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Without Water There is No Life: Learning from the San Francisco Bay Model
Start Date: 11/18/2014Start Time: 3:30 PM
End Date: 11/18/2014End Time: 4:30 PM
This event recurs on a custom schedule.  Click here to see the series dates.
Event Description
Michael Weisberg, associate professor of philosophy, University of Pennsylvania

 

In the 1950s, an amateur musical theater producer named John Reber convinced many powerful Californians that the state's water problems could be solved by damming up the San Francisco Bay. Against massive political pressure, Reber's opponents persuaded lawmakers that doing so would lead to an ecological disaster. They did this not by empirical measurement alone, but through the construction of a working hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay. Drawing on the story of the Bay Model, this talk examines how models can tell us about the world and be used as guides in decision making. I will defend a similarity account of the model/world relation, and discuss how this relation can form the basis of a confirmation theory for idealized models.

This talk is part of a Science & Society lectures series that is co-sponsored by the Physics Graduate Student Association and the Center for Science, Technology and Society.
Contact Information:
Name: Irene Cho
Phone: 215.571.3852
Email: irene.cho@drexel.edu
Michael Wiesberg portrait
Location:
Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building, Room 120, 3245 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Audience:
  • Graduate Students
  • Senior Class
  • Prospective Students
  • International Students
  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Alumni
  • Parents & Families
    		•
    Special Features:
  • Free Food
    		•

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