In recent years the social nature of scientific inquiry has generated considerable interest. We examine the effect an epistemically impure agent (e.g. big tobacco, big pharma, etc.) has on a community of honest truth-seekers. The inclusion of these intransigently biased agents often prevents the epistemic community from ever converging on the truth. We explore two solutions to this problem, including a novel procedure for endogenous network formation. 

Justin Bruner a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian National University. As of January 2016 he will be a lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. He completed his PhD in Philosophy at the University of California Irvine in 2014. His work focuses on political and social philosophy, social and formal epistemology, philosophy of science (especially biology) and experimental philosophy. Much of his work utilizes game theory and evolutionary game theory to better grapple with philosophical problems and questions. 

Lunch will be provided at the seminar after the Q&A session.