Julie Jebeile

Julie Jebeile
Universität Bern | UniBe · Institute of Philosophy

PhD

About

31
Publications
2,774
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239
Citations
Additional affiliations
September 2014 - August 2015
Sorbonne Université
Position
  • PostDoc Position
September 2013 - August 2014
Université de Technologie de Compiègne
Position
  • ATER

Publications

Publications (31)
Article
Full-text available
The continued development of General Circulation Models (GCMs) towards increasing resolution and complexity is a predominantly chosen strategy to advance climate science, resulting in channelling of research and funding to meet this aspiration. Yet many other modelling strategies have also been developed and can be used to understand past and prese...
Article
Full-text available
Today, a major challenge for climate science is to overcome what is called the “usability gap” between the projections derived fromclimate models and the needs of the end-users. Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are expected to provide usable information concerning a variety of impacts and for a wide range of end-users. It is often assumed that the de...
Article
Full-text available
Parameterization and parameter tuning are central aspects of climate modeling, and there is widespread consensus that these procedures involve certain subjective elements. Even if the use of these subjective elements is not necessarily epistemically problematic, there is an intuitive appeal for replacing them with more objective (automated) methods...
Article
Like any science marked by high uncertainty, climate science is characterized by a widespread use of expert judgment. In this paper, we first show that, in climate science, expert judgment is used to overcome uncertainty, thus playing a crucial role in the domain and even at times supplanting models. One is left to wonder to what extent it is legit...
Article
Full-text available
Climate science is expected to provide usable information to policy‐makers, to support the resolution of climate change. The complex, multiply connected nature of climate change as a social problem is reviewed and contrasted with current modular and discipline‐bounded approaches in climate science. We argue that climate science retains much of its...
Article
Full-text available
Nous étudions les groupes d'experts scientifiques, tel le conseil scientifique Covid 19, qui conseillent des décideurs politiques en contexte d'incertitude. Quel rôle ces experts devraient-ils avoir, en principe, dans la décision politique finale et comment, en pratique, peuvent-ils assurer ce rôle ? Nous proposons cinq recommandations pratiques po...
Article
Full-text available
Machine learning methods have recently created high expectations in the climate modelling context in view of addressing climate change, but they are often considered as non-physics-based ‘black boxes’ that may not provide any understanding. However, in many ways, understanding seems indispensable to appropriately evaluate climate models and to buil...
Article
Full-text available
Recent years have seen a notable increase in the production of scientific expertise by large multidisciplinary groups. The issue we address is how reports may be written by such groups in spite of their size and of formidable obstacles: complexity of subject matter, uncertainty, and scientific disagreement. Our focus is on the International Panel o...
Article
Full-text available
Convergence of model projections is often considered by climate scientists to be an important objective in so far as it may indicate the robustness of the models’ core hypotheses. Consequently, the range of climate projections from a multi-model ensemble, called “model spread”, is often expected to reduce as climate research moves forward. However,...
Article
Full-text available
Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions pri...
Article
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In philosophical studies regarding mathematical models of dynamical systems, instability due to sensitive dependence on initial conditions, on the one side, and instability due to sensitive dependence on model structure, on the other, have by now been extensively discussed. Yet there is a third kind of instability, which by contrast has thus far be...
Article
Full-text available
In 1959, mathematician Mark Kac introduced a model, called the Kac ring, in order to elucidate the classical solution of Boltzmann to the problem of macroscopic irreversibility. However, the model is far from being a realistic representation of something. How can it be of any help here? In philosophy of science, it is often argued that models can p...
Article
The assessments issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) aim to provide policy-makers with an objective source of information about the various causes of climate change, the projected consequences for the environment and human affairs, and the options for adaptation and mitigation. But what, in this context, is meant by ‘objec...
Preprint
Recent years have seen a notable increase in the production of scientific expertise by large multidisciplinary groups. The typical output of such a group consists in a written report that addresses multiple dimensions of the problem at stake, and displays a serious effort to assess and communicate the associated uncertainties. The issue we address...
Article
Full-text available
(< 200 words). Projections of future climate change cannot rely on a single model. It has become common to rely on multiple simulations generated by Multi-Model Ensembles (MMEs), especially to quantify the uncertainty about what would constitute an adequate model structure. But, as Parker points out (2018), one of the remaining philosophically inte...
Chapter
Whereas experiments and computer simulations seem very different at first view because the former, but not the latter, involve interactions with material properties, we argue that this difference is not so important with respect to validation, as far as epistemology is concerned. Major differences remain nevertheless from the methodological point o...
Article
Full-text available
It has been argued that the Duhem problem is renewed with computational models since model assumptions having a representational aim and computational assumptions cannot be tested in isolation. In particular, while the Verification and Validation methodology is supposed to prevent such holism, Winsberg (Philos Compass 4:835–845, 2009; Science in th...
Article
Wagenknecht recently introduced a conceptual (yet nonexhaustive) distinction between translucent and opaque epistemic dependence in order to better describe the diversity of the relations of epistemic dependence between scientists in collaborative research practice. In line with her analysis, I will further elaborate on the different kinds of exper...
Article
Computer simulations are often expected to provide explanations about target phenomena. However there is a gap between the simulation outputs and the underlying model, which prevents users finding the relevant explanatory components within the model. I contend that visual representations which adequately display the simulation outputs can neverthel...
Article
It is often said that computer simulations generate new knowledge about the empirical world in the same way experiments do. My aim is to make sense of such a claim. I first show that the similarities between computer simulations and experiments do not allow them to generate new knowledge but invite the simulationist to interact with simulations in...
Chapter
In empirical modeling, mathematics has an important utility in transforming descriptive representations of target system(s) into calculation devices, thus creating useful scientific models. The transformation may be considered as the action of tools. In this paper, I assume that model idealizations could be such tools. I then examine whether these...
Article
Full-text available
An important task in mathematical sciences is to make quantitative predictions, which is often done via the solution of differential equations. In this paper, we investigate why, to perform this task, scientists sometimes choose to use numerical methods instead of analytical solutions. Via several examples, we argue that the choice for numerical me...
Article
Certains philosophes ont défendu qu’une analogie existait entre simulations et expériences. Mais, une fois que l’on a reconnu quelques similitudes entre elles, peut-on réellement conclure qu’en vertu de celles-ci les simulations produisent de nouvelles connaissances empiriques comme les expériences? Je soutiens que ces similitudes donnent tout au p...
Article
Because they contain idealizations, scientific models are often considered to be misrepresentations of their target systems. An important question is therefore how models can explain the behaviours of these systems. Most of the answers to this question are representationalist in nature. Proponents of this view are generally committed to the claim t...
Article
Empirical agreement is often used as an important criterion when assessing the validity of scientific models. However, it is by no means a sufficient criterion as a model can be so adjusted as to fit available data even though it is based on hypotheses whose plausibility is known to be questionable. Our aim in this paper is to investigate into the...
Chapter
On July 5, 2012 the Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) issued a final, damning report. Its conclusions show that the human group – constituted by the employees of TEPCO and the control organism – had partial and imperfect epistemic control on the nuclear power...

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