Academia | Nick Byrd, Philosopher-Scientist

10 Steps For Organizing A Conference or Workshop

Organizing a conference or workshop is time-consuming yet important work. I have organized a handful or international conferences, in-person and online. In this post, I distill my conference organizing experience into a list of 10 steps to make your conference or workshop a success. To find out more about organizing conferences/workshops—especially online—see Online Conferences: Some history, methods & data

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A Year On The Job Market With A Ph.D. – Some Data

I was on the job market in the Fall of 2019 and the Spring of 2020. I submitted over 280 job applications to universities, governments, companies, think tanks, and grant agencies. After some interviews, job talks, and a few offers, I thought that I would share my experience here. If at any point you have questions, then feel free to contact me on your platform of choice; I’ll see if I can answer your question in a future post. Today’s post visualizes data about the job market process from application submission to job offer.

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Upon Reflection Podcast, Ep. 5: Reflective Reasoning For Real People (Dissertation Overview)

Welcome to Upon Reflection. In this episode, I review the major take-aways and findings from my dissertation titled, “Reflective Reasoning For Real People”. I explain what cognitive scientists mean by terms like “reflective reasoning”, how reflection is measured empirically, how reflection can either help or hinder our reasoning, how more reflective philosophers tend toward certain philosophical beliefs, and how reflection may help us retrain our implicit biases.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:53 — 29.1MB)

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New paper: “Your Health vs. My Liberty”

How might messaging, reasoning, and philosophical beliefs predict people’s responses to pandemics? Michał Białek and I started wondering about this a few months ago. So we ran some experiments to find out. Our pre-registered hypothesis was wrong, but the other findings were really interesting. Before I get to the findings, consider making some predictions: ask yourself how you expect the following variables to correlate with compliance (or non-compliance) with public health officials’ recommendations such as mask-wearing and sheltering in place:

Flatten the curve graphs: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Reflective reasoning: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Mathematical competence: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Economic conservatism: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Social conservatism: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Libertarianism: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Effective altruism: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Utilitarian sacrificial harm: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Belief in God: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Religiosity: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Compatibism about free will: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Identifying as White: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?
Identifying as a man: Related to compliance? More or less compliance?

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New Jobs, New Projects, & What’s Next

I’m lucky to share updates about new jobs, new projects, and what’s happening next on the blog, the podcast, and the YouTube channel. I’ll explain below.

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Anders Ericsson (1947-2020)

My colleagues and I are deeply saddened about the unexpected passing of Anders Ericsson on June 17. Dr. Ericsson was not only a massive figure in psychology, philosophy, performance, and beyond but—in my experience—an outstanding person.

Standout Memories

There is much to say about Anders. I can speak only to the past few years—and only a slice of it. Nonetheless, that slice of Anders is rich. Indulge me just three stories.

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Upon Reflection Podcast, Ep. 4: Online Conferences’ History, Methods, and Benefits

In this episode of Upon Reflection, I explain how academics should conference better. More accurately, I read my chapter, “Online Conferences: Some History, Methods, and Benefits” from Right Research: Modelling Sustainable Research Practices in the Anthropocene. This chapter reviews some history of online academic conferencing going back to the 1970s, explain the potential advantages of online conferences, report quantitative and qualitative results from three online conferences, and urge scholars to consider how they can contribute to a more sustainable, inclusive, and emergency resilient academy by replicating these online conferences.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:48 — 63.7MB)

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