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SCI PHI is a weekly philosophy of science podcast featuring interviews with prominent and up-and-coming philosophers of science who engage with scientists in interesting ways.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Philosophy of science interviews • Scientific methodology, Bayesianism, induction, causation • Models, idealization, abstraction • Collaboration, values, ethics, ignorance • Medicine, psychiatry, neuroscience • Evolution, genomics, physics, AI, astrophysics • Public trust, policy, longtermismThis podcast is a weekly interview series in philosophy of science that focuses on how philosophical analysis and scientific practice inform each other. Conversations typically feature philosophers of science (and occasional scientists working in historically and philosophically reflective ways) discussing both foundational questions—what counts as good evidence, explanation, or methodology—and the realities of doing research in specific scientific domains.
Across the episodes, recurring themes include scientific reasoning under constraints, such as how inquiry and rationality work for agents with limited time, information, or cognitive capacity, and how probabilistic or Bayesian approaches can illuminate (or sometimes mislead) scientific inference. Many discussions examine how scientists build and use models, abstractions, idealizations, and classifications, with attention to what these tools capture, what they omit, and how they shape debates in areas like neuroscience, psychiatry, evolutionary biology, and physics.
Another thread concerns causation and explanation: how causal modeling operates in biomedicine and other data-rich fields, how to interpret causal structure in evolutionary theory, and what it means to “observe” phenomena in large-scale astrophysical experiments. The show also explores the interplay between disciplinary history and present practice, using case studies such as evolutionary theory, the periodic table, genomics, and the “historical sciences” (e.g., archaeology and paleontology) to probe how knowledge of the past is established.
Social and ethical dimensions of science are also prominent. Episodes address the role of values in research, the production of ignorance and the influence of commercial incentives, best practices for collaboration among philosophers, scientists, engineers, and policy-makers, and public-facing controversies involving expertise and trust (including vaccines and COVID-19 discourse). Related discussions consider inclusion of lived experience in psychiatric research, challenges posed by longtermist ethics, and broader questions about scientific progress, demarcation, and the public image of philosophy of science. Interwoven throughout are reflections on careers, collaboration, and what philosophers of science see as major challenges and future directions for the field.
