Been inactive on this platform for a while, but it looks like a critical mass of people from the other place might be making their way over in the next days/weeks. Cautiously optimistic that we can get a good thing going over here!

Maxwell's Demon was born OTD in 1867 in a letter to Peter Guthrie Tait. M called it only a “finite being.”

Lord Kelvin named it a “demon,” presumably referring to its apparently unearthly power to (locally and temporarily) violate the second law of thermodynamics.

#HistSci #philsci #complexity🧪

One of my students is writing what’s shaping up to be a brilliant paper: drawing on their knowledge of organic chemistry (which they know much better than I!) and arguing against a fundamentalist reduction of ochem to physics using material by Nancy Cartwright that we discussed in class.

In class today we talked about how to write a philosophy paper, and at the end we read through and critiqued a paper I wrote my freshman year of undergrad. Once the students overcame their diffidence it was SO much fun—will definitely do this again in future semesters

Just received an amazing email from a senior scholar re: dissertation related things. I’m so grateful for those who invest their time, energy, and talent in supporting those of us who are just getting started in philosophy.

I saw a particularly egregious example of p-hacking recently. I always think back to the FiveThirtyEight p-hacking simulator that shows just how easy it is to do. projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

Autumnal baked good round 2: sourdough pumpkin bread. So incredibly good I didn’t get a picture before we’d eaten almost half of it. Trust me on this one, sourdough friends. littlespoonfarm.com/sourdough-pu...

Evelyn Fox Keller was one of the first women in HPS whose work I encountered, and she remains an inspiration for me. May she rest in peace.

Baked pumpkin maple scones for tonight’s football game watch. Autumn is officially here 🍂

sent two papers off for review in the last 24 hours! Obviously this is not a sustainable pace but the serotonin levels are off the charts

Today is the feast of St Matthew! Every time I return to this depiction of him, I find more to contemplate.

Hi Bluesky! A bit about me:

I’m in the 4th year of my PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at Notre Dame. I work on idealization in scientific models (with some crossover into aesthetics too!) and also have a deep love for the history of natural philosophy (spanning the past few millennia!)