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Machine Learning: Prediction Without Explanation? https://www.springer.com/ journal/11023/updates/18180316 Description Over the last decades, Machine Learning (ML) techniques have gained central prominence in many areas of science. ML typically aims at pattern recognition and prediction, and in many cases has become a better tool for these purposes than traditional methods. The downside, however, is that ML does not seem to provide any explanations, at least not in the same sense as theories or traditional models do. This apparent lack of explanation is often also linked to the opacity of ML techniques, sometimes referred to as the ‘Black Box Challenge’. Methods such as heat maps or adversarial examples are aimed at reducing this opacity and opening the black box. But at present, it remains an open question how and what exactly these methods explain and what the nature of these explanations is. While in some areas of science this may not create any interesting philosop...

Biennial Early Career Conference.  April 8 and 9, 2021.  Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC).  Annenberg School for Communication,  University of Pennsylvania. The second biennial early career conference by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania asks: What are post-pandemic politics? We understand post-pandemic, not as a myopic focus on COVID-19, but rather as an optic illuminating both  persistent  and  emergent  conditions of inequity and precarity. We also use post-pandemic as an opportunity to imagine new forms of politics, community, solidarity, and action.  We invite early career scholars, activists, artists, and journalists to reflect on the crucial role of communication in this moment of rupture and offer the following questions as a provocation for participants:  What can the critical study of global commu...

Postdoc Research Position: The Global History of Material Culture and Technology, 1850 – 2000, in a research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) Project leader: Professor Mikael Hård The Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), near Frankfurt, Germany, announces a two-year post-doctoral research position, beginning 1 October 2020. We welcome applications from talented and diligent historians of all genders who are about to develop an independent research profile in the global history of technology and material culture. The successful candidate will become a member of a larger project called “A Global History of Technology, 1850–2000” (GLOBAL-HOT). The project investigates the history of material culture and artifacts in various parts of the world from 1850 to 2000. The researchers investigate the persistent use of indigenous technologies along with globalized ones, as well as the emergence of hybrid solutions. The goal is to increase our understanding...

Job Advertisement: Three to Four Year Postdoctoral Position at Vrije Universiteit Brussel with Prof. dr. Steffen Ducheyne, Research Project: ‘An Integrated Study of Isaac Newton’s Methods’ Deadline: 8 November 2020 PROJECT DESCRIPTION The postdoctoral research project  ‘An Integrated Study of Isaac Newton’s Methods’  will focus on the potential interaction between the different methods which Isaac Newton used in his work. Newton is often celebrated as one of the most important physicists in the history of science. However, Newton was not only an innovative physicist and mathematician, he also developed new methodological instruments. Ever since I.B. Cohen’s seminal study The Newtonian Revolution, scholarly attention has been devoted to Newton’s natural philosophical methods, and especially to his so-called ‘Principia-style’ methodology. More recently, scholars including Raquel Delgado-Moreira, Rob Iliffe, Mordechai Feingold and Jed Z. Buchwald, and William...