This three-day workshop will examine how various types of values enter into judgments and decision-making in the practices of scientific research. While values and science have many connections, values as they actually play a role in substantive issues in research practices, as they enter into the daily activities of scientific research, have been insufficiently studied. This workshop will explore, in some detail, how values enter into experimental paradigm choice and set-up, how they function in data-gathering in experimental situations, and how they affect the way data are treated statistically, and then interpreted. It will bring together scientists (in fields ranging from physics to medicine), social scientists (who work on policy, public health, and value issues) and philosophers (who have studied values and science). The invited group consists of senior and junior scholars, graduate students, and many individuals underrepresented in the sciences. Through informal presentations and intense discussion, the group will elaborate and identify the various types of values, and where and how they affect scientific decision-making in the context of research. The workshop will be broadly advertised. Post-workshop activity will involve codifying and disseminating the insights and results in various forums at the University of Pittsburgh, nationally, and internationally, at meetings, in academic journals, books, popular science magazines, newspapers, educational materials, and the home page of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University.
