Bob Holman
Biographic Data
| ID | 256724 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bob Holman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bob |
| FAMILY NAME | Holman |
| SIGNATURE | HOLMAN B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yonsei University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9038-2644 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 201 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
When is it Rational to Distrust Scientists
In a recent article published in this journal, Hugh Desmond attempts to show that status differences can rationally justify the conspiracy theorist’s repeated refusal to defer to the authority of scientific experts. We will show that the ‘stubborn distrust’ described by Desmond is irrational. Nevertheless, it raises important questions regarding the authority of scientists to set the bounds of reasonable belief and whether there are circumstances…
Bespoke Knowledge
A central finding of social epistemology is that phenomena desirable at the individual level might have hidden undesirable effects that emerge on the social level. These emergent effects have important implications for the management of values in science. Using a historical case study of the safety of hormonal pregnancy tests, I argue that the meta-analysis of studies risks compounding value-influence in undesirable ways. In statistical analysis,…
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…
Against Evidential Pluralism in Pharmaceutical Regulation
We examine arguments regarding the use of mechanistic evidence in assessing treatment efficacy and find that advocates and critics of EBM+ have largely been talking past each other due to a difference in focus. We explore aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as a case that may speak to the role of EBM+ in pharmaceutical regulation. The case suggests the debate may be more fruitful if philosophers confine debates to particular domai…
The new demarcation problem
What FiveThirtyEight Can Teach Us about Solving the Replication Crisis
Numerous philosophers of science have argued that the incentive structure of science is a major contributor to the replication crisis. In this article I review FiveThirtyEight’s election forecasting model and show that it confronts similar problems in political polling and successfully mitigates them, not by changing the incentives, but by weighting a pollster’s effect on the model by their past reliability. I argue that a similar weighting proce…
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…
An ethical obligation to ignore the unreliable
Don’t forget forgetting: The social epistemic importance of how we forget
STS, Post-truth, and the Rediscovery of Bullshit
Post-truth politics has led to a number of prominent reflections on the extent to which the basic tenets of STS (social construction, the symmetry thesis, etc.) must be amended (Briggle 2016; Latour 2004; Sismondo 2017a). Alternatively, others have argued that the basic principles of STS should be maintained and the similarities of STS with post-truth should be embraced (Fuller 2016b; Woolgar 2017). After first critiquing other scholars read on p…
Clinical trials and the origins of pharmaceutical fraud: Parke, Davis & Company, virtue epistemology, and the history of the fundamental antagonism
This paper describes one possible origin point for fraudulent behavior within the American pharmaceutical industry. We argue that during the late nineteenth century therapeutic reformers sought to promote both laboratory science and increasingly systematized forms of clinical experiment as a new basis for therapeutic knowledge. This process was intertwined with a transformation in the ethical framework in which medical science took place, one in …
Medical knowledge in a social world: Introduction to the special issue
Philosophers on drugs
In defense of meta-analysis
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…
Sex Drugs and Corporate Ventriloquism: How to Evaluate Science Policies Intended to Manage Industry-Funded Bias
“Female sexual dysfunction” is the type of contested disease that has sparked concern about the role of the pharmaceutical industry in medical science. Many policies have been proposed to manage industry influence without carefully evaluating whether the proposed policies would be successful. We consider a proposal for incorporating citizen stakeholders into scientific research and show, via a detailed case study of the pharmaceutical regulation …
Rational social and political polarization
The promise and perils of industry-funded science
Private companies provide by far the most funding for scientific research and development. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of industry-funded research by philosophers of science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of the major strengths and weaknesses of industry research funding, together with the existing recommendations for addressing the weaknesses. It is designed to provide a starti…
Teaching and learning guide for: The promise and perils of industry-funded research
Experimentation by Industrial Selection
Industry is a major source of funding for scientific research. There is also a growing concern for how it corrupts researchers faced with conflicts of interest. As such, the debate has focused on whether researchers have maintained their integrity. In this article we draw on both the history of medicine and formal modeling to argue that given methodological diversity and a merit-based system, industry funding can bias a community without corrupti…
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…
Why Most Sugar Pills Are Not Placebos
The standard philosophical definition of placebos offered by Grünbaum is incompatible with Cartwright’s conception of randomized clinical trials. I offer a modified account of placebos that respects this role and clarifies why many current medical trials fail to warrant the conclusions they are typically seen as yielding. I then consider recent changes to guidelines for reporting medical trials and show that pessimism over parsing out the cause o…
The Problem of Intransigently Biased Agents
In recent years the social nature of scientific inquiry has generated considerable interest. We examine the effect of an epistemically impure agent on a community of honest truth seekers. Extending a formal model of network epistemology pioneered by Zollman, we conclude that an intransigently biased agent prevents the community from ever converging to the truth. We explore two solutions to this problem, including a novel procedure for endogenous …
Private Fostering: Old Problems, New Urgency
Private fostering has a long history but few studies have been made of it. Bob Holman traces the development of private fostering in the last 50 years and then analyses what is known about it at present. He shows that, contrary to popular conception, far from being confined to West African children in Britain, private fostering now includes a number of different groupings. The evidence suggests that some private foster carers provide satisfactory…
From Children's Departments to Family Departments
Drawing upon his own experience as a child care officer, the author draws attention to the local authority Children's Departments which were established 50 years ago in 1948. To mark the anniversary, interviews were held with 20 former children's officers. From these, it was possible to identify three major achievements of the Children's Departments, namely the restoration of natural parents to child care, the promotion of child care skills, and …
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…
The new demarcation problem
Experimentation by Industrial Selection
Industry is a major source of funding for scientific research. There is also a growing concern for how it corrupts researchers faced with conflicts of interest. As such, the debate has focused on whether researchers have maintained their integrity. In this article we draw on both the history of medicine and formal modeling to argue that given methodological diversity and a merit-based system, industry funding can bias a community without corrupti…
The Problem of Intransigently Biased Agents
In recent years the social nature of scientific inquiry has generated considerable interest. We examine the effect of an epistemically impure agent on a community of honest truth seekers. Extending a formal model of network epistemology pioneered by Zollman, we conclude that an intransigently biased agent prevents the community from ever converging to the truth. We explore two solutions to this problem, including a novel procedure for endogenous …
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…
The promise and perils of industry-funded science
Private companies provide by far the most funding for scientific research and development. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of industry-funded research by philosophers of science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of the major strengths and weaknesses of industry research funding, together with the existing recommendations for addressing the weaknesses. It is designed to provide a starti…
Philosophers on drugs
Sex Drugs and Corporate Ventriloquism: How to Evaluate Science Policies Intended to Manage Industry-Funded Bias
“Female sexual dysfunction” is the type of contested disease that has sparked concern about the role of the pharmaceutical industry in medical science. Many policies have been proposed to manage industry influence without carefully evaluating whether the proposed policies would be successful. We consider a proposal for incorporating citizen stakeholders into scientific research and show, via a detailed case study of the pharmaceutical regulation …
In defense of meta-analysis
Why Most Sugar Pills Are Not Placebos
The standard philosophical definition of placebos offered by Grünbaum is incompatible with Cartwright’s conception of randomized clinical trials. I offer a modified account of placebos that respects this role and clarifies why many current medical trials fail to warrant the conclusions they are typically seen as yielding. I then consider recent changes to guidelines for reporting medical trials and show that pessimism over parsing out the cause o…
Against Evidential Pluralism in Pharmaceutical Regulation
We examine arguments regarding the use of mechanistic evidence in assessing treatment efficacy and find that advocates and critics of EBM+ have largely been talking past each other due to a difference in focus. We explore aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as a case that may speak to the role of EBM+ in pharmaceutical regulation. The case suggests the debate may be more fruitful if philosophers confine debates to particular domai…
An ethical obligation to ignore the unreliable
Private Fostering: Old Problems, New Urgency
Private fostering has a long history but few studies have been made of it. Bob Holman traces the development of private fostering in the last 50 years and then analyses what is known about it at present. He shows that, contrary to popular conception, far from being confined to West African children in Britain, private fostering now includes a number of different groupings. The evidence suggests that some private foster carers provide satisfactory…
Family centres
Family centres have multiplied in number of late but as yet analytical studies about them are few. In this paper the results are presented of interviews with the staff, users and ‘outsiders’ of three centres. From this it is possible to deduce three models of family centres. The models are then used to discuss how they serve differing kinds of consumers and how each best fits into the statutory and voluntary sectors This article is based on mater…
Children and Poverty
Fifty Years Ago: The Curtis and Clyde Reports
Fifty Years Ago: The Curtis and Clyde Reports
Fifty years ago the Curtis and Clyde reports set out the blueprints for a new children's service. They contained an emphasis on the personal needs of deprived children, an insistence on fostering as the method of care best suited for them and the recommendation that a completely new local authority department was required. The following Children Act (1948) established the Children's Departments which soon became synonymous with enlightened child …
Fifty Years Ago: The Curtis and Clyde Reports
From Children's Departments to Family Departments
Drawing upon his own experience as a child care officer, the author draws attention to the local authority Children's Departments which were established 50 years ago in 1948. To mark the anniversary, interviews were held with 20 former children's officers. From these, it was possible to identify three major achievements of the Children's Departments, namely the restoration of natural parents to child care, the promotion of child care skills, and …
Private Fostering: Old Problems, New Urgency
Private fostering has a long history but few studies have been made of it. Bob Holman traces the development of private fostering in the last 50 years and then analyses what is known about it at present. He shows that, contrary to popular conception, far from being confined to West African children in Britain, private fostering now includes a number of different groupings. The evidence suggests that some private foster carers provide satisfactory…
Why Most Sugar Pills Are Not Placebos
The standard philosophical definition of placebos offered by Grünbaum is incompatible with Cartwright’s conception of randomized clinical trials. I offer a modified account of placebos that respects this role and clarifies why many current medical trials fail to warrant the conclusions they are typically seen as yielding. I then consider recent changes to guidelines for reporting medical trials and show that pessimism over parsing out the cause o…
The Problem of Intransigently Biased Agents
In recent years the social nature of scientific inquiry has generated considerable interest. We examine the effect of an epistemically impure agent on a community of honest truth seekers. Extending a formal model of network epistemology pioneered by Zollman, we conclude that an intransigently biased agent prevents the community from ever converging to the truth. We explore two solutions to this problem, including a novel procedure for endogenous …
Experimentation by Industrial Selection
Industry is a major source of funding for scientific research. There is also a growing concern for how it corrupts researchers faced with conflicts of interest. As such, the debate has focused on whether researchers have maintained their integrity. In this article we draw on both the history of medicine and formal modeling to argue that given methodological diversity and a merit-based system, industry funding can bias a community without corrupti…
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…
Sex Drugs and Corporate Ventriloquism: How to Evaluate Science Policies Intended to Manage Industry-Funded Bias
“Female sexual dysfunction” is the type of contested disease that has sparked concern about the role of the pharmaceutical industry in medical science. Many policies have been proposed to manage industry influence without carefully evaluating whether the proposed policies would be successful. We consider a proposal for incorporating citizen stakeholders into scientific research and show, via a detailed case study of the pharmaceutical regulation …
Rational social and political polarization
The promise and perils of industry-funded science
Private companies provide by far the most funding for scientific research and development. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of industry-funded research by philosophers of science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of the major strengths and weaknesses of industry research funding, together with the existing recommendations for addressing the weaknesses. It is designed to provide a starti…
Teaching and learning guide for: The promise and perils of industry-funded research
Medical knowledge in a social world: Introduction to the special issue
Philosophers on drugs
In defense of meta-analysis
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…
STS, Post-truth, and the Rediscovery of Bullshit
Post-truth politics has led to a number of prominent reflections on the extent to which the basic tenets of STS (social construction, the symmetry thesis, etc.) must be amended (Briggle 2016; Latour 2004; Sismondo 2017a). Alternatively, others have argued that the basic principles of STS should be maintained and the similarities of STS with post-truth should be embraced (Fuller 2016b; Woolgar 2017). After first critiquing other scholars read on p…
Clinical trials and the origins of pharmaceutical fraud: Parke, Davis & Company, virtue epistemology, and the history of the fundamental antagonism
This paper describes one possible origin point for fraudulent behavior within the American pharmaceutical industry. We argue that during the late nineteenth century therapeutic reformers sought to promote both laboratory science and increasingly systematized forms of clinical experiment as a new basis for therapeutic knowledge. This process was intertwined with a transformation in the ethical framework in which medical science took place, one in …
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…
An ethical obligation to ignore the unreliable
Don’t forget forgetting: The social epistemic importance of how we forget
The new demarcation problem
Epistemology (19 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Political science (16 works) · Law (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (8 works) · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies (7 works)