EPSA2025 Symposium

2025- Postdoctoral researcher in Philosophy of Open Science, Department of Science, Technology and Society, Technical University of Munich

EDUCATION

2022 PhD, Philosophy, Durham University, Pass (no corrections). 2014 M.A. Philosophy, Durham University, Distinction. 2013B.A.(Hons.) Philosophy, Sheffield University, First.

PAPERS

2024 Richard Beadon Williams. ‘Murderers On The Ballot Paper: Bad Apples, Moral Compromise and The Epistemic Value of Public Deliberation In Representative Democracies,’ Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy
2020 Nancy Cartwright, Lucy Charlton, Matt Juden, Tamlyn Munslow, Richard Williams. ‘Making Predictions of Programme Success More Reliable’. Centre for Excellence in Development Impact and Learning, UK.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

2024- Researcher (paid). Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA), CERN.
2024- Contributor. Strategic Collaboration for Interdisciplinary Research on Open Science (SCIROS), University of Warsaw.
2019 Researcher (paid). Making Predictions of Programme Success More Reliable. Professor Nancy Cartwright. Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning.
2016-21 Early career researcher, Knowledge for Use research project, Durham University.

· Professor of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology (W3), Department of Science, Technology and Society, Technical University of Munich (TUM)
· Research Director of the Ethical Data Initiative
· Co-Director of the TUM Public Science Lab

· Fellow of Academia Europaea, AcademiaNet, Académie Internationale de Philosophie de la Science, Asia-Pacific AI Association, Royal Society of Biology.

BOOKS

1. Leonelli, S. (2023) Philosophy of Open Science. Elements series. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Open Access.
2. Beaulieu, A. and Leonelli, S. (2021) Data and Society: A Critical Introduction. London, UK: SAGE.

SELECTED RECENT HONOURS

· Past Vice-President, European Association for the Philosophy of Science (2019-2023) · Past Editor-in-Chief, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (2019-2023)
· Patrick Suppes Prize for Philosophy of Science 2022
· Lakatos Award 2018

Professor, Department of Philosophy, Durham University, UK
Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of California at San Diego Co-Director, Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS), Durham University Senior Research Associate, Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg
Member, Doctorate School in Philosophy of the Universita “Ca’ Foscari”, Venice

BOOKS

1. Cartwright, N., Pemberton, J. and Muro, E. (Forthcoming). Causal Processes and their Evidence: A Practical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Cartwright, N., Hardie, J., Montuschi, E., Soleiman, M. and Thresher, A. (2022). The Tangle of Science: Reliability Beyond the Scientific Method, Rigour, and Objectivity. Oxford University Press.

SELECTED RECENT HONOURS

· Barcelona Hypatia European Science Prize Hypatia Award 2022
· Past President, Division for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science & Technology of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science & Technology
· Carl Gustav Hempel Award 2018, Philosophy of Science Association

Independent

Academic qualifications:

2016-2021: PhD Philosophy, Durham University
2010-2011: MSc International Development, University of Manchester

Biography

Tamlyn has previous experience in an impact evaluation team in the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and the Institute of Development Studies, working on evaluations to inform development policy; and on evaluative research into developing theories of change.

Career summary

Mar 2022 – April 2023: Research Director, NatCen Social Research

Sep 2016 – Mar 2022: PhD Research, Department of Philosophy at Durham University

Dec 2012 – Sep 2016: Research Officer, Institute of Development Studies

Aug 2011 – Dec 2012: Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Daraja

Selected papers and publications

Cartwright, N., Charlton, L., Juden, M., Munslow, T. and Williams, R. (2021) Making predictions programme success more reliable, CEDIL Methods Working Paper. Oxford: CEDIL.

Te Lintelo, D. J. H., Munslow, T., Pittore, K. and Lakshman, R. (2019) Process Tracing the Policy Impact of ‘Indicators’ European Journal of Development Research, 32, 1312-1337.

Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool

Education

PhD in Philosophy (2016) (Thesis title: AIDS Denialism in South Africa: A case study in the rationality and ethics of science policy) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (Passed, no corrections).
MA Political and International Studies (Rhodes University) – Distinction (2012)

MSc Philosophy and Public Policy (LSE) – Distinction (2011)
BA (Honours) Philosophy and International Relations (Rhodes University) – Distinction (2008) BA Philosophy, Politics, Law (Rhodes University) – Distinction in Philosophy (2007)

Recent Publications

(2024) (co-authored with Maya Goldenberg) Disagreement in Public HealthRoutledge Handbook of Philosophy of Disagreement, edited by M Baghramian, JA Carter and R. Rowland
(2024) Medical Scepticism, Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine. Editors: Thomas Schramme and Mary Walker

Recent research in the philosophy of science in practice gives policymakers much more useful ways to think about scientific evidence in public policy. However, the promise of this research risks remaining unrealised unless philosophers can engage with policymakers more robustly. In response, I defend the need for philosophers to build robust relationships with policymakers to empower philosophers to discover which research outputs might be more accessible and actionable for policymakers. A network of robust relationships promises to allow philosophers and policymakers to more easily coproduce philosophically-informed policy and policy-relevant philosophy with novel “intellectual trading zones,” allowing philosophers and policymakers to reliably develop mutual understanding, discover common ground, exchange knowledge, and collaborate. Most promisingly, they can empower philosophers and policymakers to co-analyse the limits of the best evidence and what the best evidence does and does not warrant, given the specific social conditions under which the evidence was produced and the specific social context within which policymakers wish to intervene.

I will then explore what such work might mean for the division of epistemic labour. From an epistemic standpoint, philosophy/policy engagement risks philosophers spending less time on epistemic activities expected of a philosopher. In response, I will explore what epistemic activities can and should be expected of a philosopher and what background conditions might be needed to do such work effectively. From a moral standpoint, philosophy/policy engagement may unfairly burden philosophers. In response, I will explore how philosophy departments and research institutions more broadly can aim to manage the burdens and benefits of philosophy/policy engagement with a variety of professional resources and rewards for successful engagement and what “success” might mean across various policy contexts.

Philosophy is often criticised for using ridiculous, unrealistic examples: the trolley problem, brains in a vat, swamp man. But we also fail in the other direction. Consider a recent example: an excellent paper on concepts and their measures illustrated bits of history and minor philosophical points with descriptions of real cases. Its main point was that defining concepts and defending their measures requires a model. But there was no example of a model, even a toy one. Yet ‘model’ is abstract and can mean many things – or nothing. This matters. Knowing what our policy concepts really mean – eg, poverty, social exclusion, unemployment – and how to measure them is crucial for good policy. And philosophical claims like this are meant to be prescriptive, at least often when I make them. Yet my own first paper on measurement, which urged a similar point (a measure- design should show how procedures and concept characterisations match), also had no example! So: examples matter, and toy examples are better than none. But they must be good toy examples, ones that concretise the abstract in ways that show up the issues that need to be better understood.

Philosophy of science has developed a vast understanding of toy models, idealised models, de- idealising, representation,… And we have much to say of use in public policy: on the nature of evidence, science, objectivity, fairness, the intertwining of facts and values, etc. This talk will argue that philosophy of science can be of better help to public policy by applying our own understanding of how toy examples should be constructed to aid precision and clarity to the concepts and lessons we have to offer on public policy issues. And it will, unsurprisingly, provide illustrations – though maybe just ‘toy’ ones.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the chasm between the conditions of policy-making in democratic societies and the (often controversial and unpalatable) content of scientific claims about the state of the world has grown into a stalemate. On the one hand, policy-makers are accountable to a fractured society with increasing stratification and inequities, coupled with growing mistrust in established authorities and sources of knowledge, confusion linked to rapid technological change, exposure to vast misinformation campaigns, and a preference for interventions that may visibly improve social conditions in the short term. On the other hand, scientific research on biodiversity, climate change, public health and wealth distribution is yielding such a dire evaluation of the prospects of life on the planet as to make policy seem almost irrelevant, especially given the long- term, systematic nature of interventions required for positive change and the widespread perception of environmental action as increasing – rather than reducing – social disparities. By reflecting on recent efforts to propose a novel framework for the role of scientific evidence and related technologies in policy-making, which I call ‘environmental intelligence’ (EI), I argue that philosophy of science can help public policy to find a way out of this conundrum. After describing the ways in which EI can support effective interpretation and use of scientific evidence for policy interventions, I reflect on three forms of communication which I found most effective in engaging policy-makers in the European Commission, transnational organisations (e.g. the United Nations), and regional government: (1) policy reports; (2) presentations at policy workshops; and (3) engagement with key constituencies, e.g. local government and public authorities. I conclude by discussing the ways in which such engagement in turns informs the methods and content of philosophical scholarship, focusing on the public significance of philosophy findings and the impact of transdisciplinary debate on philosophical arguments.

There is increasing demand for good quality data to inform the evaluation of public policies and programmes. Some of the main issues being debated within the evaluation sector include (1) how we can turn data into good evidence; (2) what specialist skills do we need to interpret vast datasets? There is a growing recognition of the need to bring together professionals, leaders, academics, and innovators from non-profit and private sectors to discuss new ideas. This talk will speak to these issues, drawing on a set of recently commissioned evaluations that use a contribution analysis approach to produce data to inform policy and programming.

I will speak to very practical issues of which variables to include, how to stratify, how to sample, as well as more complex challenges, including how (and when) to seek alternative explanations for impact. I will demonstrate that evaluations using a contribution analysis require specialist skills to produce and interpret vast data sets from competing angles. I will illustrate how the ‘scoping phase’ of any evaluation is planned and executed and offer a role for philosophers of social science, or those with training in navigating complex values, to inform these processes. This is significant because the quality of scoping directly affects whether or not data is subject to testing from multiple points of view.

Policy interventions interfere with people’s lives and so must be approached with caution. One thing we need to be sure of is that we have properly figured out what exactly is being intervened on. Vagueness or conceptual messiness can mean that we misjudge the target and thus miss the mark. Philosophers can help by scrutinising the concepts and theories used by policy makers, and thus clarifying the targets. This kind of scrutiny is standard practice in philosophical analysis. This talk will look at the case of distrust in science and science-based policy interventions as an instance of clarifying the targets of interventions.

Many worry about distrust in science and science-based interventions; they have the goal of fostering more trusting relations and thus improving policy uptake. But to foster trust, we need to have a good idea of what distrust involves. If we think that distrust is a purely epistemic phenomenon – that people don’t have the required information, or they don’t understand the information they do have – then informational and/or educational interventions are a sensible policy response. However, if distrust is value based, or political, or emotionally based, or some combination of these factors, then educational and informational interventions are misplaced and will miss the mark. No number of informational flyers can alleviate affective distrust, for example. We thus need careful consideration of the nature of distrust to intervene well. The focus on distrust will show that conceptual and theoretical clarity is required to develop the right kind of policy targets and resulting interventions, and philosophers can be helpful in this work.