An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past. The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie explains that these scientists are “methodological omnivores,” with a variety of strategies and techniques at their disposal, and that this gives us every reason to be optimistic about their capacity to uncover truths about prehistory. Creative and opportunistic paleontologists, for example, discovered and described a new species of prehistoric duck-billed platypus from a single fossilized tooth. Examining the complex reasoning processes of historical science, Currie also considers philosophical and scientific reflection on the relationship between past and present, the nature of evidence, contingency, and scientific progress. Currie draws on varied examples from across the historical sciences, from Mayan ritual sacrifice to giant Mesozoic fleas to Mars's mysterious watery past, to develop an account of the nature of, and resources available to, historical science. He presents two major case studies: the emerging explanation of sauropod size, and the “snowball earth” hypothesis that accounts for signs of glaciation in Neoproterozoic tropics. He develops the Ripple Model of Evidence to analyze “unlucky circumstances” in scientific investigation; examines and refutes arguments for pessimism about the capacity of the historical sciences, defending the role of analogy and arguing that simulations have an experiment-like function. Currie argues for a creative, open-ended approach, “empirically grounded” speculation.

We should be optimistic about historical science's capacity to uncover past events, even those leaving little trace. Moreover, historical science does more than describe or catalogue the past. In uncovering patterns and weaving narratives, historical scientists provide explanations: why history unfolded as it did, and how it could have been otherwise. These claims are related: the historical scientist's drive for explanation increases her reach into the past, as speculative hypotheses provide avenues for fresh tests and linking past events together. I examine historical science, building a picture of its epistemic and explanatory credentials. These are, first, explanations of sauropod gigantism. Sauropods were one of the most successful lineages of the Mesozoic, comfortably outdoing all terrestrial animals in size. How did this evolve and how was it possible physiologically? Second, the 'snowball earth' explanation of Neoproterozoic deposits. Rocks formed over 500 million years ago show distinctive glacial signs, but formed in the tropics. By the snowball earth hypothesis the entire earth was ice-locked for brief periods. We might be pessimistic about finding answers to these questions. Although access to past events is granted by their downstream effects, 'traces', these signals decay over time. Historical scientists frequently face incomplete, 'gappy', and 'faint', difficult to access data-sets. Moreover, we sometimes lack manipulative access to these events, so traditional experimental investigation is unavailable. However such data-sets are also 'dispersed', heterogeneous, allowing us to draw on and knit together multiple lines of evidence. Moreover, there are evidential sources which are independent of signal decay. I describe two sources. First, 'surrogative' evidence. This evidence accesses the past by (1) supporting 'midrange' theory (background theory which links traces to past events); (2) supporting general models of causal systems, the dynamics of past events; (3) testing between hypotheses about the past. Second, explanatory relations can be evidential. Some explanations of past events are 'interdependent': the occurrence of one event makes another more likely, and vice versa. Other explanations of the past cite 'common processes': events are unified as instances of the same process-type, and provide evidential support in virtue of this. Moreover, historical science is not 'parochial', or merely concerned about, or restricted to, particular histories. I demonstrate that historical scientists are frequently interested in understanding 'fragile systems': relatively contingent systems which occur under specific circumstances but, nonetheless, support counterfactuals. Even when they are interested in explaining particular events, historical scientists draw on evidence from other instance types. These considerations ground optimism about historical science, but they are also revelatory of broader issues in the philosophy of science. I discuss how some historical explanations, in particular those which describe complex narratives about particular cases, come apart from 'systems-based' or 'mechanistic' explanation. I also demonstrate that the use of models, particularly simulations, in historical science has a far more epistemic character than contemporary treatments of modelling suggest. As opposed to using models to maximize predictive power, explanatory salience, or for heuristic traction, historical scientists use models to compensate for minimal data and to empirically differentiate between hypotheses.

Sarah J. Maas hit the New York Times SERIES list at #1 with A Court of Wings and Ruin!

A guide to long-term thinking: how to envision the far future of Earth. We live on a planet careening toward environmental collapse that will be largely brought about by our own actions. And yet we struggle to grasp the scale of the crisis, barely able to imagine the effects of climate change just ten years from now, let alone the multi-millennial timescales of Earth's past and future life span. In this book, Vincent Ialenti offers a guide for envisioning the planet's far future—to become, as he terms it, more skilled deep time reckoners. The challenge, he says, is to learn to inhabit a longer now. Ialenti takes on two overlapping crises: the Anthropocene, our current moment of human-caused environmental transformation; and the deflation of expertise—today's popular mockery and institutional erosion of expert authority. The second crisis, he argues, is worsening the effects of the first. Hearing out scientific experts who study a wider time span than a Facebook timeline is key to tackling our planet's emergency. Astrophysicists, geologists, historians, evolutionary biologists, climatologists, archaeologists, and others can teach us the art of long-termism. For a case study in long-term thinking, Ialenti turns to Finland's nuclear waste repository “Safety Case” experts. These scientists forecast far future glaciations, climate changes, earthquakes, and more, over the coming tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands or millions—of years. They are not pop culture “futurists” but data-driven, disciplined technical experts, using the power of patterns to construct detailed scenarios and quantitative models of the far future. This is the kind of time literacy we need if we are to survive the Anthropocene.

This volume explores various themes at the intersection of archaeology and philosophy: inference and theory; interdisciplinary connections; cognition, language and normativity; and ethical issues. Showcasing this heterogeneity, its scope ranges from the method of analogical inference to the evolution of the human mind; from conceptual issues in assessing the health of past populations to the ethics of cultural heritage tourism. It probes the archaeological record for evidence of numeracy, curiosity and creativity, and social complexity. Its contributors comprise an interdisciplinary cluster of philosophers, archaeologists, anthropologists, and psychologists, from a variety of career stages, of whom many are leading experts in their fields. Chapter 3 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

A short and accessible introduction to philosophy of science for students and researchers across the life sciences.