University of Toronto

Models and Simulations 4

7-9 May 2010

The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto is delighted to be hosting Models and Simulations 4. This is the fourth in a series international conferences examining the nature and use of scientific models and simulations across the natural and social sciences, following excellent meetings in Paris (2006, MS1), Tilburg (2007, MS2), and Charlottesville (2009, MS3).

Scientific models and computer simulations play numerous roles in the sciences, but as a class of tools for use in the articulation of theory, experiment, technological design and application, and prognostication for purposes of public policy, they have only relatively recently come under systematic scrutiny by the community of scholars in history and philosophy of science. The conference aims to raise and investigate important questions about the methodology of practices of modelling and computer simulation, providing a forum for ongoing debates and new angles of approach, on such topics as:  how models and simulations are constructed; how they are confirmed; how they may be understood to represent and explain worldly phenomena; how they function in cutting-edge research; and how they influence decision making in the arena of public policy.