Much of biological and economic theorizing takes place by modeling, the indirect study of real-world structures by the construction and
examination of models. Indeed books about biological and economic theory
are really books about models, many of which are highly idealized and
chosen for their explanatory power and analytical convenience, rather than fit with known data sets. Philosophers of science have recognized these facts and have developed literatures about the nature of models, modeling,
idealization, and model testing for both of these disciplines. Remarkably,
however, there is almost no overlap between the "modeling in biology"
and "modeling in economics" literatures. The purpose of this conference
is to change this.
TINT is proud to host the first ever conference on modeling in biology
and economics.
The goal of this conference is to cross-polinate and
help unify the literatures on biological and economic modeling. Discussions will be focused on how theorists use idealized
models to describe and explain real-world target systems. This covers issues of model/world relations, model/use relations, and the functions and manipulations of idealizations in modelling.
The conference will
consist of a number of invited target papers to be given by Peter Godfrey-Smith, Kevin Hoover, Ilkka Hanski, Uskali Mäki, Robert Sugden, Michael Weisberg, and William Wimsatt. A number of contributed papers on the conference topic will also be accepted. If you are interested in contributing a
paper, please send a detailed abstract to Uskali Mäki <uskali.maki@helsinki.fi> by
15 December, 2008. |
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