Account of Mechanistic Explanation
Commentator: Andreas Reutlinger (Münster)
13:00-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:00 Kenneth Schaffner (Pittsburgh)
Behavioral and Psychiatric Genetics: How Blank is the "Blank Slate"?
Commentator: Maria Kronfeldner (Bielefeld)
16:00-16:30 Coffee
16:30-18:00 Gerhard Schurz (Düsseldorf)
Creationism, Bayesian Confirmation, and the Problem of Demarcating Science from Pseudo-science
Commentator: Franz Huber (Konstanz)
SUNDAY, OCT 4
9:30-11:00 John Worrall (London)
Causality in Medicine: Getting Back to the Hill Top
Commentator: Michael Joffe (London)
11:00-11:30 Coffee
11:30-13:00 Gerd Grasshoff (Bern)
Causal Inference is the Only Normative Methodological Principle
Commentator: Wolfgang Spohn (Konstanz)
13:00-14:30 Lunch
End of conference ca. 14:30
