Publications & Works in Progress by Sarah Roe
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Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 2017
Mechanistic accounts of explanation have recently found popularity within philosophy of science. ... more Mechanistic accounts of explanation have recently found popularity within philosophy of science. Presently, we introduce the idea of an extended mechanistic explanation, which makes explicit room for the role of environment in explanation. After delineating Craver and Bechtel's (2007) account, we argue this suggestion is not sufficiently robust when we take seriously the mechanistic environment and modeling practices involved in studying contemporary complex biological systems. Our goal is to extend the already profitable mechanistic picture by pointing out the importance of the mechanistic environment. It is our belief that extended mechanistic explanations, or mechanisms that take into consideration the temporal sequencing of the interplay between the mechanism and the environment, allow for mechanistic explanations regarding a broader group of scientific phenomena.
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International Studies in the Philosophy of Science Volume, 2017
Scientific communities as social groupings and the role that such communities play in scientific ... more Scientific communities as social groupings and the role that such communities play in scientific change and the production of scientific knowledge is currently under debate. I examine theory change as a complex social interaction among individual scientists and the scientific community, and argue that individuals will be motivated to adopt a more radical or innovative attitude when confronted with striking similarities between model systems and a more robust understanding of specialised vocabulary. Two case studies from the biological sciences, Barbara McClintock and Stanley Prusiner, help motivate the idea that sharing of models and specialised vocabulary fill the gap between discovery and scientific change by promoting the dispersal of important information throughout the scientific community.
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Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice. Eds. Kendy Hess, Violetta Igneski, and Tracy Isaacs. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018
The purpose of this paper is to better understand how long-term marginalization is maintained and... more The purpose of this paper is to better understand how long-term marginalization is maintained and who, if anyone, is responsible for its occurrence and persistence. We focus on what we call geographically gated communities. We begin with a brief history of housing segregation within the United States and the rise of traditional gated communities globally. Drawing from this history, we argue that marginalization practices and gated communities have evolved. Instead of a physical wall, geographically gated communities maintain marginalization by enacting rules, based on shared values that are meant to prevent certain types of people from living within the community. Geographically gated communities segregate a local population via socioeconomic factors, perpetuate vulnerability and lead to inequitable distribution of resources. To illustrate this new term, we offer a series of case studies. In Section 2, we argue that communities such as these can rightfully be thought of as collectives if each individual member intends to participate in the collective act of community building. As such, in Section 3 we delineate and expand upon ten different ways in which members can participate in such geographically gated communities. Our goal is to identify different perspectives or ways to participate in our case study collectives and show how differences in participation may affect our resulting judgments of individual accountability. Finally, in Section 4 we recommend a broadening of values available to individuals within geographically gated communities to address the collective harm brought about by marginalization, and provide reasons to make repair to the victims of the collective moral harm. Acknowledging participatory accountability and broadening community values is one practical way to remediate the landscape and mitigate the harm inflicted on certain members of the geographically gated community.
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Polish Journal of Philosophy, Feb 2009
The slogan “anything goes” first appears in Paul Feyerabend’s book Against Method at the end of t... more The slogan “anything goes” first appears in Paul Feyerabend’s book Against Method at the end of the first chapter. Since that time, philosophical literature has been peppered with criticism and cries of outrage towards Feyerabend’s call for anarchy. Many have speculated on what exactly was meant by the slogan and even more philosophers and scientists have quickly discarded Feyerabend’s antidote as the obvious ramblings of a madman. I argue that Paul Feyerabend does not promote complete anarchy, contrary to his critics. Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that Feyerabend promotes methodological and theoretical pluralism, and does not call for total chaos. First, I briefly outline the overwhelmingly cynical yet popular reading of Feyerabend’s anarchical ideas. Unlike other contemporary perspectives, I argue for what I believe to be a much more fair reading of his anarchy as a prescription for the scientific discipline. I conclude with postulating an overarching and interesting possibility, namely that Feyerabend’s call for anarchy is an attempt to distance philosophy from the scientific domain.
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Work In Progress
For years, philosophers have been focused on the ethical concerns rapidly advancing medical techn... more For years, philosophers have been focused on the ethical concerns rapidly advancing medical technologies pose. On the other hand, medical professionals have been more concerned with the transition of patient care from pediatric to adult practitioners. This paper brings both the practical and the philosophical together, by utilizing a Rawlsian inspired notion, referred to as the disadvantaged standard. The disadvantaged standard states that when determining whether or not to move forward with a new and partially unknown medical advancement, both the medical and ethical communities would best be served to focus on the societal position and medical plight of the least advantaged patient. By focusing on concerns regarding uncertainty and allowing for real-world input, ethicists, medical practitioners and medical researchers can learn something about rapidly advancing medical technologies and the attitude we should have toward them.
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Work In Progress
For years, developments and progress in female medicine have lagged behind other specialties with... more For years, developments and progress in female medicine have lagged behind other specialties within the discipline. Indeed, research into and the practice of female medicine has a long history of willful ignorance, strict social norms, medical exploitation, underfunding, misdiagnosis, unequal gender ratios within medical practice, and medical blunder. The purpose of this book is to track the history of female medicine, while paying special attention to the history of technological advancements alongside our developing societal values and norms regarding women and the practice of medicine.
I shall argue that there is a complex relation between (1) how we view women as a society, their role in medicine, and the acceptability of medical practices regarding women, and (2) how society’s interest in advanced technology promoted a less personalized form of medical practice. That is, the way in which female medicine has been practice and its importance to society has vastly changed over time, owing, in part, to the depersonalization of medical practice due to advancing medical technology. As a result, the way in which we value women, the ways in which we promote the importance of female medicine, the norms regarding women in medical practice, the importance of female practitioners and researchers, the importance society places on technological advancement, and the way women are treated by men, are all intricately tangled.
This, most likely, will not surprise the reader. However, by tracking the history of female medicine through time, while simultaneously tracking the development of technology that allows for medical examination and testing that depersonalizes the very nature of medicine, we gain a clearer picture of how societal values have come to shape the importance of women and their health within our contemporary society.
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In Interpreting Feyerabend: Critical Essays. Eds. Karim Bschir and Jamie Shaw. Cambridge University Press, 2021
Citizen science, or the use of nonscientists for scientific tasks, has grown in popularity among ... more Citizen science, or the use of nonscientists for scientific tasks, has grown in popularity among scientists and citizens alike. Within this chapter, I utilize the work of Paul Feyerabend to better understand the new citizen science movement. Drawing from his definition of scientific expert and the insight that citizens can act as a much-needed counterbalance to that expertise, I argue that Feyerabend would champion a more radicalized citizen science.
Indeed, Feyerabend teaches us that while the current citizen science movement is primarily focused on what the citizen can do for science and what the citizen can learn from science, the movement should also focus on what science can do for the citizen and what science can learn from the citizen. Feyerabend’s insights may offer us a better understanding of how citizen science can best promote scientific education, offer broader knowledge to participants, increase citizen interest in conservation and policy, increase both citizen local and national engagement, and promote a rewarding experience for both the expert and citizen. The way forward for the citizen science movement is to begin properly welcoming and amplifying the benefits of citizens within the sciences.
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Work In Progress
Following catastrophic events, some landscapes are left uninhabitable. In these extreme cases, th... more Following catastrophic events, some landscapes are left uninhabitable. In these extreme cases, the risk to future exposure is best mitigated through property acquisition and relocation, also known as buyouts. Buyouts can result from environmental disasters like severe floods or technological disasters such as the release of toxic chemicals. Whichever the cause, buyouts permanently remove people from hazardous landscapes (Zavar 2015). Following the relocation of people, the built environment is often dismantled leaving landscapes that range from ghost towns to open space. However, even open space often bears the imprint of the previous land use in the form of decaying slab foundations, street signs, and power lines. Despite these physical scars, the emotional trauma of the initial disaster is exasperated by the relocation and loss of sense of place (Erikson 1976).
The literature identifies that participants of forced relocation experience a sense of nostalgia for their former neighborhoods (Fried 1963). Flood buyout participants report the loss of community as a significant hardship following the acquisition and a primary factor considered when deciding whether to participate in a buyout (Fraser et al. 2006; Kick et al. 2011; Addo and Danso 2017). Yet for some of these communities disbanded due to floods, residents have found a way to maintain a connectedness to their former home and neighbors through commemoration (Zavar 2018). Commemoration varies from officially commissioned to spontaneously developed (Bashford et al. 2016) and includes informal remembrances embedded in daily activities (Baez Ullberg 2017). The geographic scholarship on commemoration is extensive and examines the role of place and politics in how we remember and forget tragic events (i.e. Lowenthal 1975; Foote 2003; Foote and Azaryahu 2007; Alderman 2010). The research on memorialization of buyout sites generated by anthropogenic forces is less robust and serves as an opportunity to understand how community culture continues through memorialization despite the loss of physical location.
Drawing from this body of work, we consider how sense of place and belonging is constructed through commemoration. We use critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) to interrogate the narratives of formal and informal commemorative objects. This research focuses on the experiences of four communities awarded federal buyouts due to technological disasters: Picher, Oklahoma; Times Beach, Missouri; Friendswood, Texas; and Ponca City, Oklahoma. A boomtown in the mid-twentieth century, Picher, Oklahoma was a lead and zinc mining capital during World War II. However, the extraction of ore resulted in mine tailings. These five story-tall chat piles loomed over the town and contained toxic levels of heavy metals in excess of approved levels. As part of the Tar Creek Superfund site, much of the town was acquired in 2006. A tornado in 2008 resulted in more relocations and the disbanding of municipal services. Three residents refused to relocate and remain in the area today (Shriver and Kennedy 2005). A former resident has collected artifacts and memorabilia from Picher and has established an informal memorial at a county building to remember the people and place before the relocation.
For Times Beach, Missouri, the use of sludge and other chemicals on roadways exposed residents to Dioxin in the 1970s, which was identified during extensive flooding in 1982. A formal buyout was completed in 1985 (Goodman et al. 1992). Today the acquired neighborhoods form Route 66 State Park. The tourism center occupies a former roadhouse and includes commemorative objects of the disaster. Through this formal commemoration, we will explore how the history of the land is represented and commemorated at the center. Unprocessed petroleum and waste materials leaked into the ground water in the Southbend subdivision in Friendswood, Texas in the 1980s. As part of the Brio Superfund site, hundreds of homes were acquired and razed in 1997. Today the area is empty of people and fenced to restrict access. Yet former residents maintain a very active, public Facebook page and blog as a memorial to the former community. Through this online commemorative object, we can understand how belonging is still constructed even though the place no longer exists.
Finally, we examine two formal memorials in Ponca City, Oklahoma, a petrochemical refinery town. In 1990, Conoco offered a buyout to approximately 400 homes in the south of the city that experience benzene seepage in their basements (Adams et al. 2017). Today, there is an official memorial on the buyout site as well as the Conoco Museum in town. By exploring these officially authorized commemorative objects, we can understand whose narratives are represented/excluded and therefore who belongs to the landscape. Through these four sites, we will analyze how various forms of commemoration recreate community and a sense of belonging to a place that no longer exists physically on the landscape. Additionally, we consider whose narratives are included in commemoration and comparatively, whose do not belong (Schein 2009). By engaging with ecofeminism (King 1989; Warren 2000; Cuomo 2002) and land ethics (Leopold 1949 & Callicott 1989) to explore the human-landscape connection, we can identify how a landscape citizenship is created, performed, and reinforced though commemoration.
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Work In Progress
Through “Speaking of Species: Darwin’s Strategy”, John Beatty was able to change the way we think... more Through “Speaking of Species: Darwin’s Strategy”, John Beatty was able to change the way we think of Darwin and how Darwin thought of species. Beatty argues that species were, for Darwin, just what naturalists called “species”. Focusing on the Origin of Species, I argue that Beatty’s strategy disallows times when Darwin was indeed attempting to say something new about species. When taken into the proper context, we see that Darwin may have wanted to argue against his fellow naturalists at the time who were content with the common creationists’ view. I argue that although Darwin did not have his own species concept, he was able to utilize some important guiding principles. Therefore, it may be the case that Beatty’s strategy was not Darwin’s strategy, and if I have indeed cast doubt on the received view provided by John Beatty, then perhaps we must also reexamine the rest of the 20th century debate regarding Darwin’s species concept, or lack thereof.
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Philosophers and scientists alike argue that because of conflicting passages within his writings,... more Philosophers and scientists alike argue that because of conflicting passages within his writings, Darwin may have been a species nominalist. According to this received view, Darwin either used the term ‘species’ for ease when communicating with his fellow naturalists, or merely as a useful organizational term. Elsewhere, I argue that even though Darwin did not offer a definition of ‘species’ within the Origin of Species, he was indeed a species realist. By having utilized two important guiding principles, namely natural selection and the principle of divergence of character, Darwin offered a way to demarcate species from varieties. In other words, Darwin did not define the term ‘species’, but did have a rather robust concept of what a species was and how it differed from a variety.
However, Darwin may have had another option available to him. I would like to explore the possibility that Darwin, aware of the plethora of species concepts available to him, utilized different species concepts in different cases. In other words, I would like to explore the possibility that Darwin was a species pluralist. To illustrate this, I provide examples throughout Darwin’s works when Darwin utilizes different species concepts, such as concepts similar to our contemporary biological, ecological, and genealogical species concepts. I further argue that it is the context and question that Darwin is engaged in that dictates which concept might be fruitful within the situation. In other words, I intend to show that Darwin was a species concept pluralist precisely because he understood that each different concept investigates a different and important part of the world. Therefore, depending on what is being investigated and in what context, Darwin choose which species concept would be most helpful. Moreover, Darwin never clearly or singularly defined species within his works precisely because he was working with a multitude of species concepts rather than one precise definition of species. If I am indeed correct, then Darwin may have anticipated the current trend in philosophy of biology toward arguing for pluralism with respect to species concepts.
The combination of my previous work and the current project suggests a possible reason for the tension felt throughout the Origin of Species. It may have been the case that Darwin utilized guiding principles to determine species, but also found that utilizing various species concepts is a fruitful practices at times. I would like to explore this avenue in hopes to either resolve the tension concerning conflicting passages within Darwin’s writings or provide a plausible way in which to reconcile the passages.
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Work In Progress
One concern faced by the New Mechanists is that their accounts do not mirror scientific practice.... more One concern faced by the New Mechanists is that their accounts do not mirror scientific practice. More precisely, it is unclear how scientific information transforms from token or particular information into the generalizations required for scientific knowledge. Within my dissertation, I argued that the Salmon-Roe approach, a process focused approach, can accurately describe this progression. Salmon’s statistical-relevance model of scientific explanation focuses on subsuming facts, or particular information gathered in the world, under generalizations in order to explain natural phenomenon. I extend the statistical-relevance model of scientific explanation and focus on how scientists go about arranging particular occurrences of mechanisms and their produced phenomena under general observations and goals of scientific knowledge. I argue that scientists create or construct information taxonomies, or family trees for mechanisms. During this important step, scientists compile their particular findings and also strive to place those findings within a broader scientific context. Once this is accomplished, others can then use those findings either to continue work on the same type of mechanism or other closely related mechanisms. It is through this iterative process, scientists are able provide useful scientific information, or generalizations, from particular findings.
More can be said about this topic. Drawing from Waters (1998), I attempt to show how my iterative approach does indeed provide two types of generalizations, distribution and causal regularities. I argue that the modeling done by scientists encompasses both types of generalizations. Moreover, the Salmon-Roe approach clearly delineates how each type of generalization is carefully modeled and how each factors into scientific explanation. Notions like ‘propensity’, ‘relevant features’, ‘context’ and ‘reference class’ are all discussed and their place within scientific explanation is illustrated. In this way, scientists are able to track patterns in phenomena without defining ‘regularity’. By tracing causal processes and noting certain tendencies or propensities that those causal processes possess, scientists are in a position to make causal generalizations. Moreover, by linking their models to those of others that are investigating similar mechanisms, scientists are able to provide statistically relevant information regarding the propensities or dispositions of similar mechanisms within similar environments. This results in a better understanding of the term ‘regularity’ provided by the mechanists, as well as a detailed account of how scientists gain generalized information through their practices.
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Work In Progress
Elsewhere I argued that the new mechanistic philosophy, including work by Machamer, Darden, Crave... more Elsewhere I argued that the new mechanistic philosophy, including work by Machamer, Darden, Craver, Glennan, Bechtel and Abrahamsen, requires a form of reductionism, and as a result is unable to explain intricate complex biological systems (Roe 2014). I argued that each of the new mechanists require decomposition of mechanisms into component parts in order to provide an explanation of the phenomenon of interest. Moreover, the new mechanists do not require reference to higher level properties, even though it has been noted that causal processes at higher levels are required for an adequate explanation of some complex biological mechanisms. It strikes me that more needs to be said regarding the topic. In my extended work, I would like to clearly diagnose the new mechanists as ‘moderate reductionists’. Some of the new mechanists’ approaches might allow for recomposition, or the rebuilding of a mechanism by situating its parts within a particular environment after decomposition. As a result, I would like to extend my previous analysis in two important ways. First, it is not the case that all of the new mechanists are strong reductionists. I would want to delineate a more nuanced gradation of reductionistic views as they apply to mechanistic explanations. Secondly, some of the new mechanists seem to be moving towards a rather intriguing position, one that allows for both decomposing the mechanism into component parts, and also the recomposition of the mechanism.
However, these approaches may still fall short for two reasons. First, it seems that Bechtel and Craver’s approaches emphasize and require decomposition. It is not the case that either approach requires recomposition. Moreover, it seems, in both cases, that it is still the decomposition, or reduction that is providing the foundation for mechanistic explanations. It is merely acceptable to recompose the mechanism, but it is always more valuable to reduce or decompose a mechanism and explain it by situating and identifying its components parts and their operations. In other words, I argue that some of the new mechanists’ approaches can rightfully be considered moderately reductionistic, and that the moderate reductionistic standpoint is still reductionistic due to this asymmetric tendency.
Second, I argue that the new mechanists have not yet clearly delineated how levels of mechanistic explanation piece together to form an explanation of a given phenomenon of interest. For example, some of the new mechanists recently argued that their approaches can explain natural selection. It is a combination of explanation at the individual level and at the population level that allows for the explanation. However, how these levels of explanation interact or combine is never fully delineated. Not only are the new mechanistic accounts unclear about the role of reduction and decomposition, they are also vague regarding how explanations that require multilevel mechanisms are constructed.
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Bill Devall and George Sessions have been highly criticized for their defense of deep ecology. I ... more Bill Devall and George Sessions have been highly criticized for their defense of deep ecology. I argue, contra deep ecology critics, that Devall and Sessions do indeed lay the foundation for a coherent and admirable project. Properly placing Devall and Sessions in a Kuhnian position, I argue that one can better understand the project at large, mainly a call for the “gestalt shifting” of worldviews. Once this is understood, it becomes apparent that Devall and Sessions were not offering a methodology for conservation or ecological practice, but rather they were critiquing society’s anthropomorphic ways as well as promoting our move away from this world view. Simply, Devall and Sessions do have something interesting to add to deep ecology. Unfortunately, their critics are looking in the wrong places.
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Teaching Documents by Sarah Roe
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Teaching Statement
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Dissertation Abstract by Sarah Roe
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Papers by Sarah Roe
International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2017
ABSTRACT Scientific communities as social groupings and the role that such communities play in sc... more ABSTRACT Scientific communities as social groupings and the role that such communities play in scientific change and the production of scientific knowledge is currently under debate. I examine theory change as a complex social interaction among individual scientists and the scientific community, and argue that individuals will be motivated to adopt a more radical or innovative attitude when confronted with striking similarities between model systems and a more robust understanding of specialised vocabulary. Two case studies from the biological sciences, Barbara McClintock and Stanley Prusiner, help motivate the idea that sharing of models and specialised vocabulary fill the gap between discovery and scientific change by promoting the dispersal of important information throughout the scientific community.
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Polish Journal of Philosophy, 2009
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Publications & Works in Progress by Sarah Roe
I shall argue that there is a complex relation between (1) how we view women as a society, their role in medicine, and the acceptability of medical practices regarding women, and (2) how society’s interest in advanced technology promoted a less personalized form of medical practice. That is, the way in which female medicine has been practice and its importance to society has vastly changed over time, owing, in part, to the depersonalization of medical practice due to advancing medical technology. As a result, the way in which we value women, the ways in which we promote the importance of female medicine, the norms regarding women in medical practice, the importance of female practitioners and researchers, the importance society places on technological advancement, and the way women are treated by men, are all intricately tangled.
This, most likely, will not surprise the reader. However, by tracking the history of female medicine through time, while simultaneously tracking the development of technology that allows for medical examination and testing that depersonalizes the very nature of medicine, we gain a clearer picture of how societal values have come to shape the importance of women and their health within our contemporary society.
Indeed, Feyerabend teaches us that while the current citizen science movement is primarily focused on what the citizen can do for science and what the citizen can learn from science, the movement should also focus on what science can do for the citizen and what science can learn from the citizen. Feyerabend’s insights may offer us a better understanding of how citizen science can best promote scientific education, offer broader knowledge to participants, increase citizen interest in conservation and policy, increase both citizen local and national engagement, and promote a rewarding experience for both the expert and citizen. The way forward for the citizen science movement is to begin properly welcoming and amplifying the benefits of citizens within the sciences.
The literature identifies that participants of forced relocation experience a sense of nostalgia for their former neighborhoods (Fried 1963). Flood buyout participants report the loss of community as a significant hardship following the acquisition and a primary factor considered when deciding whether to participate in a buyout (Fraser et al. 2006; Kick et al. 2011; Addo and Danso 2017). Yet for some of these communities disbanded due to floods, residents have found a way to maintain a connectedness to their former home and neighbors through commemoration (Zavar 2018). Commemoration varies from officially commissioned to spontaneously developed (Bashford et al. 2016) and includes informal remembrances embedded in daily activities (Baez Ullberg 2017). The geographic scholarship on commemoration is extensive and examines the role of place and politics in how we remember and forget tragic events (i.e. Lowenthal 1975; Foote 2003; Foote and Azaryahu 2007; Alderman 2010). The research on memorialization of buyout sites generated by anthropogenic forces is less robust and serves as an opportunity to understand how community culture continues through memorialization despite the loss of physical location.
Drawing from this body of work, we consider how sense of place and belonging is constructed through commemoration. We use critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) to interrogate the narratives of formal and informal commemorative objects. This research focuses on the experiences of four communities awarded federal buyouts due to technological disasters: Picher, Oklahoma; Times Beach, Missouri; Friendswood, Texas; and Ponca City, Oklahoma. A boomtown in the mid-twentieth century, Picher, Oklahoma was a lead and zinc mining capital during World War II. However, the extraction of ore resulted in mine tailings. These five story-tall chat piles loomed over the town and contained toxic levels of heavy metals in excess of approved levels. As part of the Tar Creek Superfund site, much of the town was acquired in 2006. A tornado in 2008 resulted in more relocations and the disbanding of municipal services. Three residents refused to relocate and remain in the area today (Shriver and Kennedy 2005). A former resident has collected artifacts and memorabilia from Picher and has established an informal memorial at a county building to remember the people and place before the relocation.
For Times Beach, Missouri, the use of sludge and other chemicals on roadways exposed residents to Dioxin in the 1970s, which was identified during extensive flooding in 1982. A formal buyout was completed in 1985 (Goodman et al. 1992). Today the acquired neighborhoods form Route 66 State Park. The tourism center occupies a former roadhouse and includes commemorative objects of the disaster. Through this formal commemoration, we will explore how the history of the land is represented and commemorated at the center. Unprocessed petroleum and waste materials leaked into the ground water in the Southbend subdivision in Friendswood, Texas in the 1980s. As part of the Brio Superfund site, hundreds of homes were acquired and razed in 1997. Today the area is empty of people and fenced to restrict access. Yet former residents maintain a very active, public Facebook page and blog as a memorial to the former community. Through this online commemorative object, we can understand how belonging is still constructed even though the place no longer exists.
Finally, we examine two formal memorials in Ponca City, Oklahoma, a petrochemical refinery town. In 1990, Conoco offered a buyout to approximately 400 homes in the south of the city that experience benzene seepage in their basements (Adams et al. 2017). Today, there is an official memorial on the buyout site as well as the Conoco Museum in town. By exploring these officially authorized commemorative objects, we can understand whose narratives are represented/excluded and therefore who belongs to the landscape. Through these four sites, we will analyze how various forms of commemoration recreate community and a sense of belonging to a place that no longer exists physically on the landscape. Additionally, we consider whose narratives are included in commemoration and comparatively, whose do not belong (Schein 2009). By engaging with ecofeminism (King 1989; Warren 2000; Cuomo 2002) and land ethics (Leopold 1949 & Callicott 1989) to explore the human-landscape connection, we can identify how a landscape citizenship is created, performed, and reinforced though commemoration.
However, Darwin may have had another option available to him. I would like to explore the possibility that Darwin, aware of the plethora of species concepts available to him, utilized different species concepts in different cases. In other words, I would like to explore the possibility that Darwin was a species pluralist. To illustrate this, I provide examples throughout Darwin’s works when Darwin utilizes different species concepts, such as concepts similar to our contemporary biological, ecological, and genealogical species concepts. I further argue that it is the context and question that Darwin is engaged in that dictates which concept might be fruitful within the situation. In other words, I intend to show that Darwin was a species concept pluralist precisely because he understood that each different concept investigates a different and important part of the world. Therefore, depending on what is being investigated and in what context, Darwin choose which species concept would be most helpful. Moreover, Darwin never clearly or singularly defined species within his works precisely because he was working with a multitude of species concepts rather than one precise definition of species. If I am indeed correct, then Darwin may have anticipated the current trend in philosophy of biology toward arguing for pluralism with respect to species concepts.
The combination of my previous work and the current project suggests a possible reason for the tension felt throughout the Origin of Species. It may have been the case that Darwin utilized guiding principles to determine species, but also found that utilizing various species concepts is a fruitful practices at times. I would like to explore this avenue in hopes to either resolve the tension concerning conflicting passages within Darwin’s writings or provide a plausible way in which to reconcile the passages.
More can be said about this topic. Drawing from Waters (1998), I attempt to show how my iterative approach does indeed provide two types of generalizations, distribution and causal regularities. I argue that the modeling done by scientists encompasses both types of generalizations. Moreover, the Salmon-Roe approach clearly delineates how each type of generalization is carefully modeled and how each factors into scientific explanation. Notions like ‘propensity’, ‘relevant features’, ‘context’ and ‘reference class’ are all discussed and their place within scientific explanation is illustrated. In this way, scientists are able to track patterns in phenomena without defining ‘regularity’. By tracing causal processes and noting certain tendencies or propensities that those causal processes possess, scientists are in a position to make causal generalizations. Moreover, by linking their models to those of others that are investigating similar mechanisms, scientists are able to provide statistically relevant information regarding the propensities or dispositions of similar mechanisms within similar environments. This results in a better understanding of the term ‘regularity’ provided by the mechanists, as well as a detailed account of how scientists gain generalized information through their practices.
However, these approaches may still fall short for two reasons. First, it seems that Bechtel and Craver’s approaches emphasize and require decomposition. It is not the case that either approach requires recomposition. Moreover, it seems, in both cases, that it is still the decomposition, or reduction that is providing the foundation for mechanistic explanations. It is merely acceptable to recompose the mechanism, but it is always more valuable to reduce or decompose a mechanism and explain it by situating and identifying its components parts and their operations. In other words, I argue that some of the new mechanists’ approaches can rightfully be considered moderately reductionistic, and that the moderate reductionistic standpoint is still reductionistic due to this asymmetric tendency.
Second, I argue that the new mechanists have not yet clearly delineated how levels of mechanistic explanation piece together to form an explanation of a given phenomenon of interest. For example, some of the new mechanists recently argued that their approaches can explain natural selection. It is a combination of explanation at the individual level and at the population level that allows for the explanation. However, how these levels of explanation interact or combine is never fully delineated. Not only are the new mechanistic accounts unclear about the role of reduction and decomposition, they are also vague regarding how explanations that require multilevel mechanisms are constructed.
Teaching Documents by Sarah Roe
Dissertation Abstract by Sarah Roe
Papers by Sarah Roe
I shall argue that there is a complex relation between (1) how we view women as a society, their role in medicine, and the acceptability of medical practices regarding women, and (2) how society’s interest in advanced technology promoted a less personalized form of medical practice. That is, the way in which female medicine has been practice and its importance to society has vastly changed over time, owing, in part, to the depersonalization of medical practice due to advancing medical technology. As a result, the way in which we value women, the ways in which we promote the importance of female medicine, the norms regarding women in medical practice, the importance of female practitioners and researchers, the importance society places on technological advancement, and the way women are treated by men, are all intricately tangled.
This, most likely, will not surprise the reader. However, by tracking the history of female medicine through time, while simultaneously tracking the development of technology that allows for medical examination and testing that depersonalizes the very nature of medicine, we gain a clearer picture of how societal values have come to shape the importance of women and their health within our contemporary society.
Indeed, Feyerabend teaches us that while the current citizen science movement is primarily focused on what the citizen can do for science and what the citizen can learn from science, the movement should also focus on what science can do for the citizen and what science can learn from the citizen. Feyerabend’s insights may offer us a better understanding of how citizen science can best promote scientific education, offer broader knowledge to participants, increase citizen interest in conservation and policy, increase both citizen local and national engagement, and promote a rewarding experience for both the expert and citizen. The way forward for the citizen science movement is to begin properly welcoming and amplifying the benefits of citizens within the sciences.
The literature identifies that participants of forced relocation experience a sense of nostalgia for their former neighborhoods (Fried 1963). Flood buyout participants report the loss of community as a significant hardship following the acquisition and a primary factor considered when deciding whether to participate in a buyout (Fraser et al. 2006; Kick et al. 2011; Addo and Danso 2017). Yet for some of these communities disbanded due to floods, residents have found a way to maintain a connectedness to their former home and neighbors through commemoration (Zavar 2018). Commemoration varies from officially commissioned to spontaneously developed (Bashford et al. 2016) and includes informal remembrances embedded in daily activities (Baez Ullberg 2017). The geographic scholarship on commemoration is extensive and examines the role of place and politics in how we remember and forget tragic events (i.e. Lowenthal 1975; Foote 2003; Foote and Azaryahu 2007; Alderman 2010). The research on memorialization of buyout sites generated by anthropogenic forces is less robust and serves as an opportunity to understand how community culture continues through memorialization despite the loss of physical location.
Drawing from this body of work, we consider how sense of place and belonging is constructed through commemoration. We use critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) to interrogate the narratives of formal and informal commemorative objects. This research focuses on the experiences of four communities awarded federal buyouts due to technological disasters: Picher, Oklahoma; Times Beach, Missouri; Friendswood, Texas; and Ponca City, Oklahoma. A boomtown in the mid-twentieth century, Picher, Oklahoma was a lead and zinc mining capital during World War II. However, the extraction of ore resulted in mine tailings. These five story-tall chat piles loomed over the town and contained toxic levels of heavy metals in excess of approved levels. As part of the Tar Creek Superfund site, much of the town was acquired in 2006. A tornado in 2008 resulted in more relocations and the disbanding of municipal services. Three residents refused to relocate and remain in the area today (Shriver and Kennedy 2005). A former resident has collected artifacts and memorabilia from Picher and has established an informal memorial at a county building to remember the people and place before the relocation.
For Times Beach, Missouri, the use of sludge and other chemicals on roadways exposed residents to Dioxin in the 1970s, which was identified during extensive flooding in 1982. A formal buyout was completed in 1985 (Goodman et al. 1992). Today the acquired neighborhoods form Route 66 State Park. The tourism center occupies a former roadhouse and includes commemorative objects of the disaster. Through this formal commemoration, we will explore how the history of the land is represented and commemorated at the center. Unprocessed petroleum and waste materials leaked into the ground water in the Southbend subdivision in Friendswood, Texas in the 1980s. As part of the Brio Superfund site, hundreds of homes were acquired and razed in 1997. Today the area is empty of people and fenced to restrict access. Yet former residents maintain a very active, public Facebook page and blog as a memorial to the former community. Through this online commemorative object, we can understand how belonging is still constructed even though the place no longer exists.
Finally, we examine two formal memorials in Ponca City, Oklahoma, a petrochemical refinery town. In 1990, Conoco offered a buyout to approximately 400 homes in the south of the city that experience benzene seepage in their basements (Adams et al. 2017). Today, there is an official memorial on the buyout site as well as the Conoco Museum in town. By exploring these officially authorized commemorative objects, we can understand whose narratives are represented/excluded and therefore who belongs to the landscape. Through these four sites, we will analyze how various forms of commemoration recreate community and a sense of belonging to a place that no longer exists physically on the landscape. Additionally, we consider whose narratives are included in commemoration and comparatively, whose do not belong (Schein 2009). By engaging with ecofeminism (King 1989; Warren 2000; Cuomo 2002) and land ethics (Leopold 1949 & Callicott 1989) to explore the human-landscape connection, we can identify how a landscape citizenship is created, performed, and reinforced though commemoration.
However, Darwin may have had another option available to him. I would like to explore the possibility that Darwin, aware of the plethora of species concepts available to him, utilized different species concepts in different cases. In other words, I would like to explore the possibility that Darwin was a species pluralist. To illustrate this, I provide examples throughout Darwin’s works when Darwin utilizes different species concepts, such as concepts similar to our contemporary biological, ecological, and genealogical species concepts. I further argue that it is the context and question that Darwin is engaged in that dictates which concept might be fruitful within the situation. In other words, I intend to show that Darwin was a species concept pluralist precisely because he understood that each different concept investigates a different and important part of the world. Therefore, depending on what is being investigated and in what context, Darwin choose which species concept would be most helpful. Moreover, Darwin never clearly or singularly defined species within his works precisely because he was working with a multitude of species concepts rather than one precise definition of species. If I am indeed correct, then Darwin may have anticipated the current trend in philosophy of biology toward arguing for pluralism with respect to species concepts.
The combination of my previous work and the current project suggests a possible reason for the tension felt throughout the Origin of Species. It may have been the case that Darwin utilized guiding principles to determine species, but also found that utilizing various species concepts is a fruitful practices at times. I would like to explore this avenue in hopes to either resolve the tension concerning conflicting passages within Darwin’s writings or provide a plausible way in which to reconcile the passages.
More can be said about this topic. Drawing from Waters (1998), I attempt to show how my iterative approach does indeed provide two types of generalizations, distribution and causal regularities. I argue that the modeling done by scientists encompasses both types of generalizations. Moreover, the Salmon-Roe approach clearly delineates how each type of generalization is carefully modeled and how each factors into scientific explanation. Notions like ‘propensity’, ‘relevant features’, ‘context’ and ‘reference class’ are all discussed and their place within scientific explanation is illustrated. In this way, scientists are able to track patterns in phenomena without defining ‘regularity’. By tracing causal processes and noting certain tendencies or propensities that those causal processes possess, scientists are in a position to make causal generalizations. Moreover, by linking their models to those of others that are investigating similar mechanisms, scientists are able to provide statistically relevant information regarding the propensities or dispositions of similar mechanisms within similar environments. This results in a better understanding of the term ‘regularity’ provided by the mechanists, as well as a detailed account of how scientists gain generalized information through their practices.
However, these approaches may still fall short for two reasons. First, it seems that Bechtel and Craver’s approaches emphasize and require decomposition. It is not the case that either approach requires recomposition. Moreover, it seems, in both cases, that it is still the decomposition, or reduction that is providing the foundation for mechanistic explanations. It is merely acceptable to recompose the mechanism, but it is always more valuable to reduce or decompose a mechanism and explain it by situating and identifying its components parts and their operations. In other words, I argue that some of the new mechanists’ approaches can rightfully be considered moderately reductionistic, and that the moderate reductionistic standpoint is still reductionistic due to this asymmetric tendency.
Second, I argue that the new mechanists have not yet clearly delineated how levels of mechanistic explanation piece together to form an explanation of a given phenomenon of interest. For example, some of the new mechanists recently argued that their approaches can explain natural selection. It is a combination of explanation at the individual level and at the population level that allows for the explanation. However, how these levels of explanation interact or combine is never fully delineated. Not only are the new mechanistic accounts unclear about the role of reduction and decomposition, they are also vague regarding how explanations that require multilevel mechanisms are constructed.