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Conflating the normative question of how scientists ought... — Carmelics

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Challenges→Agent-based modeling is a more appropriate method for representing how scientists decide which research problems and strategies to pursue.

Conflating the normative question of how scientists ought to allocate effort with the descriptive question of how they do decide undermines the original justificatory purpose of these models.

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Reasons For

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Reason for

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1.Normative models of science aim to prescribe ideal allocation; descriptive accounts explain actual behavior, serving different purposes.
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2.When descriptive findings replace normative standards, we lose grounds to critique or improve scientific practice systematically.
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3.Justificatory models require independence from current practice; conflating them makes them circular and unable to evaluate science.
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Reasons Against

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Reason against

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1.Normative models without empirical grounding in actual decision-making become disconnected from reality and impractical to implement.
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2.Understanding how scientists actually allocate effort informs better normative guidance; the distinction is less sharp than claimed.
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3.Models can serve both descriptive and normative functions simultaneously; conflating them doesn't necessarily undermine justificatory purpose.
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Key Terms

Conflating: Conflating means mixing together or treating two different things as if they were the same thing, when they're actually distinct. It's a logical error where someone blurs important differences between concepts, ideas, or situations to make an argument seem stronger than it is. For example, conflating "being critical of a policy" with "being disloyal to your country" wrongly equates two separate things.
Justificatory purpose(as used in philosophy of science): The original goal or reason a model or theory was created—usually to explain *why* something is the way it is or *why* we should believe it.
descriptive(describing the other type of vocabulary being compared): Language or claims about how things *actually are* in reality—just the facts without judgments about whether they're good or bad.
models(models of global democracy): idealized theoretical constructions designed to express the normative qualities of a democratic system as well as its constitutive institutions
normative(in ethics and philosophy): Relating to how things should be or what people ought to do, rather than just describing how things actually are.

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Related

Agent-based modeling is a more appropriate method for representing how scientist...Justificatory models require independence from current practice; conflating them...Models can serve both descriptive and normative functions simultaneously; confla...Normative models of science aim to prescribe ideal allocation; descriptive accou...

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Normative models without empirical grounding in actual decision-making become di...Understanding how scientists actually allocate effort informs better normative g...

Details

Type: claim
Perspectives: 2 (1 for, 1 against)
Edits: 1 edit

When descriptive findings replace normative standards, we lose grounds to critiq...