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SUMMARY:Nature\, the Artful Modeller (versus Nature the Fastidious Bureauc
 rat) - Nancy Cartwright\, Professor of Philosophy at Durham University and
  Distinguished Professor at the University of California\, San Diego. 
DTSTART:20211027T130000Z
DTEND:20211027T140000Z
UID:TALK164275@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Paul B. Rimmer
DESCRIPTION:In the first instance this paper defends an instrumentalist ac
 count of the laws of science. This is opposed to what I call the ‘vendin
 g machine’ view: pop some initial conditions in—say\, about the past h
 istory of your system and its setting\, let the laws run and out comes a n
 ew result—say a description of its current state or a prediction about i
 ts future. We all know it isn’t like this. Establishing principles and l
 aws in science is tough work. And so too is putting them to use. In takes 
 ingenuity and practice\, know-how and luck to use our laws to learn new fa
 cts. So scientists\, I claim\, are artful modellers\, and laws are instrum
 ents science has learned how to use to build good models for prediction\, 
 explanation and manipulation.\n\nWhat then becomes of the laws of nature t
 hat the laws of science were supposed to ape? These laws have long been pi
 ctured to be like detailed bureaucratic principles that dictate what shoul
 d happen in each and every circumstance\, down to the last detail\, no jud
 gment\, no variation\, no fun. If we build our image of what nature is lik
 e from what we do in our most successful scientific endeavours to describe
  and predict—as I think empiricism dictates we should—this picture of 
 nature the fastidious and totally thorough bureaucrat is hard to believe. 
 More natural to science as it is actually practised is rather that nature 
 like us is an artful modeller. The facts do not after all accord with some
  hidden and thorough set of bureaucratic principles. They are more varied 
 and relate in far more complex ways than any such principles can describe.
  The best possible way to recoup the facts may\, even in God’s heaven\, 
 be by artful modelling.\n\nThis talk will try to explain these two ideas a
 nd show why we should take them seriously.
LOCATION:Virtual
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