Philosophy & Ethics

A Personal Belief Tester: Batteries Not Included

A Personal Belief Tester: Batteries Not Included We all have our personal beliefs; it's a part of being human.  Mostly, we can believe just about anything we want at a purely philosophical level.  But when we interact with others and with our environ ...

Article - Patrick Lockerby - Feb 20 2010 - 10:07pm

The Structure of Water and Other Liquids

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Blog Post - Richard King - Feb 24 2010 - 7:24pm

Prediction Vs Understanding

Babylonian astronomy sounds a lot like some areas of omics/computational biology today: Looking back at Babylonian astronomy from the twentieth century, one is struck by two things: the care with which the records were kept, and the mathematical brilliance ...

Article - Michael White - Feb 24 2010 - 10:41pm

Globalization And Scientific Research: Trying To Catch Black Cats In Dark Rooms?

This is an authorized English translation of the paper by an outstanding Russian economist Mikhail Gennadievich Delyagin, as appeared in the Russian-speaking Internet on 19.03.2009 under the following URL address: http://www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=8902 ...

Article - Evgeni Starikov - Oct 3 2010 - 10:31am

Geoffrey Of Monmouth (1100-1135) And Feminist Literature

Avalon, "Isle of the Blessed", is a legendary island famous for its beautiful apples, featured in the Arthurian legend described by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Geoffrey of Monmouth (11 ...

Article - Camillo Di Cicco - Apr 8 2011 - 9:17am

Secular Revival Meeting Seeks Enlightenment

Lapham's Quarterly has published a long essay, Secular Revival by Warren Breckman, editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas. The article starts by looking at the dream of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment; that of a brand new world ...

Blog Post - Richard Mankiewicz - Mar 10 2010 - 12:31am

Hot Topics And Mental Intertia

Bad habits of ineffective science: Trends in Biochemical Sciences has a piece on Mental inertia in the biological sciences. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but the piece does contain some interesting thoughts on hot topics vs. important topics: ...

Article - Michael White - Mar 10 2010 - 4:54pm

For the sake of argument

For the sake of argument Argument- a discussion for the purpose of making something clear. Sake- benefit. To introduce an idea 'for the sake of argument' does not mean bringing up an idea to provoke a flaming row.  It means introducing an idea i ...

Blog Post - Patrick Lockerby - Mar 11 2010 - 1:39pm

Does the success of a scientific theory justify belief in the entities that the theory posits?

This is a question on the Philosophy of Science examination paper for the BPhil at Oxford, as set last year. "Does the success of a scientific theory justify belief in the entities that the theory posits?" Indeed the paper has a related question: ...

Blog Post - Richard Mankiewicz - Mar 14 2010 - 1:03pm

A Problem in the Philosophy of Neuroscience: Introspection

Neuroscience has a problem. It may appear to be a mere philosophical problem but has practical implications for the broader philosophy of science and the scientific method. ...

Blog Post - Richard Mankiewicz - Mar 16 2010 - 12:18pm