Scientism 21
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
History of Science (HIST SCI) 1
History of Science (HIST SCI) 1 HIST SCI 133 — BIOLOGY AND SOCIETY, 1950 - TODAY HISTORY OF SCIENCE (HIST 3 credits. From medical advancements to environmental crises and global food SCI) shortages, the life sciences are implicated in some of the most pressing social issues of our time. This course explores events in the history of biology from the mid-twentieth century to today, and examines how HIST SCI/ENVIR ST/HISTORY 125 — GREEN SCREEN: ENVIRONMENTAL developments in this science have shaped and are shaped by society. In PERSPECTIVES THROUGH FILM the first unit, we investigate the origins of the institutions, technologies, 3 credits. and styles of practice that characterize contemporary biology, such From Teddy Roosevelt's 1909 African safari to the Hollywood blockbuster as the use of mice as "model organisms" for understanding human King Kong, from the world of Walt Disney to The March of the Penguins, diseases. The second unit examines biological controversies such as the cinema has been a powerful force in shaping public and scientific introduction of genetically modified plants into the food supply. The final understanding of nature throughout the twentieth and twenty-first unit asks how biological facts and theories have been and continue to be century. How can film shed light on changing environmental ideas and used as a source for understanding ourselves. Enroll Info: None beliefs in American thought, politics, and culture? And how can we come Requisites: None to see and appreciate contested issues of race, class, and gender in Course Designation: Breadth - Either Humanities or Social Science nature on screen? This course will explore such questions as we come Level - Elementary to understand the role of film in helping to define the contours of past, L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S present, and future environmental visions in the United States, and their Repeatable for Credit: No impact on the real world struggles of people and wildlife throughout the Last Taught: Spring 2021 world. -
The Historical Turn in the Philosophy of Science
THE HISTORICAL TURN IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1 Developments in the History of Science The history of science has a long history. Aristotle’s scientific works are prefaced by historical account of those sciences, and this model persisted through medieval times until and including the rise of modern science in the era of the scientific revolution. Joseph Priestley, for example, entitled two of his books of pioneering research The History and Present State of Electricity and The History and Present State of Discov- eries Relating to Vision, Light, and Colours. For many such early modern authors the history of science serves as a propaedeutic. William Whewell’s A History of the Induc- tive Sciences (1857) is regarded as the first genuinely modern work of the history of science. Even so, Whewell’s scholarship has an extra-historical purpose, which was to furnish the materials against which a satisfactory philosophy of science could be con- structed. While Whewell rejected a Leibnizian logic of discovery, he did nonetheless believe that general principles of scientific inference could be uncovered by careful consideration of the history of scientific research. Whewell’s approach was followed by several early positivists, notably, Mach, Ostwald, and Duhem. Nonetheless, as positivism developed philosophically it also became more ahis- torical. Carnap’s programme of a priori inductive logic was premised on a distinction between a context of discovery and a context of justification. The former concerned the process of coming up with an hypothesis, whereas the latter concerns its justification relative to the evidence. The former would be the province of psychology, although it may depend so much on details of individual biography that few general principles may be derived even a posteriori. -
History of Science and History of Technology (Class Q, R, S, T, and Applicable Z)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS COLLECTIONS POLICY STATEMENTS History of Science and History of Technology (Class Q, R, S, T, and applicable Z) Contents I. Scope II. Research strengths III. General collecting policy IV. Best editions and preferred formats V. Acquisitions sources: current and future VI. Collecting levels I. Scope This Collections Policy Statement covers all of the subclasses of Science and Technology and treats the history of these disciplines together. In a certain sense, most of the materials in Q, R, S, and T are part of the history of science and technology. The Library has extensive resources in the history of medicine and agriculture, but many years ago a decision was made that the Library should not intensively collect materials in clinical medicine and technical agriculture, as they are subject specialties of the National Library of Medicine and the National Agricultural Library, respectively. In addition, some of the numerous abstracting and indexing services, catalogs of other scientific and technical collections and libraries, specialized bibliographies, and finding aids for the history of science and technology are maintained in class Z. See the list of finding aids online: http://findingaids.loc.gov/. II. Research strengths 1. General The Library’s collections are robust in both the history of science and the history of technology. Both collections comprise two major elements: the seminal works of science and technology themselves, and historiographies on notable scientific and technological works. The former comprise the original classic works of science and technology as they were composed by the men and women who ushered in the era of modern science and invention. -
Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research Communication Studies, Department of Spring 4-12-2011 Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement Brent Yergensen University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Yergensen, Brent, "Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement" (2011). Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research. 6. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Communication Studies, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT by Brent Yergensen A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: Communication Studies Under the Supervision of Dr. Ronald Lee Lincoln, Nebraska April, 2011 ii SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT Brent Yergensen, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2011 Advisor: Ronald Lee String theory is argued by its proponents to be the Theory of Everything. It achieves this status in physics because it provides unification for contradictory laws of physics, namely quantum mechanics and general relativity. While based on advanced theoretical mathematics, its public discourse is growing in prevalence and its rhetorical power is leading to a scientific revolution, even among the public. -
Introduction to Philosophy of Science
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE The aim of philosophy of science is to understand what scientists did and how they did it, where history of science shows that they performed basic research very well. Therefore to achieve this aim, philosophers look back to the great achievements in the evolution of modern science that started with the Copernicus with greater emphasis given to more recent accomplishments. The earliest philosophy of science in the last two hundred years is Romanticism, which started as a humanities discipline and was later adapted to science as a humanities specialty. The Romantics view the aim of science as interpretative understanding, which is a mentalistic ontology acquired by introspection. They call language containing this ontology “theory”. The most successful science sharing in the humanities aim is economics, but since the development of econometrics that enables forecasting and policy, the humanities aim is mixed with the natural science aim of prediction and control. Often, however, econometricians have found that successful forecasting by econometric models must be purchased at the price of rejecting equation specifications based on the interpretative understanding supplied by neoclassical macroeconomic and microeconomic theory. In this context the term “economic theory” means precisely such neoclassical equation specifications. Aside from economics Romanticism has little relevance to the great accomplishments in the history of science, because its concept of the aim of science has severed it from the benefits of the examination of the history of science. The Romantic philosophy of social science is still resolutely practiced in immature sciences such as sociology, where mentalistic description prevails, where quantification and prediction are seldom attempted, and where implementation in social policy is seldom effective and often counterproductive. -
What's So Bad About Scientism? Moti Mizrahi Florida Institute Of
What’s so bad about Scientism? Moti Mizrahi Florida Institute of Technology Abstract: In their attempt to defend philosophy from accusations of uselessness made by prominent scientists, such as Stephen Hawking, some philosophers respond with the charge of “scientism.” This charge makes endorsing a scientistic stance a mistake by definition. For this reason, it begs the question against these critics of philosophy, or anyone who is inclined to endorse a scientistic stance, and turns the scientism debate into a verbal dispute. In this paper, I propose a different definition of scientism, and thus a new way of looking at the scientism debate. Those philosophers who seek to defend philosophy against accusations of uselessness would do philosophy a much better service, I submit, if they were to engage with the definition of scientism put forth in this paper, rather than simply make it analytic that scientism is a mistake. Keywords: inference to the best explanation; epistemological scientism; scientistic stance; success of science 1. Introduction In their attempt to defend philosophy from accusations of uselessness made by prominent scientists, such as Hawking and Mlodinow (2010, p. 5), who write that “philosophy is dead,”1 some philosophers accuse these scientists of “scientism.” According to Pigliucci (2010, p. 235), the term ‘scientism’ “is in fact only used as an insult.” By “scientism,” Pigliucci (2010, p. 235) means, “the intellectual arrogance of some scientists who think that, given enough time and especially financial resources, science will be able to answer whatever meaningful questions we may wish to pose—from a cure for cancer to the elusive equation that will tell us how the laws of nature themselves came about” (emphasis added).2 And Sorell (2013, p. -
Science Studies and the History of Science Author(S): Lorraine Daston Reviewed Work(S): Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol
Science Studies and the History of Science Author(s): Lorraine Daston Reviewed work(s): Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 35, No. 4, The Fate of Disciplines Edited by James Chandler and Arnold I. Davidson (Summer 2009), pp. 798-813 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/599584 . Accessed: 15/12/2011 10:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org Science Studies and the History of Science Lorraine Daston Introduction: Hard-hearted Adamant The current relation between science studies and the history of science brings to mind the opening scenes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (or, minus the fairies, the high school comedy of your choice): Helena loves Demetrius, who used to love Helena, but now loves Hermia, who loves Lysander. A perfervid atmosphere of adolescence hangs over the play: rash promises, suicide threats, hyperbolic but sincere pledges of love and en- mity, and, above all, the breathless sense of everything being constantly up for grabs. -
Reexamining the Problem of Demarcating Science and Pseudoscience by Evan Westre B.A., Vancouver Island University, 2010 a Thesis
Reexamining the Problem of Demarcating Science and Pseudoscience By Evan Westre B.A., Vancouver Island University, 2010 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS ©Evan Westre, 2014 All Rights Reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Supervisory Committee Reexamining the Problem of Demarcating Science and Pseudoscience By Evan Westre B.A., Vancouver Island University, 2010 Dr. Audrey Yap: Supervisor (Department of Philosophy) Dr. Jeffrey Foss: Departmental Member (Department of Philosophy) ii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. Audrey Yap: Supervisor (Department of Philosophy) Dr. Jeffrey Foss: Departmental Member (Department of Philosophy) The demarcation problem aims to articulate the boundary between science and pseudoscience. Solutions to the problem have been notably raised by the logical positivists (verificationism), Karl Popper (falsificationism), and Imre Lakatos (methodology of research programmes). Due, largely, to the conclusions drawn by Larry Laudan, in a pivotal 1981 paper which dismissed the problem of demarcation as a “pseudo-problem”, the issue was brushed aside for years. Recently, however, there has been a revival of attempts to reexamine the demarcation problem and synthesize new solutions. My aim is to survey two of the contemporary attempts and to assess these approaches over and against the broader historical trajectory of the demarcation problem. These are the efforts of Nicholas Maxwell (aim-oriented empiricism), and Paul Hoyningen-Huene (systematicity). I suggest that the main virtue of the new attempts is that they promote a self-reflexive character within the sciences. -
1 Carnap, Kuhn , and the History of Science J.C. Pinto De Oliveira IFCH
1 Carnap, Kuhn , and the history of science J.C. Pinto de Oliveira IFCH - Department of Philosophy State University of Campinas - Brazil [email protected] Abstract The purpose of this article is to respond to Thomas Uebel´s criticisms of my comments regarding the current revisionism of Carnap´s work and its relations to Kuhn. I begin by pointing out some misunderstandings in the interpretation of my article. I then discuss some aspects related to Carnap´s view of the history of science. First, I emphasize that it was not due to a supposed affinity between Kuhn´s conceptions and those of logical positivism that Kuhn was invited to write the monograph on the history of science for the Encyclopedia. Three other authors had been invited first, including George Sarton whose conception was entirely different from Kuhn´s. In addition, I try to show that Carnap attributes little importance to history of science. He seldom refers to it and, when he does, he clearly defends (like Sarton) a Whig or an “old” historiography of science, to which Kuhn opposes his “new historiography of science”. It is argued that this raises serious difficulties for those, like Uebel, who hold the view that Carnap includes the historical or the social within the rational. Keywords: Carnap, History of science, Kuhn, Logical positivism, New historiography of science, Philosophy of science, Revisionism, Sarton 1. Introduction In his article “Carnap and Kuhn: On the Relation between the Logic of Science and the History of Science”, published in 2011 in the Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Thomas Uebel responds to my criticism of what I call the revisionism of the logical positivist work, particularly its thesis regarding the compatibility or intimate relation between the philosophies of science of Carnap and Kuhn. -
The Principal Elements of the Nature of Science: Dispelling the Myths
THE PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS OF THE NATURE OF SCIENCE: DISPELLING THE MYTHS William F. McComas Rossier School of Education - WPH Univerisity of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0031 Adapted from the chapter in W. F. McComas (ed.) The Nature of Science in Science Education, 53-70. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. The “myths of science” discussed here are commonly included in science textbooks, in classroom discourse and in the minds of adult Americans. These fifteen issues, described here as “myths of science,” do not represent all of the important issues that teachers should consider when designing instruction relative to the nature of science, but may serve as starting points for evaluating current instructional foci while enhancing future curriculum design. Misconceptions about science are most likely due to the lack of philosophy of science content in teacher education programs and the failure of such programs to provide real science research experiences for preservice teachers while another source of the problem may be the generally shallow treatment of the nature of science in the textbooks to which teachers might turn for guidance. Some of these myths, such as the idea that there is a scientific method, are most likely caused by the explicit inclusion of faulty ideas in textbooks while others, such as lack of knowledge of the social construction of scientific knowledge, are the result of omissions in texts. As Steven Jay Gould points out in The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone (1988), science textbook writers are among the most egregious purveyors of myth and inaccuracy. -
The Effect of Using the History of Science in Science Lessons On
THE EFFECT OF USING THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN SCIENCE LESSONS ON MEANINGFUL LEARNING DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Hayati Seker, MSc ***** The Ohio State University 2004 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Arthur L. White, Adviser Professor Donna F. Berlin Adviser Professor Gordon Aubrecht College of Education Graduate Program ABSTRACT Incorporating the history of science into the instructional process has been proposed by national endeavors in science education because of the advantages for understanding scientific inquiry, the nature of scientific knowledge, interaction between science and society, and humanizing scientific knowledge. Because studies of the effectiveness of history of science in promoting student understanding report mixed results for student learning of science and interest in science, only its effect on understanding aspects of the nature of science has been emphasized by science educators. This dissertation presents a four-month study which investigated the effectiveness of curriculum materials incorporating the history of science on learning science, understanding the nature of science, and students’ interest in science. With regards to these objectives, three different class contexts were developed three main types of historical information: history of scientific concepts, the nature of science, and stories from scientists’ personal lives. In the first class context, which is termed the “Meaningful Class”, the similarities between students’ alternative ideas and scientific concepts from the history of science were considered in developing teaching materials. In the second ii context, which is termed the “Nature of Science (NOS) Class”, the teacher developed discussion sessions on the ways scientists produce scientific knowledge. -
PHYSICS, PHILOSOPHY and PSYCHOANALYSIS Essays in Honor of Adolf Grilnbaum
PHYSICS, PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS Essays in Honor of Adolf Grilnbaum Edited by R. s. COHEN Boston University and L. LAUDAN Virginia Polytechnic Institute D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP DORDRECHT I BOSTON I LANCASTER Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Physics, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. (Boston studies in the philosophy of science; v. 76) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Physics-Philo sophy-Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Philos- ophy-Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Psychoanalysis-Addresses, essays;lectures. 4. Griinbaum, Adolf. I. Griinbaum, Adolf. II. Cohen, Robert Sonne. III. Series. Q174.B67 vol. 76 [QC6.21 501s 1530'.011 83-4576 ISBN-I3: 978-94-009-7057-1 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-7055-7 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-7055-7 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Boston Inc., 190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland. All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland and copyright holders as specified on appropriate pages within. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 15t edition 1983 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.