Fabio Sterpetti – författare

This book provides a critical reflection on automated science and addresses the question whether the computational tools we developed in last decades are changing the way we humans do science. More concretely: Can machines replace scientists in crucial aspects of scientific practice? The contributors to this book re-think and refine some of the main concepts by which science is understood, drawing a fascinating picture of the developments we expect over the next decades of human-machine co-evolution. The volume covers examples from various fields and areas, such as molecular biology, climate modeling, clinical medicine, and artificial intelligence. The explosion of technological tools and drivers for scientific research calls for a renewed understanding of the human character of science. This book aims precisely to contribute to such a renewed understanding of science.

The book answers long-standing questions on scientific modeling andinference across multiple perspectives and disciplines, including logic,mathematics, physics and medicine. The different chapters cover a variety ofissues, such as the role models play in scientific practice; the way scienceshapes our concept of models; ways of modeling the pursuit of scientificknowledge; the relationship between our concept of models and our concept ofscience. The book also discusses models and scientific explanations; models inthe semantic view of theories; the applicability of mathematical models to thereal world and their effectiveness; the links between models and inferences;and models as a means for acquiring new knowledge. It analyzes differentexamples of models in physics, biology, mathematics and engineering. Writtenfor researchers and graduate students, it provides a cross-disciplinaryreference guide to the notion and the use of models and inferences in science.