History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Graduate
Student Conference 2006
Knowledge, Belief and Society
The conference took place on Friday, August 25, 2006
General
The graduate students of the Institute for the History and Philosophy
of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto are pleased to
be hosting their second annual graduate student conference "Knowledge,
Belief, and Society". The conference will be held on Friday,
August 25th, 2006, at Victoria College at the University of
Toronto. Presenters include students from 5 countries, 7
universities, and several departments within the U of T. We
invite all
interested persons, students and others, working in academia or
elsewhere, to attend. Lunch will be
provided.
Conference Program
(For last year's conference program press
here.)
08:30-09:00
Registration and
Coffee/Tea
09:00-10:00
Session 1: History of Modern
Science
Chair: Vivien Hamilton
09:00-09:30
Ari
Gross (History and Philosophy of Science, The University of
Utrecht, The Netherlands)
The Bounds of Reason: Darwin, Owen, and the Place of Teleology
in 19th
Century Biology
09:30-10:00
Martha
Harris (IHPST, University of
Toronto)
Chemical Reductionism Revisited: The Physico-Chemical Nature
of the Chemical
Bond
10:00-10:15
Break
10:15-12:15
Session 2: History of Medicine
Chair:
Delia Gavrus
10:15-10:45 John
Christopolous (IHPST, University of
Toronto)
Stars
and Authority in Marsilio Ficino’s Medicine
10:45-11:15
Alexandra Widmer
(Social
Anthropology,
York
University)
Of
Medicine, Conscience, and Belief: The Problem of
‘Insincere’ Converts for Medical Missionaries in
Vanuatu
11:15-11:45 Brigit
Ramsingh (IHPST, University of
Toronto)
Early Experiments in Hypnosis and Immune Response:
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) and the Research Program of Stephen Black,
1958-1970
11:45-12:15 Emily
Cowall Farrell (Anthropology, McMaster University)
Take
Your Medicine: The Knowledge of Resourcefulness: Inuit
concepts of human health functioning
12:15-13:15
IHPST Director's Lunch
13:15-14:15
Keynote Presentation
Professor Joan
Steigerwald (York University):
Figuring Nature: The Frontispiece to Humbodlt's Ideas towards a Geography of
Plants
14:15-14:25
Break
14:25-15:55
Session
3: History and Sociology of
Technology
Chair:
Jonathan Turner
14:25-14:55
Constance
Crompton (Communication
and Cultural
Studies,
Ryerson
University
)
"A
Crowd of the Curious Looked Piteously Upon Me": Prosthetics and
Public Space in the Nineteenth Century
14:55-15:25
Avery
Guthrie (History,
University
of
Toronto
)
Cartoon Humour and the Experience of Mechanized Combat in the
First
World War
15:25-15:55 Richard
Gunn (
Philosophy, University
of
Leeds
,
UK
)
The Role of Ideology and Belief in Lewis Mumford’s
Account of
Megatechnics: An Interpretation of the Myth of the Machine as a
Sociological
Phenomenon
15:55-16:10
Break
16:10-17:10
Session 4: Causality and Explanation
Chair: Boaz Miller
16:10-16:40
Nouritza
Nirvana Geuvdjelian Herrera (University of Guadalajara,
Mexico/IHPST, University of
Toronto)
Are
Correlations and Causal Relations really
that different? An initial analysis on the role that correlations and
causal
relations play in scientific explanation
16:40-17:10:
Charles
Repp (Philosophy, University of Toronto)
Relativism
and the Symmetry Thesis
Sponsors
The Conference Organizing
Committee would like to thank the following
sponsors, without whom this event would not have been possible:
The
Graduate Students' Union