Collin Rice joins the department this year as our new philosopher of science with a specialty in philosophy of biology. Rice holds a BA from Simpson College where he majored in Physics and Philosophy and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Missouri. Before coming to CSU, he spent a year as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Philosophy of Science, was an Assistant Professor at Lycoming College, and an Associate Professor at Bryn Mawr College.
Jeff Kasser, who chaired the search committee, explains the significance of Rice’s hire: “With CSU’s clear strengths in the life sciences (reflected in the Warner College of Natural Resources and the College of Agricultural Sciences as well as the College of Natural Sciences), we are extremely fortunate to add a colleague who has already made significant contributions to philosophy of biology and to general philosophy of science.”
Q&A with Dr. Collin Rice
Let’s start with the basics. What is philosophy of science?
Generally speaking, philosophy of science investigates the standard philosophical questions about what we know, what exists, and what values we ought to adopt, within the context of the practice of science. For example, in my own research, I ask questions such as: are the assumptions of this scientific model or theory justified, what are we justified in inferring from a particular idealized model, and do inferences based on idealized assumptions enable us to genuinely understand real systems?
Historically, the relationship between philosophy and science has gone through various cycles of being one in the same discipline (Aristotle’s natural philosophy is both scientific and philosophical), being largely separable pursuits (where philosophy of science made little contact with the actual practice of science), and, more recently, becoming interdisciplinary collaborators. As naturalistic philosophy has grown in popularity, more and more philosophers have recognized the need for philosophical debates to be informed by scientific results and for philosophy to help clarify the meaning of various scientific concepts and their application.
How did you first get interested in pursuing the philosophy of science?
As an undergraduate, I started as a physics major until I asked one too many questions like, “How do we know that?” and “What is this fancy math telling us about the actual world?”. My physics professors told me I need to go talk to people in the philosophy department. So I took a philosophy class and I was instantly hooked.
As I continued to study both physics and philosophy, I found many similarities between theoretical physics and philosophical investigations of how the world works. When I graduated, I had difficulty deciding which of them I wanted to pursue further. Rather than having to choose, I looked for a way that I could continue to both. That’s when I discovered philosophy of science where I get to spend half my time reading and talking with scientists and the other half of my time reading and talking with philosophers (and lots of time trying to get them to talk to each other!). I was (and still am) really excited about the interdisciplinary nature of philosophy of science and I genuinely wanted to understand what makes science such a successful project for learning about how the world works.
And what about your specific interest in philosophy of biology?
I didn’t discover philosophy of biology until graduate school when I realized that attempting to model every science after physics (such as looking for laws of nature) had caused some serious misunderstandings of biology, economics, and social science. Moreover, the prominent historical views suggested that science was completely objective and value-free in ways that were contrary to my experiences working in various science labs.
It also became clear that mathematical modeling was becoming a central part of biological practice and that much of my mathematical and physics background would be useful in analyzing the ways that values and mathematics combine to study animal behaviors, ecosystems, and climate change. I began to see that the ways that biologists were explaining the variations of life that we observe were quite different from the ways that philosophers of science focused on cases from physics had suggested explanations ought to work. Thus, I set out to better understand the value-laden explanations based on mathematical models that biologists were providing.
What do you focus on in your research?
My research focuses on the concepts of explanation, understanding, and idealization and how they are used and justified in different areas of science. More specifically, I analyze the various ways that scientists use highly idealized models to explain and understand what we observe. The puzzle at the heart of my research is: if scientific explanations and understanding are supposed to be true or accurate descriptions of the world, then how can models that are known to be highly idealized distortions of the real world be used to explain and understand?
I typically focus on cases from biology, but I have also compared the explanations provided by biological models to explanations provided by models in physics, economics, climate science, and social sciences. I am also interested in how explanation, understanding, and knowledge are related to one another. Can one understand without being able to explain? Are explanations just sets of knowledge about the phenomenon, or is something additional required?
More recently, I’ve become interested in the ways that values, diversity, and pluralism contribute to scientific modeling projects and our attempts to understand the distant past and predict future outcomes. These projects have gotten me engaged with a lot of social epistemology and feminist philosophy of science to try and unpack the ways that diverse communities of scientists using a multitude of conflicting methods can better understand our world than more homogeneous communities.
Do you work with scientists in developing your research?
I do work with scientists to discover the cases of interest to them, discuss their justifications for using idealizations, and what they take to be a good explanation or a deeper understanding of some phenomenon. I think philosophers of science have historically paid too much attention to logically reconstructing science in a highly idealized way rather than paying attention to the pragmatic challenges faced by practicing scientists. The best way to see those challenges and the, often messy, business of actually doing science is to collaborate with scientists to see what they are doing day to day and the decisions they must make to accomplish their aims. Along the way, I try to raise various philosophical questions in the hope of showing them the relevance of philosophy to the practice of science.
How would describe yourself as a teacher?
As a teacher I aim to work collaboratively with my students to improve our understanding of how science works, how science ought to work, and how we should relate to science as citizens and humanists. My primary goal is to give my students the freedom, power, and confidence to explore the philosophical questions that are of interest to them and to help guide them through that process. I also try to impart that you really shouldn’t be doing science without examining your philosophical assumptions and that you really shouldn’t be doing philosophy without consulting what science has to say on the subject. Thus, I try to model what interdisciplinary work looks like and how to collaborate with others while respecting each other’s areas of expertise and unique experiences to solve difficult problems. Philosophy has changed my life in profound ways and I welcome the opportunity to share that gift with my students through a collaborative learning experience.
What’s your favorite thing to teach?
My favorite topics to teach are, predictably, about idealization and modeling in science, the roles values play in scientific practice, and the ways that diversity improves scientific knowledge, justification, and understanding. I also particularly love to teach Darwin’s Origin since almost all the outstanding questions in philosophy of biology arise in that text in some way and it really highlights the crucial role that philosophical assumptions and inferences play in biological practice and the public’s acceptance of science. It also helps students see the nature of scientific progress since, while Darwin’s theory is one of the greatest accomplishments in science, current evolutionary theory is quite different from Darwin’s original proposal.
What excites you most about coming to CSU?
I’m very excited about the number of bike lanes and getting to join my family that lives in Fort Collins! But more specific to CSU, I’m really excited about getting to learn from my new colleagues and students in both philosophy and the sciences and to work with them to build a community of people interested in the philosophical foundations of science. I am also excited about the philosophy department and university’s focus on issues concerning climate change and environmental ethics. I’ve just begun looking at the crucial roles that scientific models play in those debates and discussions and I have a lot to learn from my colleagues and students about the topic. In general, getting to learn new things from new people is something I’m really excited about.
