Academe Synthese News 16 Jul 201116 Jul 2011 This post will give updates of the boycott status and I will move it to the top when it is updated. Update: Mohan Matthen asks if we are increasingly finding legal intervention in academic publishing. PD Magnus withdraws a paper from a Synthese special issue. The Status Page is now… Continue Reading
Epistemology Domains and theories in science 19 Jun 201122 Jun 2018 We are getting to the tail end of this series. Here are the previous posts: The false analogy between species and art Pattern cladism and the myth of theory dependence of observation Species, phenomena and data More on phenomena Disambiguating the Theory-Dependence of Observation thesis (TDOT) In this post I… Continue Reading
Epistemology Spirits and Souls 18 Jun 201122 Jun 2018 Does Calamities of Nature read this blog? Or just Sean Carroll? Continue Reading
Epistemology Disambiguating the Theory-Dependence of Observation thesis (TDOT) 16 Jun 2011 For the past half century it has been largely agreed that one cannot observe without prior theory. This is rarely explicated, however, and there seems to be some ambiguity in the claims made. So I will do a rough taxonomy of the TDOT. When N. R. Hanson introduced the claim… Continue Reading
Academe Is reality liberal biased? Are liberals reality biased? 15 Jun 201118 Sep 2017 Josh Rosenau has a piece up on Chris Mooney’s latest article on the Republican war on science in the US. Conservative bodies around the western world seem to resist science when it conflicts with policy (usually driven by PR from large corporations), so the point is more than simply American… Continue Reading
Philosophy More on phenomena 9 Jun 201122 Jun 2018 Semifinalist for the 3 Quarks Daily Philosophy Prize 2011 In my last post, I asked whether there was a foundation for my view that species are extra-theoretical phenomena. I have done some further reading, especially Michela Massimi’s book Kant and Philosophy of Science Today, which I will have to buy…. Continue Reading
Epistemology Species, phenomena and data 2 Jun 20112 Jun 2011 Just lately I have been trying to support my belief that species are not units of biological theory, but phenomena that call for explanation. Several things have followed from this: Species turn out on this view not to be causal entities, but rather epiphenomena of causal processes at the individual… Continue Reading
Epistemology Is the soul something we should be agnostic about? 27 May 201127 May 2011 In a piece on the Scientific American guest blog, the day before mine, Sean Carroll made an interesting argument: Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely… Continue Reading
General Science Quote: Eddington’s two tables 20 May 201120 May 2011 Arthur Stanley Eddington was an Englishman, a physicist, a pacifist and a clever writer: I have settled down to the task of writing these lectures and have drawn up my chairs to my two tables. Two tables! Yes; there are duplicates of every object about me — two tables, two… Continue Reading
Evolution Did humans lose dominance? 13 May 2011 An extensive critical review has just been published online in advance of publication for Biology and Philosophy. The title is “Evolution and the loss of hierarchies: Dubreuil’s Human evolution and the origin of hierarchies: the state of nature” by Catherine Driscoll. I haven’t read Benoit Dubreuil’s book. It looks from… Continue Reading