I have already written one play, Not Eureka, which explores one way in which theatre can give a voice to science. While not a traditional science history play, Not Eureka concerns, and I hope illuminates, several scientific experiments of historical significance. In my current research, I have continued to explore ways to incorporate science into theatre. My project is similar to Not Eureka in that I am engaged in writing a new, full-length play (City Lights, Receding), based on research and scientific in focus. However, the project is not a repeat of my previous work. Instead of recounting and clarifying already fairly well-established scientific concepts, City Lights, Receding is philosophical, speculative, in nature. My focus as a History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) major is in the philosophy of quantum physics. I find this particular area of physical-philosophical inquiry both appealing and dramatic. My play explores, in a dramatic, speculative way, the philosophical problems presented by modern physics, and the conflict between the classical and modern worlds. I completed a graduate seminar in the philosophy of quantum mechanics in fall 2007. Since then, I have pursued research independently into the philosophy of quantum mechanics, identifying specific areas within the topic useful to the development of my script. I have focused on theories of interpretation such as GRW, many-worlds and many-minds theories. I have also been reading as many science-based plays as I can get my hands on. Fall 2008 began my writing period. By the beginning of spring semester 2009, I had a draft in reading-ready form; a seated reading through the Theatre Arts department, directed by Regina Connolly and featuring Charlie Brown (Verdenmacher), Parag S. Gohel (Armin), Mary Heyne (Marian), Lily Junker (Brody), and Joe McGranaghan (Albert Albert), was performed from April 9-11, 2009. Based on the reading and the response of audience and theatre/HPS faculty to it, I plan to revise the script with the goal of eventually pursuing full production opportunities.

When exploring the relationship between two reputedly competitive scientific concepts that have persisted, with modification, through time, there are three main features to consider. First, there are historical features of an evolving relationship. Just as a causal story can be reconstructed concerning adaptations in a complex system, an analogous story can be supplied for the historical contingencies that have shaped the organization and development of Lamarckian and Darwinian biological thought, and their interactions, over time. Second, there are philosophical and conceptual features to the relationship-- what is shared, what is not, whether two ideas inherently conflict or conditionally conflict, etc. Third, there are methodological features to the relationshiphow do the theoretical concepts interact when in realistic operation? What are the benefits and constraints regarding their co-application? This project will explore the historical, philosophical, and methodological characteristics of the infamous Darwinian-Lamarckian dichotomy as characterized through Lakatos Methodology for Scientific Research Programs, with the hypothesis that, once the respective evolutionary philosophies are generalized and the clutter of stigma removed, there is a large degree of compatibility to be found among them. The justification for this project derives from the recent resurgence of interest in Lamarckian phenomena and the stern, often vehement backlash that has greeted that interest. If biologists and philosophers both resist, or worse dismiss, Lamarckian suggestions on the grounds that they perceive them to undermine and conflict with Darwinian lines of thought, then that resistance may be unconstructive and misguided, should it be the case that, just as it was with Darwins original conception of evolution, a more flexible, pluralistic view is plausible.

Theories of practice are widespread within the humanities and the social sciences. They reflect the view that the study of, and theorizing about, social practices hold the key to a proper understanding of social life or aspects thereof. An important subset of theories of practice is ability theories of practice. These theories focus on the manner in which individuals draw on their abilities, skills, know-how, or practical knowledge when participating in social practices. In this dissertation, I concentrate on ability theories of practice as advanced within the social sciences and the philosophy of the social sciences. Ability theorists within these two fields stress individuals ability to act appropriately in situations of social interaction. But how, more precisely, is this ability to be understood? The thesis I develop and defend provides a partial answer to this important question: In situations of social interaction, individuals ability to act appropriately sometimes depends on their exercise of the ability directly to perceive normative states specified as the appropriateness of actions. In the first part of the dissertation, I introduce and motivate this thesis. I provide an overview of ability theories of practice and, against that background, I present my thesis. Though generally unexplored, influential ability theorists have toyed with the thesis. Or, their theories invite an extension in this direction. For this reason, I argue, the thesis constitutes a natural way in which further to develop their approach. In the second part of the dissertation, I develop and defend my thesis. First, I present a plausible way in which to make ontological sense of the claim that normative states are sometimes directly perceptible. Next, I offer an account of perception and argue that, by its lights, individuals sometimes have the ability directly to perceive normative states. Finally, I briefly show that individuals ability to act appropriately sometimes depends on their exercise of this ability directly to perceive normative states. From both a practical and a theoretical perspective, the development and defense of this thesis constitutes a valuable elaboration of the basic approach associated with ability theories of practice.

The following dissertation is an inferentialist account of classical population genetics. I present the theory as a definite body of interconnected inferential rules for generating mathematical models of population dynamics. To state those rules, I use the notion of causation as a primitive. First, I put forward a rule stating the circumstances of application of the theory, one that uses causal language to pick out the types of entities over which the theory may be deployed. Next, I offer a rule for grouping such entities into populations based on their competitive causal relationships. Then I offer a general algorithm for generating classical population genetics models for such populations on the basis of what causal influences operate within them. Dynamical models in population genetics are designed to demystify natural phenomena, chiefly to show how adaptation, altruism, and genetic polymorphism can be explained in terms of natural rather than supernatural processes. In order for the theory to serve this purpose, it must be possible to understand, in a principled fashion, when and how to deploy the theory. By presenting the theory as a system of ordered inferential rules that takes causal information as its critical input and yields dynamical models as its outputs, I show explicitly how classical population genetics functions as a non-circular theoretical apparatus for generating explanations. The generalization of the theory achieved by presenting it using causal vocabulary shows how the scope of the theory of natural selection extends beyond its traditional domain of systems distinguished by genetic variations.

This dissertation presents a new approach to modeling the causal structure of conscious agency, with a foundation in the metaphysics of causation and empirical tools for incorporating scientific results into an enriched causal model of agency. I use an interventionist causal analysis and experimental evidence from cognitive science to demonstrate that conscious awareness plays several significant causal roles in action. I then consider metaphysical challenges to this approach, and demonstrate that higher level causes such as awareness are legitimately causal. I expose the flawed understanding of causation required for inferring the causal inertness of awareness from experimental evidence. This leads to a differentiation between metaphysical causal questions, about the nature of causation itself, from empirical questions, which apply causal analysis to actual systems in the world. I challenge the practice of focusing on the awareness of agency in order to address the causal role of awareness in agency on the grounds that it inappropriately internalizes conscious agency. To demonstrate how we ought to incorporate scientific results into philosophical theories of agency, I offer an empirically enriched view of conscious agency. I rely on an interventionist approach to develop an evidentiary framework to ascertain the extent to which conscious awareness is a causal factor in action. Based on results from automatism research, I demonstrate at least three important ways in which awareness is a major causal contributor to human action: conscious intentions or goals; conscious perceptual information relevant to the goal; and conscious execution. I then address the problematic assumption that 'higher level' causes are derivative from lower level ones. I introduce the notion of counterfactual robustness to show how, for single tokens of causation, microphysical explanations are often explanatorily inferior to macrophysical ones, and distort the explanandum. I allay concerns about my variable choice by showing that we cannot, even in principle, replace higher level variables such as awareness with lower level variables such as neuronal processing. I introduce the notion of causal articulation in complex systems as the means by which higher level causes have lower level effects, while avoiding problems encountered by other theories of downward causation.

I argue that cymatic imaging processes are methods of artifactual data production rather than data collection and that the production of sonorous figures can be shown to be scientifically valuable when compared to other artifactual data production methods used in the past, particularly Alphonse Bertillons use of anthropometrics to organize police catalogues in the 19th century. By artifactual, I mean that the data produced through a cymatic regime are the result of the imaging practice, and do not exist in the world before they are manufactured through a contrived process. Cymatics, a mediating imaging practice, permits an enhanced visual access to acoustical phenomena that are typically only experienced through our senses of hearing and touch. Furthermore, the production of cymatic images allows both hobbyists and scientists to create atlases, visual data repositories, of sound, wave displacements, and other modal phenomena. Without the artifactual visual data produced by a process like cymatics, it is impossible to create image-based atlases of invisible phenomena like sound that show more than idealized graphics of a particular wave. In order for scientific cymatic atlases to be created, the methods of production of a cymatic image, especially the frequency of the wave displacement and the media through which that wave displacement is being propagated, must be faithfully recorded and measured in order for viewers of the atlas to know what particular phenomenon they are observing.. Though cymatics has been studied in detail since the Enlightenment, Dr. Hans Jenny was the first person to accurately record this auxiliary data, which allowed him to create the first cymatic atlas that was useful to scientists.

Background: A follow-up SS (FSS) can provide additional clinical data in a subset of children that undergo an initial skeletal survey (ISS) for the evaluation of physical abuse. Three studies suggested that 33-57% of FSS identify additional fractures, but the study populations were small and highly selective. Objective: To assess a consecutive study sample of children who underwent an ISS and FSS, to evaluate the results of the ISS and FSS, and to calculate the proportion in whom clinical diagnosis depended on the FSS results. Methods: This was a retrospective, descriptive study of children who had an ISS and FSS at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC from 4/1/02 to 3/31/09. Data were collected about demographics, reason for and results of ISS and FSS, the interval in days between ISS and FSS, and whether the FSS affected clinical diagnosis. Results: During the 7-yr study period, 1470 children underwent an ISS. Eleven percent (169/1470) of these children also underwent a FSS. These 169 children made up the subjects of the study. The FSS identified 39 fractures in 16% (27/169) of the study subjects. All 39 fractures were rib, metaphyseal or metacarpal. The identification of new fractures on FSS led a definite diagnosis of abuse in 7.6% (7/92) of the subjects who did not have a previous diagnosis. These 7 subjects were all less than a year of age. The ISS identified no fractures in 43% (3/7) of these subjects. A total of 29 fractures that were felt to be equivocal of ISS were confirmed as normal variants on FSS. Conclusions: This is the largest study to evaluate the use of FSS. The proportion of subjects with additional fractures identified on FSS was lower than in previous studies. The FSS made a definite diagnosis of abuse in ~8% of subjects. A large number of equivocal fractures on ISS were felt to be normal variants on FSS. Future studies will compare children who only receive an ISS with those who receive an ISS and FSS to identify characteristics that, when present in a child undergoing an ISS, also warrant a FSS.

Phenomenal consciousness poses something of a puzzle for philosophy of science. This puzzle arises from two facts: It is common for philosophers (and some scientists) to take its existence to be phenomenologically obvious and yet modern science arguably has little (if anything) to tell us about it. And, this is despite over 20 years of work targeting phenomenal consciousness in what I call the new science of consciousness. What is it about this supposedly evident phenomenon that has kept it beyond the reach of our scientific understanding? I argue that phenomenal consciousness has resisted scientific explanation because there is no such phenomenon: What is in fact phenomenologically obvious has not resisted scientific explanation, exposing phenomenal consciousness as an unneeded and unwarranted theoretical construct that is not supported by the scientific evidence. I show this through an investigation of the new science. I detail how these researchers understand phenomenal consciousness, tie this understanding to the recent philosophical debates, and critically assess the reasons given for believing that such a scientific phenomenon exists.

Human reasoning often involves explanation. In everyday affairs, people reason to hypotheses based on the explanatory power these hypotheses afford; I might, for example, surmise that my toddler has been playing in my office because I judge that this hypothesis delivers a good explanation of the disarranged state of the books on my shelves. But such explanatory reasoning also has relevance far beyond the commonplace. Indeed, explanatory reasoning plays an important role in such varied fields as the sciences, philosophy, theology, medicine, forensics, and law. This dissertation provides an extended study into the logic of explanatory reasoning via two general questions. First, I approach the question of what exactly we have in mind when we make judgments pertaining to the explanatory power that a hypothesis has over some evidence. This question is important to this study because these are the sorts of judgments that we constantly rely on when we use explanations to reason about the world. Ultimately, I introduce and defend an explication of the concept of explanatory power in the form of a probabilistic measure. This formal explication allows us to articulate precisely some of the various ways in which we might reason explanatorily. The second question this dissertation examines is whether explanatory reasoning constitutes an epistemically respectable means of gaining knowledge. I defend the following ideas: The probability theory can be used to describe the logic of explanatory reasoning, the normative standard to which such reasoning attains. Explanatory judgments, on the other hand, constitute heuristics that allow us to approximate reasoning in accordance with this logical standard while staying within our human bounds. The most well known model of explanatory reasoning, Inference to the Best Explanation, describes a cogent, nondeductive inference form. And reasoning by Inference to the Best Explanation approximates reasoning directly via the probability theory in the real world. Finally, I respond to some possible objections to my work, and then to some more general, classic criticisms of Inference to the Best Explanation. In the end, this dissertation puts forward a clearer articulation and novel defense of explanatory reasoning.

The last forty years have seen an explosion of research directed at causation and causal inference. Statisticians developed techniques for drawing inferences about the likely effects of proposed interventions: techniques that have been applied most noticeably in social and life sciences. Computer scientists, economists, and methodologists merged graph theory and structural equation modeling in order to develop a mathematical formalism that underwrites automated search for causal structure from data. Analytic metaphysicians and philosophers of science produced an array of theories about the nature of causation and its relationship to scientific theory and practice. Causal reasoning problems come in three varieties: effects-of-causes problems, causes-of-effects problems, and structure-learning or search problems. Causes-of-effects problems are the least well-understood of the three, in part because of confusion about exactly what problem is supposed to be solved. I claim that the problem everyone is implicitly trying to solve is the problem of identifying the actual cause(s) of a given effect, which I will call simply the problem of actual causation. My dissertation is a contribution to the search for a satisfying solution to the problem of actual causation. Towards a satisfying solution to the problem of actual causation, I clarify the nature of the problem. I argue that the only serious treatment of the problem of actual causation in the statistical literature fails because it confuses actual causation with simple difference-making. Current treatments of the problem of actual causation by philosophers and computer scientists are better but also ultimately unsatisfying. After pointing out that the best current theories fail to capture intuitions about some simple voting cases, I step back and ask a methodological question: how is the correct theory of actual causation to be discovered? I argue that intuition-fitting, whether by experimentation or by armchair, is misguided, and I recommend an alternative, pragmatic approach. I show by experiments that ordinary causal judgments are closely connected to broadly moral judgments, and I argue that actual causal inferences presuppose normative, not merely descriptive, information. I suggest that the way forward in solving the problem of actual causation is to focus on norms of proper functioning.