Daniel J Singer
Biographic Data
| ID | 1049684 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel J Singer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel J |
| FAMILY NAME | Singer |
| SIGNATURE | SINGER D J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pennsylvania |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8272-4250 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Epistemic Role of Diversity in Juries: An Agent-Based Model
Many factors contribute to whether juries reach right verdicts. Here we focus on the role of diversity. Direct empirical studies of the effect of altering factors in jury deliberation are severely limited for conceptual, practical, and ethical reasons. Using an agent-based model to avoid these difficulties, we argue that diversity can play at least four importantly different roles in affecting jury verdicts. We show that where different sub-group…
Epistemic networks and polarization
Epistemic network models are tools for understanding how information and beliefs move in groups of connected epistemic agents. While these tools have been used in philosophy mostly by philosophers of science and social epistemologists, this chapter discusses how epistemic network models can be used to investigate political polarization. The goal of this chapter is to give the reader a good idea of how epistemic network models can be used to appro…
Don’t forget forgetting: The social epistemic importance of how we forget
To the Best of Our Knowledge
According to the student evaluations from my last introductory epistemology class, the unit on epistemic justification was the least exciting part of the course. This wasn't particularly surprising to me, since the literature on justification is a bit stagnant. It can mostly be characterized by internalists going back and forth about foundationalism and coherentism and externalists producing ever more complicated versions of reliabilism. Sanford …
Diversity, Not Randomness, Trumps Ability
A number of formal models, including a highly influential model from Hong and Page, purport to show that functionally diverse groups often beat groups of individually high-performing agents in solving problems. Thompson argues that in Hong and Page’s model, that the diverse groups are created by a random process explains their success, not the diversity. Here, I defend the diversity interpretation of the Hong and Page result. The failure of Thomp…
Diversity, Ability, and Expertise in Epistemic Communities
The Hong and Page ‘diversity trumps ability’ result has been used to argue for the more general claim that a diverse set of agents is epistemically superior to a comparable group of experts. Here we extend Hong and Page’s model to landscapes of different degrees of randomness and demonstrate the sensitivity of the ‘diversity trumps ability’ result. This analysis offers a more nuanced picture of how diversity, ability, and expertise may relate. Al…
Rational social and political polarization
How to be an Epistemic Consequentialist
Epistemic consequentialists think that epistemic norms are about believing the truth and avoiding error. Recently, a number of authors have rejected epistemic consequentialism on the basis that it incorrectly sanctions tradeoffs of epistemic goodness. Here, I argue that epistemic consequentialists should borrow two lessons from ethical consequentialists to respond to these worries. Epistemic consequentialists should construe their view as an acco…
Understanding Polarization: Meanings, Measures, and Model Evaluation
Polarization is a topic of intense interest among social scientists, but there is significant disagreement regarding the character of the phenomenon and little understanding of underlying mechanics. A first problem, we argue, is that polarization appears in the literature as not one concept but many. In the first part of the article, we distinguish nine phenomena that may be considered polarization, with suggestions of appropriate measures for ea…
Disambiguation of social polarization concepts and measures
This article distinguishes nine senses of polarization and provides formal measures for each one to refine the methodology used to describe polarization in distributions of attitudes. Each distinct concept is explained through a definition, formal measures, examples, and references. We then apply these measures to GSS data regarding political views, opinions on abortion, and religiosity—topics described as revealing social polarization. Previous …
Germs, Genes, and Memes: Function and Fitness Dynamics on Information Networks
Understanding the dynamics of information is crucial to many areas of research, both inside and outside of philosophy. Using computer simulations of three kinds of information, germs, genes, and memes, we show that the mechanism of information transfer often swamps network structure in terms of its effects on both the dynamics and the fitness of the information. This insight has both obvious and subtle implications for a number of questions in ph…
Sleeping beauty should be imprecise
Understanding Polarization: Meanings, Measures, and Model Evaluation
Polarization is a topic of intense interest among social scientists, but there is significant disagreement regarding the character of the phenomenon and little understanding of underlying mechanics. A first problem, we argue, is that polarization appears in the literature as not one concept but many. In the first part of the article, we distinguish nine phenomena that may be considered polarization, with suggestions of appropriate measures for ea…
Rational social and political polarization
Diversity, Ability, and Expertise in Epistemic Communities
The Hong and Page ‘diversity trumps ability’ result has been used to argue for the more general claim that a diverse set of agents is epistemically superior to a comparable group of experts. Here we extend Hong and Page’s model to landscapes of different degrees of randomness and demonstrate the sensitivity of the ‘diversity trumps ability’ result. This analysis offers a more nuanced picture of how diversity, ability, and expertise may relate. Al…
Disambiguation of social polarization concepts and measures
This article distinguishes nine senses of polarization and provides formal measures for each one to refine the methodology used to describe polarization in distributions of attitudes. Each distinct concept is explained through a definition, formal measures, examples, and references. We then apply these measures to GSS data regarding political views, opinions on abortion, and religiosity—topics described as revealing social polarization. Previous …
Diversity, Not Randomness, Trumps Ability
A number of formal models, including a highly influential model from Hong and Page, purport to show that functionally diverse groups often beat groups of individually high-performing agents in solving problems. Thompson argues that in Hong and Page’s model, that the diverse groups are created by a random process explains their success, not the diversity. Here, I defend the diversity interpretation of the Hong and Page result. The failure of Thomp…
How to be an Epistemic Consequentialist
Epistemic consequentialists think that epistemic norms are about believing the truth and avoiding error. Recently, a number of authors have rejected epistemic consequentialism on the basis that it incorrectly sanctions tradeoffs of epistemic goodness. Here, I argue that epistemic consequentialists should borrow two lessons from ethical consequentialists to respond to these worries. Epistemic consequentialists should construe their view as an acco…
Germs, Genes, and Memes: Function and Fitness Dynamics on Information Networks
Understanding the dynamics of information is crucial to many areas of research, both inside and outside of philosophy. Using computer simulations of three kinds of information, germs, genes, and memes, we show that the mechanism of information transfer often swamps network structure in terms of its effects on both the dynamics and the fitness of the information. This insight has both obvious and subtle implications for a number of questions in ph…
Sleeping beauty should be imprecise
Sleeping beauty should be imprecise
Germs, Genes, and Memes: Function and Fitness Dynamics on Information Networks
Understanding the dynamics of information is crucial to many areas of research, both inside and outside of philosophy. Using computer simulations of three kinds of information, germs, genes, and memes, we show that the mechanism of information transfer often swamps network structure in terms of its effects on both the dynamics and the fitness of the information. This insight has both obvious and subtle implications for a number of questions in ph…
Disambiguation of social polarization concepts and measures
This article distinguishes nine senses of polarization and provides formal measures for each one to refine the methodology used to describe polarization in distributions of attitudes. Each distinct concept is explained through a definition, formal measures, examples, and references. We then apply these measures to GSS data regarding political views, opinions on abortion, and religiosity—topics described as revealing social polarization. Previous …
Understanding Polarization: Meanings, Measures, and Model Evaluation
Polarization is a topic of intense interest among social scientists, but there is significant disagreement regarding the character of the phenomenon and little understanding of underlying mechanics. A first problem, we argue, is that polarization appears in the literature as not one concept but many. In the first part of the article, we distinguish nine phenomena that may be considered polarization, with suggestions of appropriate measures for ea…
Rational social and political polarization
How to be an Epistemic Consequentialist
Epistemic consequentialists think that epistemic norms are about believing the truth and avoiding error. Recently, a number of authors have rejected epistemic consequentialism on the basis that it incorrectly sanctions tradeoffs of epistemic goodness. Here, I argue that epistemic consequentialists should borrow two lessons from ethical consequentialists to respond to these worries. Epistemic consequentialists should construe their view as an acco…
Diversity, Not Randomness, Trumps Ability
A number of formal models, including a highly influential model from Hong and Page, purport to show that functionally diverse groups often beat groups of individually high-performing agents in solving problems. Thompson argues that in Hong and Page’s model, that the diverse groups are created by a random process explains their success, not the diversity. Here, I defend the diversity interpretation of the Hong and Page result. The failure of Thomp…
Diversity, Ability, and Expertise in Epistemic Communities
The Hong and Page ‘diversity trumps ability’ result has been used to argue for the more general claim that a diverse set of agents is epistemically superior to a comparable group of experts. Here we extend Hong and Page’s model to landscapes of different degrees of randomness and demonstrate the sensitivity of the ‘diversity trumps ability’ result. This analysis offers a more nuanced picture of how diversity, ability, and expertise may relate. Al…
Epistemic networks and polarization
Epistemic network models are tools for understanding how information and beliefs move in groups of connected epistemic agents. While these tools have been used in philosophy mostly by philosophers of science and social epistemologists, this chapter discusses how epistemic network models can be used to investigate political polarization. The goal of this chapter is to give the reader a good idea of how epistemic network models can be used to appro…
Don’t forget forgetting: The social epistemic importance of how we forget
To the Best of Our Knowledge
According to the student evaluations from my last introductory epistemology class, the unit on epistemic justification was the least exciting part of the course. This wasn't particularly surprising to me, since the literature on justification is a bit stagnant. It can mostly be characterized by internalists going back and forth about foundationalism and coherentism and externalists producing ever more complicated versions of reliabilism. Sanford …
The Epistemic Role of Diversity in Juries: An Agent-Based Model
Many factors contribute to whether juries reach right verdicts. Here we focus on the role of diversity. Direct empirical studies of the effect of altering factors in jury deliberation are severely limited for conceptual, practical, and ethical reasons. Using an agent-based model to avoid these difficulties, we argue that diversity can play at least four importantly different roles in affecting jury verdicts. We show that where different sub-group…
Epistemology (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (6 works) · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Anthropology (3 works) · Chemistry (3 works)