In present-day particle physics, empirical reasoning is highly inferential as experiments rely on complex instruments and an intensive use of computer-based methods. This paper investigates how these methods impact the evidential status of the data produced, using an expanded epistemic risk framework. Based on a case study from a top-quark physics experiment, we clarify the relationship between inductive and other epistemic risks. We argue that various epistemic risks that arise ahead of evidence affect the inductive risk of the experimental results, and propose an understanding of epistemic risk in relation to different epistemic goals. Specifically, the case study shows how experimental tasks and their associated goals relate to the epistemic aim of the experiment, by revealing modalities of risk and risk dynamics throughout the experimental process.

Climatologists have recently introduced a distinction between projections as scenario-based model results on the one hand and predictions on the other hand. The interpretation and usage of both terms is, however, not univocal. It is stated that the ambiguities of the interpretations may cause problems in the communication of climate science within the scientific community and to the public realm. This paper suggests an account of scenarios as props in games of make-belive. With this account, we explain the difference between projections that should be make-believed and other model results that should be believed.