Who Rules In Science

Author : James Robert Brown
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674028876
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Who Rules in Science? written by James Robert Brown and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if something as seemingly academic as the so-called science wars were to determine how we live? This eye-opening book reveals how little we've understood about the ongoing pitched battles between the sciences and the humanities--and how much may be at stake. James Brown's starting point is C. P. Snow's famous book, Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, which set the terms for the current debates. But that little book did much more than identify two new, opposing cultures, Brown contends: It also claimed that scientists are better qualified than nonscientists to solve political and social problems. In short, the true significance of Snow's treatise was its focus on the question of who should rule--a question that remains vexing, pressing, and politically explosive today. In Who Rules in Science? Brown takes us through the various engagements in the science wars--from the infamous "Sokal affair" to angry confrontations over the nature of evidence, the possibility of objectivity, and the methods of science--to show how the contested terrain may be science, but the prize is political: Whoever wins the science wars will have an unprecedented influence on how we are governed. Brown provides the most comprehensive and balanced assessment yet of the science wars. He separates the good arguments from the bad, and exposes the underlying message: Science and social justice are inextricably linked. His book is essential reading if we are to understand the forces making and remaking our world.

Author : James Robert Brown
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674013646
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Who Rules in Science? written by James Robert Brown and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brown chronicles engagements in the science wars—from the “Sokal affair” to angry confrontations over the nature of evidence, the possibility of objectivity, and the methods of science—to show how the contested terrain is science, but the prize is political: Whoever wins the science wars will have an unprecedented influence on our governance.

Author : Peter Achinstein
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801879432
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Science Rules written by Peter Achinstein and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2004-09-24 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Included is a famous nineteenth-century debate about scientific reasoning between the hypothetico-deductivist William Whewell and the inductivist John Stuart Mill; and an account of the realism-antirealism dispute about unobservables in science, with a consideration of Perrin's argument for the existence of molecules in the early twentieth century.

Author : Michael Strevens
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631491385
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science written by Michael Strevens and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. • Why is science so powerful? • Why did it take so long—two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics—for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature. “With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational—and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth. Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.

Author : Eric Kuhn
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816540055
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Science Be Dammed written by Eric Kuhn and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Be Dammed is an alarming reminder of the high stakes in the management—and perils in the mismanagement—of water in the western United States. It seems deceptively simple: even when clear evidence was available that the Colorado River could not sustain ambitious dreaming and planning by decision-makers throughout the twentieth century, river planners and political operatives irresponsibly made the least sustainable and most dangerous long-term decisions. Arguing that the science of the early twentieth century can shed new light on the mistakes at the heart of the over-allocation of the Colorado River, authors Eric Kuhn and John Fleck delve into rarely reported early studies, showing that scientists warned as early as the 1920s that there was not enough water for the farms and cities boosters wanted to build. Contrary to a common myth that the authors of the Colorado River Compact did the best they could with limited information, Kuhn and Fleck show that development boosters selectively chose the information needed to support their dreams, ignoring inconvenient science that suggested a more cautious approach. Today water managers are struggling to come to terms with the mistakes of the past. Focused on both science and policy, Kuhn and Fleck unravel the tangled web that has constructed the current crisis. With key decisions being made now, including negotiations for rules governing how the Colorado River water will be used after 2026, Science Be Dammed offers a clear-eyed path forward by looking back. Understanding how mistakes were made is crucial to understanding our contemporary problems. Science Be Dammed offers important lessons in the age of climate change about the necessity of seeking out the best science to support the decisions we make.

Author : Stephen Wolfram
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780713991161
Total Pages : 1197 pages
Book Rating : 4.6X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A New Kind of Science written by Stephen Wolfram and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 1197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work presents a series of dramatic discoveries never before made public. Starting from a collection of simple computer experiments---illustrated in the book by striking computer graphics---Wolfram shows how their unexpected results force a whole new way of looking at the operation of our universe. Wolfram uses his approach to tackle a remarkable array of fundamental problems in science: from the origin of the Second Law of thermodynamics, to the development of complexity in biology, the computational limitations of mathematics, the possibility of a truly fundamental theory of physics, and the interplay between free will and determinism.

Author : Joseph Rosen
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 3540759735
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Symmetry Rules written by Joseph Rosen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-02-20 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we use science to describe and understand the world around us, we are in essence grasping nature through symmetry. Emphasizing the concepts, this book leads the reader coherently and comprehensively into the fertile field of symmetry and its applications. Among the most important applications considered are the fundamental forces of nature and the Universe. Written by a renowned expert, this book will convince all interested readers of the importance of symmetry in science.

Author : Kevin Dew
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 0857453394
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Cult and Science of Public Health written by Kevin Dew and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary manifestations of public health rituals and events, people are being increasingly united around what they hold in common--their material being and humanity. As a cult of humanity, public health provides a moral force in society that replaces 'traditional' religions in times of great diversity or heterogeneity of peoples, activities and desires. This is in contrast to public health's foundation in science, particularly the science of epidemiology. The rigid rules of 'scientific evidence' used to determine the cause of illness and disease can work against the most vulnerable in society by putting sectors of the population, such as underrepresented workers, at a disadvantage. This study focuses on this tension between traditional science and the changing vision articulated within public health (and across many disciplines) that calls for a collective response to uncontrolled capitalism and unremitting globalization, and to the way in which health inequalities and their association with social inequalities provides a political rhetoric that calls for a new redistributive social programme. Drawing on decades of research, the author argues that public health is both a cult and a science of contemporary society.

Author : Kelli Hicks
Publisher : Carson-Dellosa Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1612366562
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Science Safety Rules written by Kelli Hicks and published by Carson-Dellosa Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Science Safety Rules, readers will be introduced to important science safety guidelines and new vocabulary. Featuring real-life photographs, fascinating facts, a comprehension and extension section, and more, readers stay engaged while learning and strengthening their reading comprehension skills. Have you ever wondered about the science all around us? Plants grow and change, the Sun rises to warm the Earth, and matter changes from one form to another. Investigate Life, Physical, Earth, and Technology science topics with Rourke’s My Science Library. This library explores NSTA science standards with engaging text and colorful images to support readers from kindergarten to third grade. Are you ready to investigate?

Author : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309486165
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reproducibility and Replicability in Science written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-10-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the pathways by which the scientific community confirms the validity of a new scientific discovery is by repeating the research that produced it. When a scientific effort fails to independently confirm the computations or results of a previous study, some fear that it may be a symptom of a lack of rigor in science, while others argue that such an observed inconsistency can be an important precursor to new discovery. Concerns about reproducibility and replicability have been expressed in both scientific and popular media. As these concerns came to light, Congress requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conduct a study to assess the extent of issues related to reproducibility and replicability and to offer recommendations for improving rigor and transparency in scientific research. Reproducibility and Replicability in Science defines reproducibility and replicability and examines the factors that may lead to non-reproducibility and non-replicability in research. Unlike the typical expectation of reproducibility between two computations, expectations about replicability are more nuanced, and in some cases a lack of replicability can aid the process of scientific discovery. This report provides recommendations to researchers, academic institutions, journals, and funders on steps they can take to improve reproducibility and replicability in science.