Finnur Dellsén

The project is on consensus in science -- when it's a reliable sign of truth, how to use it in science communication, and how to progress science via consensus. We'll be hiring two postdocs and two MA-students, hosting several events, and be doing lots of exciting collaborative research!

Allocation from the Icelandic Research Fund for the financial year 2026 | The Icelandic Centre for Research The Board of The Icelandic Research Fund has completed the allocation of grants for new research projects for 2026. A total of 414 valid applications were received, 70 of which were funded, or 17%.

Some professional news: I'm delighted to share that I've been awarded a "grant of excellence" from the Icelandic Research Fund (Rannís). This is the largest type of research grant that's available in Iceland; only a couple of these are awarded each year across all disciplines.

#philsky #philsci

Although this wasn't our goal, I was extra pleased that our results end up largely vindicating a suggestion I had made in a previous paper, which I called Evidentially Robust IBE. doi.org/10.1017/psa....

Testing abductions from uncertain evidence Abstract. Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is traditionally conceived of as a rule of inference, in which one infers to the hypothesis that provides

@boruttrpin.bsky.social and I have a new paper out in Philosophical Quarterly. We had both written on how inference to the best explanation could work with uncertain evidence. So we teamed up to test some suggestions for how to do that using computer simulations: academic.oup.com/pq/article/d...

Me in a red jumper talking into a mic and holding my hand up. Behind me is a slide with the words "You tell me I am wrong. // Who are you, who is anybody, to tell me I am wrong? // I am not wrong."

Finnur Dellsén got a nice pic of me on my standard Q&A slide, so now I have a stock reply to any time anyone disagrees with me.

A speaker (Helen Longino) giving a talk to an audience, standing behind a lectern and in front a lecture slides with pictures of lichens and dodders

Helen Longino giving the first Annual Institute of Philosophy and Duke University Research Talk at the University of Iceland! The talk was titled “Why Center Interaction? (In science and elsewhere)”

It's definitely a good one! I also like what Einstein says somewhere about internal and external considerations in favor of a theory (or something to that effect). Fits IBE quite well, I think.

Sounds great, I look forward to reading this.

A weirdly underappreciated problem about Inference to the Best Explanation is how it can handle uncertain evidence. This new paper, now forthcoming in Philosophy of Science, proposes a strategy for doing that (and argues that Einstein may have used it). #philsky #philsci

doi.org/10.1017/psa....

Curious why my latest paper left one notable astrobiologist "unpleasantly surprised"? Follow the link and you might just find out! #philsci #philsky #astrobiology www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

And we argue, on that basis, that the debate about scientific progress should be seen as central to the various debates about scientific realism.

We show, among other things, that scientists' views about various forms of scientific realism are best predicted by their views on scientific progress -- as opposed to, for instance, their views on the epistemic status of current theories, the no-miracles argument, or the pessimistic induction.

I just found out that this paper, co-authored with James R. Beebe, is now out and freely available at Philosophy of Science. #philsky #philsci #xphi

doi.org/10.1017/psa....

Tomorrow at U. of Iceland: James Beebe talks about how and ehy to make epistemic autonomy reflective. #philsky

english.hi.is/research-tal...

This is hilarious, and makes a good point.

There was some sort of transition from one paper handling system to another, during which my paper seems to have just been forgotten about for a good while. Phil Imprint is doing the best they can with very limited resources so I have lots of sympathy for them.

In the paper I argue for the heretical view that there is a way in which accommodated data provides more support than predicted data.

How could that possibly be right? Read the paper to find out. (It's fully open access.)

This paper of mine is now officially published, a mere four years after it was accepted at Philosphers' Imprint. #philsky #philsci #philpapers

journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/articl...

Joachim Horvath, Steffen Koch & Michael G. Titelbaum (eds.), Methods in Analytic Philosophy: A Primer and Guide - PhilPapers Forthcoming guide with brief introductions on methods in analytic philosophy by experts on the relevant topics. With sections on: formal methods, argumentation, inferential methods, thought experiment...

Happy to have a chapter (coauthored with Insa Lawler, @insar.bsky.social, and James Norton) in this excellent and totally open access volume on philosophical methodology. #philsky

philpapers.org/rec/HORAPA-2

Science, values, and society: themes from Helen Longino On the occasion of Helen Longino’s talk at the University of Iceland on the 8th of October 2025, we are organising a mini-workshop on themes from Longino’s philosophical work on the 10th o...

Very exciting workshop in Reykjavik in October, organized by @oscarw.bsky.social. Please spread the word and/or consider submitting an abstract. #philsci #philsky #hps

philevents.org/event/show/1...

I wasn't able to make thismone open access. Preprint available here: philpapers.org/archive/BEDI...

Inclusive inquiry What is the point of inquiry? Some say that the aim of inquiring into some question is to come to know its answer; others, that the aim is to attain justified belief, epistemic improvement, or some o...

New paper now forthcoming in PPR, co-authored with Bob Beddor.

Argues that inquiry, especially in science, needs to be construed as a more social/egalitarian endeavor: the point of inquiring is often to confer epistemic benefits on others. #philsky #philsci

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

And although we frame the argument as focusin on methods in philosophy specifically, it easily generalizes to other disciplines, and indeed to any systematic research.

The model we use to show this is a sort of extension/elaboration/improvement on the models that Kitcher and Strevens use to model the benefits of cognitive diversity in science.

Should every researcher (in philosophy, for instance) be using the 'best' method available? We show, from surprisingly modest assumptions (e.g. about what 'best' amounts to), that resources should often be spread around to those using other methods, even when we know they're not 'best'.

Philosophical methodology: a plea for tolerance Abstract. Many prominent critiques of philosophical methods proceed by suggesting that some method is unreliable, especially in comparison to some alternat

New paper forthcoming in Analysis on methodological pluralism! Co-authored with the rest of the "Philosophical Meth. Lab" (Sam Baron, Tina Firing, and James Norton)! #philsky #philsci #metascience

academic.oup.com/analysis/adv...

Mass starvation spreads across Gaza | MSF More than 100 organisations are sounding the alarm to allow lifesaving aid into Gaza.

#Gaza is often described as an open-air prison. That analogy is no longer accurate: prisoners are not systematically shot, bombed, and starved to death.

Gaza is now an open-air death camp.

ABSTRACT. Around 97% of climate scientists endorse anthropogenic global warming (AGW), the theory that human activities are partly responsible for recent increases in global average temperatures. Clearly, this widespread endorsement of AGW is a reason for non-experts to believe in AGW. But what is the epistemic significance of the fact that some climate scientists do not endorse AGW? This article contrasts expert unanimity, in which virtually no expert disagrees with some theory, with expert consensus, in which some non-negligible proportion either rejects or is uncertain about the theory. It is argued that from a layperson’s point of view, an expert consensus is often stronger evidence for a theory’s truth than unanimity. Several lessons are drawn from this conclusion, for example, concerning what laypeople should infer from expert pronouncements, how journalists should report on scientific theories, and how working scientists should communicate with the public.

New issue, new Editors' Choice article (free to read):

Finnur Dellsén,
‘Consensus versus Unanimity: Which Carries More Weight?’

Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

#philsci #philsky #hps

Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published Widespread mockery of AI-generated rat with giant penis in one paper brings problem to public attention

Many good and interesting points made here, including the final point about research papers soon being written by AIs, reviewed by AIs, and then subsequently summarized for us by AIs. At some point we'll need to rethink the current model of the ~10k word research article. #philsci #philsky