BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 METHOD:PUBLISH PRODID:-//Telerik Inc.//Sitefinity CMS 15.1//EN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Eastern Standard Time BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251102T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYHOUR=2;BYMINUTE=0;BYMONTH=11 TZNAME:Eastern Standard Time TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20250301T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYHOUR=2;BYMINUTE=0;BYMONTH=3 TZNAME:Eastern Daylight Time TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION:Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs \;Center for European Studies \;presents \;Science and Policy in Extremis: The UK’s Init ial Response\nto COVID-19 \;Drawing on the British Government’s Scient ific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) minutes and other documents\, I consider the wider lessons for norms of scientific advising that can be l earned from the UK’s initial response to coronavirus in the period January –March 2020\, when an initial strategy that planned to avoid total suppres sion of transmission was abruptly replaced by an aggressive suppression st rategy. I argue that SAGE’s major mistake in early 2020 was not that of be ing insufficiently precautionary\, but that of relying too heavily on a sp ecific set of “reasonable worst-case” planning assumptions. I formulate so me proposals that assign a more circumscribed role to “worst-case” thinkin g in emergency planning. \;Jonathan BirchAssociate Professor of Philos ophyLondon School of Economics and Political Science \;Dr Jonathan Bir ch is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the LSE and Principal Invest igator (PI) on the Foundations of Animal Sentience project. In addition to his interest in animal sentience\, cognition and welfare\, he also has a longstanding interest in the evolution of altruism and social behaviour. H e joined the LSE in 2014. Before moving to London\, he was a Junior Resear ch Fellow at Christ’s College\, Cambridge. He completed his PhD at the Uni versity of Cambridge in 2013\, with a dissertation entitled Kin Selection: A Philosophical Analysis. He has published widely on various topics in th e philosophy of the biological sciences\, in journals such as Current Biol ogy\, The American Naturalist\, Biological Reviews\, Philosophy of Science \, and The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. His first book\, The Philosophy of Social Evolution\, was published by Oxford University P ress in 2017. In 2014\, he was one of four UK philosophers honoured with a Philip Leverhulme Prize\, which recognize “the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition an d whose future career is exceptionally promising”.Click here to register&n bsp\;For more information or to request accessibility arrangements\, pleas e contact Havva Karakas-Keles\, hkarakas@syr.edu. DTEND:20211129T183000Z DTSTAMP:20260512T193041Z DTSTART:20211129T170000Z LOCATION: SEQUENCE:0 SUMMARY:Science and Policy in Extremis: The UK’s Initial Response to COVID- 19 UID:RFCALITEM639141966416733221 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs \;

Center for European Studies \;

presents \;


Science and Policy in Extremis: The UK’s Initial Response\nto CO VID-19 \;

Drawing on the British Government’s Scientific Adv isory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) minutes and other documents\, I conside r the wider lessons for norms of scientific advising that can be learned f rom the UK’s initial response to coronavirus in the period January–March 2 020\, when an initial strategy that planned to avoid total suppression of transmission was abruptly replaced by an aggressive suppression strategy. I argue that SAGE’s major mistake in early 2020 was not that of being insu fficiently precautionary\, but that of relying too heavily on a specific s et of “reasonable worst-case” planning assumptions. I formulate some propo sals that assign a more circumscribed role to “worst-case” thinking in eme rgency planning. \;


Jonathan BirchAssociate Professor of Philosophy
London School of Economics and Poli tical Science \;

Dr Jonathan Birch is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the LSE and Principal Investigator (PI) on the Foundations o f Animal Sentience project. In addition to his interest in animal sentienc e\, cognition and welfare\, he also has a longstanding interest in the evo lution of altruism and social behaviour. He joined the LSE in 2014. Before moving to London\, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Christ’s College\, Cambridge. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2013\, w ith a dissertation entitled Kin Selection: A Philosophical Analysis. He ha s published widely on various topics in the philosophy of the biological s ciences\, in journals such as Current Biology\, The American Naturalist\, Biological Reviews\, Philosophy of Science\, and The British Journal for t he Philosophy of Science. His first book\, The Philosophy of Social Evolut ion\, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. In 2014\, he was o ne of four UK philosophers honoured with a Philip Leverhulme Prize\, which recognize “the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has alre ady attracted international recognition and whose future career is excepti onally promising”.


Click here to register \;


For m ore information or to request accessibility arrangements\, please contact Havva Karakas-Keles\, hkarakas@syr.edu.

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