From Raw Data to Measurement Results – Epistemological Problems in Data Analysis

Session

Observation

13 Nov 2025, 17:00

JvF25/3-303 - Conference Room (Lamarr/RC Trust Dortmund)

6. Observational Data in Astronomy

Dominik Elsässer

13/11/2025, 17:00

Astronomy as a field has always been strongly driven by advances in instrumentation and the wealth of new observational data obtained with ever more powerful observatories.
To ensure the equal and lasting ability of scientists to analyze data from instruments that may only exist at one observatory, and from astronomical events that statistically may not repeat during human lifetimes, the...

8. The Causal Structure of Neutrino Observations

Prof. Brigitte Falkenburg (TU Dortmund)

13/11/2025, 17:45

My talk gives a short account of causation in physics and of the way in which the term "observation" is used in astroparticle physics, regarding the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Then I discuss the causal features of the key model of cosmic messenger particles. The model is in accordance with Salmon’s conserved quantity account of causality but has additional probabilistic features, due to the...

2. Re-Assessing the Experiment / Observation-Divide

Prof. Florian Boge (TU Dortmund)

14/11/2025, 11:00

My talk reevaluates the distinction between experiment and observation. I first argue that to get clear on what role observation plays in the generation of scientific knowledge, we need to distinguish “experiential observation” as a concept closely connected to experience from “observation” in a technical sense and from “field observation”, as a concept that reasonably contrasts with...