Call for Participants
Interdisciplinary meeting on “Disputed Astrophysics”

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
In Association with UCD School of Philosophy
April 12-14, 2016

The workshop will examine areas of current disagreement in high-energy astrophysics and will be attended by scientists as well as some philosophers of science and experimental philosophers. It forms part of an interdisciplinary project on expert disagreement funded by the Irish Research Council. There will be no written proceedings and we hope to emulate something of the open discussion of the Aspen workshops with frank discussions of disputed areas, if desired under the Chatham House rule (you can say what was said, but not who said it).

Confirmed participants include Michael Hillas, Alan Watson, Etienne Parizot and Jim Hinton as well as local organisers Felix Aharonian, Andrew Taylor and Luke Drury. Students and postdocs as well as experienced researchers are welcome to attend the one condition being that they are prepared to participate actively in the discussions and are either serious scientists or philosophers.

Currently we plan to discuss the transition between Galactic and extragalactic cosmic rays and associated disputes as to the chemical composition at the highest energies; the possible dominance of local sources for high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos; the relative merits of hadronic and leptonic models for high-energy gamma-ray production; and any other related topics for which there is time and interest!

To assist in drawing up the programme participants are asked to send a short statement of what area(s) they wish to discuss and what position(s) they wish to defend as soon as possible, and no later than the end of February, to Luke Drury <ld@cp.dias.ie>. A third and final circular with the provisional programme will then issue in March.

There is no registration fee, but participants must register on
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/contested-astrophysics-tickets-20101919382

The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of DIAS at 10 Burlington Road, see https://goo.gl/maps/o92zubKsoKrfor the exact location. Participants are responsible for making their own travel and accommodation arrangements. The local organisers will be happy to provide advice if necessary.

Please bring this meeting and the attached poster to the attention of any colleagues you think might be interested.

We look forward to lively and informative discussions of science and philosophy in April!