05.15.08

Science and philosophy

Posted in Science, Philosophy at 6:45 pm by nemo

Comment on Experimental philosophy:

The question is: do philosophers need to be scientists (specialists) beside being philosophers?

I think the dilemma is false, and a sign of the age of specialization we live in. And of the attitude of reductionist scientists who arrogantly think they have transcended philosophy. There is no absolute division between philosophy and science. The easiest way to consider that is in terms of Kant, whose response to Newtonian physics was to consider the hidden metaphysical premises latent in science itself. And the inability of science to create the correct foundation for a discourse on freedom and ethics in the context of causal science. His resolution of the problem in the framework of transcendental idealism should be understood by all scientists, instead we see this extremely limited attitude of scientism adopting the posture of omniscience with respect to all knowledge. The result is a betrayal of science, what to say of its incomprehension of philosophy.

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05.14.08

Hahnemann and Darwin

Posted in Science at 7:14 pm by nemo

The Difference between Hahnemann and Darwin
In contrast to evolutionary biology, homeopathy is a closed, dogmatic system of fixed rules. Moreover, its basic tenet is an irrational tautology that lacks any factual basis.

U. KUTSCHERA
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GM embryos

Posted in Science at 2:14 pm by nemo

Scientists have created what is believed to be the first genetically
modified (GM) human embryo.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3908516.ece

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05.10.08

The Enemies Of Reason

Posted in Science at 4:25 pm by nemo

The Enemies Of Reason

Science has dramatically increased human life expectancy, conquering once-crippling diseases and proving itself under the most rigorous conditions. So why, asks evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, doesn’t it attract more respect?


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05.09.08

Where are they?

Posted in Science at 2:57 pm by nemo

Where Are They?

Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing.


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05.03.08

Neuroscientism

Posted in Science at 3:41 pm by nemo

The limits of neuro-law
In this nascent age of “neurolaw,” “neuromarketing,” “neuropolicy,” “neuroethics,” “neurophilosophy,” “neuroeconomics,” and even “neurotheology,” it becomes necessary to disentangle the science from the scientism. There is a host of cultural entrepreneurs currently grasping at various forms of authority through appropriations of neuroscience, presented to us in the corresponding dialects of neuro-talk. Such talk is often accompanied by a picture of a brain scan, that fast-acting solvent of critical faculties.

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04.27.08

Greene on string theory

Posted in Science at 7:04 pm by nemo

Brian Greene: The universe on a string

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04.25.08

Space spiderwebs

Posted in Science at 2:57 pm by nemo

Solar sails…
A solar sail with positively charged wires might be able to repel positive ions in the solar wind and thus propel itself through space (Courtesy of Pekka Janhunen)
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04.19.08

Music and math

Posted in Science at 1:50 pm by nemo

Music Has Its Own Geometry, Researchers Find
ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2008) — The connection between music and mathematics has fascinated scholars for centuries. More than 2000 years ago Pythagoras reportedly discovered that pleasing musical intervals could be described using simple ratios.

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04.16.08

Newton: scientism’s first critic

Posted in Science at 3:18 pm by nemo

Flaws of Gravity

Even the idlest stroll through Cambridge, England, calls to mind a pantheon of great scientific minds, but none is greater than Isaac Newton, who revolutionized the world of “natural philosophy” while the rest of England was paralyzed by the plague. Reading an enlightening new biography by Peter Ackroyd, Christopher Hitchens learns that Newton probably didn’t get bonked on the head by an apple—but he did have some pretty funny ideas about sex, gold, and religion.

It is significant that the virtual founding father of physics and the Scientific Revolution stood back with great detachment from his own theory. Some of his views were outlandish, in one way, but a close look shows that Newton was well aware of the limits of physics, and anticipated ever so generally the attempted correction of Kant. Newton lived before the cooptation of physics by scientism

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04.15.08

Clarke’s three laws

Posted in Science at 3:30 pm by nemo

Clarke’s Three Laws of Prediction

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

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04.11.08

Neuroscience delusions

Posted in Science at 1:45 pm by nemo

Neuroaesthetics is wrong about our experience of literature – and it
is wrong about humanity

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3712980.ece

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04.08.08

…the internet as we know it

Posted in Science at 2:36 pm by nemo

It’s The End Of The Internet As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
April 7, 2008
We still mourn things we loved which are now obsolete. 8-track tapes. Short basketball shorts. Rotary phones. Mix tapes. And now … the Internet? Read the rest of this entry »

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Quantum Quackery

Posted in Science at 2:12 pm by nemo

Quantum Quackery
Quantum physics is claimed to support the mystical notion that the mind creates reality. However, an objective reality, with no special role for consciousness, human or cosmic, is consistent with all observations.
Victor J. Stenger

QM has been the object of metaphysical raids by ‘mystics’ who turn out to be ‘idealists’, thus injecting the debate over ‘idealism’ into a physical discourse.
But the range of ‘idealism’ covers something arguably not idealism at all, transcendental idealism, which is neither transcendental (in conventional usage) nor an idealism, and this brand shows rather odd echoes in QM.

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04.01.08

Black hole

Posted in Science at 1:48 pm by nemo

Universe’s tiniest black hole discovered

Astronomers have identified the smallest known black hole. The puny object weighs only 3.8 times the Sun’s mass and spans just 24 kilometres across


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03.28.08

Newtonian dinosaurs and scientism

Posted in Science at 5:52 pm by nemo

Why we need academic freedom…to question Newtonism

The problem is not Newtonism, but the dinosaur Newtonians who are frozen in a state of ’scientism’.

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Astronomy picture of the day

Posted in Science at 1:53 pm by nemo

Across the Universe

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Genetic link to schizophrenia

Posted in Science at 1:49 pm by nemo

Researchers have found that people with schizophrenia are far more
likely than other people to have a certain type of error in their
genes. Scientists believe the finding will help them develop new
treatments for schizophrenia and identify young people at high risk of
developing the disorder.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89163694

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03.27.08

Is Our Universe Ruled by Artificial Intelligence?

Posted in Science at 8:33 pm by nemo



Is Our Universe Ruled by Artificial Intelligence?


Bender. Image credit: Matt Groening/FOX

Science fiction is filled with unusual alien species. But apart from the occasional robot, biological life is running the show. But NASA scientist, Dr. Steven Dick, sees a future Universe that has evolved past biology. Where every intelligence is artificial. Consider the likelihood of a postbiological Universe.

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03.26.08

Can science describe reality?

Posted in Science at 4:00 pm by nemo

Science—the only way to view reality

Science is the investigation of reality. Reality is, by definition, everything. It is all we can see, all we can measure. It is, for all practical purposes, a god; it is omnipresent, omnipotent. The only tool that successfully measures and describes reality is science (including mathematics).

As an examination of the physical subtrate of ‘reality’, science has prospered. But as a view of the totality we call reality it has shown its limits, and that as earlier as the period of the Enlightenment itself.

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Astronomy picture of the day

Posted in Science at 2:33 pm by nemo

The NGC 3576 Nebula

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03.25.08

Blogzone: Hubris of Scientism

Posted in Science at 7:21 pm by nemo

Good post at the Blogzone by Hucklebird: The Hubris of Scientism

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03.24.08

Revealing tactics with Expelled

Posted in Science at 4:39 pm by nemo

I haven’t seen the film yet, but I note the usual concealed anxiety of the Darwin biologists, visible not in their scientific demeanor, but in the egregious and tiresome abuse of the principals.
Here’s another example from, apparently, a scientist: that pompous pimple, David Berlinski…

Berlinski gets the special treatment because he is very threatening to Darwinian pretensions. Destroy the reputation of critics.

Let it be noted insults are not science. In fact, they are a sign that you have no arguments and must substitute vitriol for science.

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link to fractal evolution

Posted in Science at 4:14 pm by nemo

Fractal evolution

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03.23.08

Marx, Darwin, falsification

Posted in Science, Critique of Evolutionary Economy, Evolution at 4:43 pm by nemo

From Is Marxism Deterministic?

Popper’s falsificationism has been the object of considerable criticism, and his criticisms of Marxism are a mixture of correcting pointing to flaws and ideological bias, both. And on the subject of Darwinism, the same is true. Popper justly critiqued Darwin’s theory of natural selection on the grounds of falsifiability, despite the problems in that charge, and the fact that he (suspiciously) changed his mind. Whatever the context of that change of mind (I frankly think he back out under duress) his point is roughly speaking correct: Darwinian selectionism persists because it hasn’t been falsified, and in fact it can’t easily be falsified because observing the immense data sets required in deep time is impossible. So Popper was right the first time: for all intents and purposes Darwin’s theory is not falsifiable. In fact, over time that falsification has nearly been achieved, but there is no simple way to finalize the argument.

Meanwhile, Marxist are completely confused on the subject of Darwinism, and the attempts to compare/collate Marx and Darwin simply shows the confusions in Marxist theory which has been misled by the Darwinian illusion over natural selection.

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