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Frederick Britt

@fbritt.bsky.social

PhD student in philosophy of science at the University of Bern (CH), working on the pragmatics of eliminative reasoning. Otherwise, family & climbing:)

37 Posts486 Follower 267 Folgt

Huw Price @huwprice.bsky.social · 5d ago

They started with a Planck, presumably. #quantum

Frederick Britt @fbritt.bsky.social · 2d ago

It's been over a month since our workshop on entity realism, held at the @unibe.ch and supported by the @snsf.ch, where among others @msuarez.bsky.social and @kenaizawa.bsky.social delivered great talks! The recordings are finally available here: www.philosophie.unibe.ch/research/pro... #philsci

Entity Realism Beyond Manipulation

philosophie.unibe.ch

Frederick Britt @fbritt.bsky.social · 2d ago

Entity Realism Beyond Manipulation

philosophie.unibe.ch

Frederick Britt @fbritt.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Call for papers: Synthese Topical Collection "Meta-Level Reflections on the Scientific Realism Debate". Deadline: March 31, 2026. Guest editors: Matthias Egg, Mahdi Khalili & myself, @unibe.ch. Looking forward to your contributions! philevents.org/event/show/1... #philsci

Synthese Topical Collection "Meta-Level Reflections on the Scientific Realism Debate"

Call for Papers: Meta-Level Reflections on the Scientific Realism Debate Guest Editors: Matthias Egg, Mahdi Khalili and Frederick Britt (University of Bern) Topical Collection Description: It has...

philevents.org

LSE Philosophy @lsephilosophy.bsky.social · 5mo ago

⚗️🔭 How do we spark new scientific discoveries? Why do some breakthroughs seem accidental? The new book 'The Engine of Scientific Discovery' by CPNSS Research Associate Alexander Krauss is for anyone who wants to understand how we make discoveries. ➡ Link to the book: doi.org/10.1093/oso/...

The Engine of Scientific Discovery: How New Methods and Tools Spark Major Breakthroughs

Abstract. How do we spark new scientific discoveries? Why do some breakthroughs seem even accidental? And most importantly, how can we accelerate them and

doi.org

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Russia’s full-scale invasion began 4 years ago. It began in winter, and so this winter is the 5th. And, for civilians, the worst. Russia launches missiles and drones at energy infrastructure to force Ukrainians to endure the freezing cold. Here's how you can help snyder.substack.com/p/the-long-u...

The Long Ukrainian Winter

How You Can Help

snyder.substack.com

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Just accepted: Realism about Newtonian Gravity – Matthias Egg Abstract in alt text or read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/740610 #philsci #philsky

ABSTRACT. Newton's gravitational theory is a hard case for scientific realists, as despite its overwhelming empirical success, what the theory tells us about the nature of gravitational forces seems to be inconsistent with our current best theory of gravity, namely, the general theory of relativity. After demonstrating the limitations of existing responses to that challenge, I argue that a better response can be given by questioning a premise that has so far been taken for granted in the debate: the assumption that all inertial forces are fictitious. Rejecting this premise is justified by distinguishing different types of inertial forces, some of which are indispensable in a sufficiently strong sense to justify realism about them.

Frederick Britt @fbritt.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Deadline approaching!👇 #philsci

Frederick Britt@fbritt.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Call for Papers Workshop on 'ENTITY REALISM BEYOND MANIPULATION' (June 16 - 17, 2025) at the University of Bern (CH). We are very much looking forward to welcoming Nora M. Boyd and @msuarez.bsky.social as keynote speakers and invite further contributions! #philsci philevents.org/event/show/1...

Alisa Bokulich @alisabokulich.bsky.social · 8mo ago

It looks like the Philosophy of Science Association could use a little help reaching its fundraising goal for #GivingTuesday 😳 Show your pride in #philsci & chip in @ least what you'd pay for a coffee/drink. Every little bit counts & it's easy (& tax deductible) @ link below ⬇️ philsci.org/donate.php

A fundraising thermometer with goal of $15K now only at $2,300

Alisa Bokulich@alisabokulich.bsky.social · 8mo ago

It's #GivingTuesday & PSA @philsci.bsky.social is running a fundraiser! I just made a donation to support PSA's initiatives, such as UPSS @psa-upss.bsky.social & other grad & early career support. See where they stand with their fundraising “thermometer” on the donation page philsci.org/donate.php

PhilSci-Archive @philsci-archive.bsky.social · 8mo ago

New on the Archive: Van Dyck, Maarten (2026) Defending constructive empiricism. [Preprint] https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/27313/

The Onion @theonion.com · 9mo ago

Gifted Khashoggi Head Mounted In Oval Office

Frederick Britt @fbritt.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Entity Realism Beyond Manipulation

Entity realism (also known as ‘experimental realism’) traditionally ties belief in scientific entities to experimental manipulation. Yet many sciences involve a commitment to entities that...

philevents.org

Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social · 9mo ago

People have long wondered if dinosaurs really would've thrived if not for the asteroid that killed them. Two new studies, involving paleontologists @stevebrusatte.bsky.social and Lindsay Zanno, dig further into that question.

Were Dinos On Their Way Out Before The Asteroid Hit? Maybe Not

Two new studies suggest that, contrary to longstanding beliefs, dinosaurs were not on the decline before the Chicxulub asteroid impact.

buff.ly

Frederick Britt @fbritt.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Synthese Topical Collection "Meta-Level Reflections on the Scientific Realism Debate"

Call for Papers: Meta-Level Reflections on the Scientific Realism Debate Guest Editors: Matthias Egg, Mahdi Khalili and Frederick Britt (University of Bern) Topical Collection Description: It has...

philevents.org

Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · 11mo ago

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....

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

Inferring to the Best Explanation from Uncertain Evidence

doi.org

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Something beautiful for the weekend! An extraordinary Acheulean handaxe knapped around a fossil shell c. 500,000-300,000 years ago! The shell’s central display has been described as an example of aesthetic intention by the toolmaker. West Tofts, Norfolk. 📷 MAA Cambridge University #Archaeology

The photo shows an Acheulean biface handaxe knapped from dark grey flint with a creamy-white cortical layer, shown against a black background. The handaxe is roughly tear-drop shaped with a pointed tip and rounded bottom. There is a fossil shell centrally displayed on one face, identified as the Cretaceous bivalve mollusc Spondylus spinosus. Above the shell to the right is a small rectangular museum label. The toolmaker has knapped the flint in such a way as to retain the shell in a central position. Measurements 79mm x 35mm x 132mm Weight 0.375kg. Collections of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 11mo ago

Chess Variant xkcd.com/3139/

Comic. [chessboard where one block of 2x2 sliding squares is shifted inward, with a blank next to it indicating the direction of the block’s movement] [caption] Sliding Number Puzzle Chess

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Perspectival Realism + Ecological Psychology = Ecological Perspectivism "Science offers knowledge of reality in terms of affordances, which are relational to the instruments and abilities of scientific communities." #PhilSci #PsycSci

Eros Carvalho@filosofemas.bsky.social · 11mo ago

We have been working on this for the last five years, and it's great that our paper will be published in Synthese. philsci-archive.pitt.edu/26226/ Ecological psychology is a good fit for perspectival realism.

Alisa Bokulich @alisabokulich.bsky.social · 12mo ago

He's already replied, but @markrubin.bsky.social is an excellent scholar coming from metasci side reaching across to philsci. A lovely newsletter of his landed in mailbox today on how metasci might need to incorporate more critical (dare I say philosophical?) perspectives⤵️

What is Critical Metascience and Why is it Important?

If science is the subject of metascience, then metascience is the subject of critical metascience!

markrubin.substack.com

Extinct blog @extinctblog.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Fun article in the NYT today describing a statistical model for ranking baseball players across eras. The Extinct connection? The model (called the "Full House" model) is inspired by Stephen Jay Gould's work on the disappearance of .400 hitting. Pretty coooool www.extinctblog.org/palaeonews/2...

OMG OMG OMG — Extinct

Okay, so… this morning, I read this fun little article in the New York Times, which describes a statistical model designed to rank baseball players across eras. Barry Bonds came out on top, which ...

extinctblog.org

Frederick Britt @fbritt.bsky.social · 12mo ago

It's been over a month since our conference on the realism debate, held at the @unibe.ch and supported by the @snsf.ch. The recordings are now available online!😁 The image and audio quality, I'm afraid, is mixed despite editing, but here they are: www.philosophie.unibe.ch/research/pro... #philsci

Program and recordings

philosophie.unibe.ch

Finnur Dellsén @dellsen.bsky.social · last yr.

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!

MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · last yr.

The last twenty years have seen multiple methodological revolutions in the philosophy of science. In "Methods in the Philosophy of Science," Sophie Veigl and Adrian Currie introduce this range of methods through both practical advice and philosophical reflection: bit.ly/3GnXFxb

"Methods in the Philosophy of Science: A User's Guide" on a plain background. Text notes that the book is edited by Sophie Veigl and Adrian Currie. The cover features a colorful design with planets and geometric shapes.

Dan Vergano @danvergano.bsky.social · last yr.

Science Makes the U.S. a Great Nation History tells us what happens when great nations attack science www.scientificamerican.com/article/scie...

Science Makes the U.S. a Great Nation

History tells us what happens when great nations attack science

scientificamerican.com

Greg Priest @gregpriest.bsky.social · last yr.

Ernst Mayr was born OTD in 1904. “Most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic.” 🌱🐋🦋🦫🧪 #HistSTM #PhilSci

Caricature of Mayr by David Levine for the New York Review of Books.

The Onion @theonion.com · last yr.

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon theonion.com/iran-wo...

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon

TEHRAN—Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America’s uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. "Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran," said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, adding that Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and "everything they need" to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material. "Obviously, the prospect of this happening is very distressing to Iran and all countries like Iran. After all, the United States is a volatile nation that’s proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat." Iranian intelligence experts also warned of the very real, and very frightening, possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.

theonion.com

The Conversation UK @uk.theconversation.com · last yr.

Looking back in time could inspire the aircraft innovations of the future.

How pterosaurs can inspire aircraft design

Looking back in time could inspire the aircraft innovations of the future.

tcnv.link

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · last yr.

Get it while it's hot: BJPS Associate Editor Dana Tulodziecki's (@193.bsky.social) addition to the Cambridge Elements series, Underdetermination and Theoretical Virtues, is out now and free #philsci #philsky #hps

Underdetermination and Theoretical Virtues

Cambridge Core - Philosophy of Science - Underdetermination and Theoretical Virtues

cambridge.org

Karl Galle @karlgalle.bsky.social · last yr.

In other disaster-related news, today marks 45 years since publication of the @science.org article by Walter & Luis Alvarez, Frank Asaro, & Helen Michel arguing that the dinosaurs were killed off by the impact of a massive asteroid or comet: www.lindahall.org/about/news/s... #HistSci 🔭 🧪

Walter Alvarez

Walter Alvarez, an American geologist, was born Oct. 3, 1940. His father, Luis Alvarez, was a physicist at Berkeley who was an important part of the Manhattan Project and who...

lindahall.org

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · last yr.

Frequentist vs Bayesian Interpretations of Severity Mayo (2025) responds to van Dongen et al. (2023) van Dongen et al. (2023): doi.org/10.3758/s134... Mayo (2025): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1... #PhilSci #PsycSci #Stats

A tradition that goes back to Sir Karl R. Popper assesses the value of a statistical test primarily by its severity: was there an honest and stringent attempt to prove the tested hypothesis wrong? For “error statisticians” such as Mayo (1996, 2018), and frequentists more generally, severity is a key virtue in hypothesis tests. Conversely, failure to incorporate severity into statistical inference, as allegedly happens in Bayesian inference, counts as a major methodological shortcoming. Our paper pursues a double goal: First, we argue that the error-statistical explication of severity has substantive drawbacks; specifically, the neglect of research context and the specificity of the predictions of the hypothesis. Second, we argue that severity matters for Bayesian inference via the value of specific, risky predictions: severity boosts the expected evidential value of a Bayesian hypothesis test. We illustrate severity-based reasoning in Bayesian statistics by means of a practical example and discuss its advantages and potential drawbacks.

In the face of today’s statistical crisis of science, it is often recommended that statistical significance tests be replaced with Bayes factor tests. In this article, I examine this recommendation. Bayes factor tests, unlike statistical significance tests, only depend on the probability of the data under H0 and a competitor H1. They are insensitive to a method’s error probabilities such as significance levels, type 1 and type 2 errors, and confidence levels. It might be thought that if a method is insensitive to error probabilities that it escapes the inferential consequences of inflated error rates at the heart of obstacles to replication. I will argue that this is not the case, and that Bayes factor tests can accord strong evidence to a claim H, even though little has been done to rule out H’s flaws. There are two reasons: their insensitivity to biasing selection effects, and the fact that H and its competitor need not exhaust the space of relevant possibilities. I will show how this results in a disconnect between Bayes factor tests and error control protocols that are being called for by replication reforms. To solve the problem, I propose that commonly used Bayes factor tests be supplemented with a post-data severity concept in the frequentist error statistical sense. The question is not whether ‘severity’ can be redefined Bayesianly—of course it can—the question is whether the resulting concept can address today’s concerns behind obstacles to replication. I will also respond to criticisms of the severity reformulation of statistical significance tests, and show how it enables avoiding fallacies of statistical tests.