The Demons Of Science
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Bedeviled
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Author : Jimena Canales
language : en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date : 2020-11-10
Bedeviled written by Jimena Canales and has been published by Princeton University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-11-10 with Philosophy categories.
"Thought experiments have long been a vital part of the creative, intellectual process in modern science-and, by extension, so have "demons." Demons are hypothetical beings imagined by scientists to perform specific roles within thought experiments-embodying special powers or abilities and personifying tough intellectual challenges or highlighting apparent paradoxes. They are used as a way of exploring what would happen if one fiddled with or upset the sturdiest of physical laws, or experimented with physical or natural processes or phenomena in ways that the scientist imagining them otherwise could not. As such, they help clarify the limits of what is possible in the physical world, or show weaknesses in our understanding of an observable phenomenon, or highlight cracks in a hypothesis or theory. Unencumbered by the physicality of our concrete world, demons are thus useful to scientists in their intellectual quest to understand how nature works, and in the creative exploration of the frontiers of science"--
The Demons Of Science
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Author : Friedel Weinert
language : en
Publisher: Springer
Release Date : 2016-05-19
The Demons Of Science written by Friedel Weinert and has been published by Springer this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-05-19 with Science categories.
This book is the first all-encompassing exploration of the role of demons in philosophical and scientific thought experiments. In Part I, the author explains the importance of thought experiments in science and philosophy. Part II considers Laplace’s Demon, whose claim is that the world is completely deterministic. Part III introduces Maxwell’s Demon, who - by contrast - experiences a world that is probabilistic and indeterministic. Part IV explores Nietzsche’s thesis of the cyclic and eternal recurrence of events. In each case a number of philosophical consequences regarding determinism and indeterminism, the arrows of time, the nature of the mind and free will are said to follow from the Demons’s worldviews. The book investigates what these Demons - and others - can and cannot tell us about our world.
The Demon Haunted World
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Author : Carl Sagan
language : en
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date : 2011-07-06
The Demon Haunted World written by Carl Sagan and has been published by Ballantine Books this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-07-06 with Science categories.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the renowned astronomer and author of Cosmos comes a “powerful [and] stirring defense of informed rationality” (The Washington Post Book World) in a world where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace. LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER • “Glorious . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought.”—Los Angeles Times How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience, New Age thinking, and fundamentalist zealotry and the testable hypotheses of science? Casting a wide net through history and culture, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions. He examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies as witchcraft, faith healings, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today’s so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning, with stories of alien abduction, “channeling” past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.
Huxley S Church And Maxwell S Demon
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Author : Matthew Stanley
language : en
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Release Date : 2015
Huxley S Church And Maxwell S Demon written by Matthew Stanley and has been published by University of Chicago Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015 with Biography & Autobiography categories.
During the Victorian period science shifted from being practiced in a theistic context (integrating religious considerations and ideas) to a naturalistic context (explicitly forbidding religious matters). This book examines the foundations of that change. While it is generally thought that the transformation was due to the methodological superiority of naturalistic science, Matthew Stanley shows that most of the methodological values underlying scientific practice were virtually identical between the theists and the naturalists. Each agreed on the importance of the uniformity of natural laws, the use of hypothesis and theory, the moral value of science, and intellectual freedom. This was despite the claims by both groups that those fundamentals were intrinsic to their worldview, and completely incompatible with that of their opponents. Stanley goes on to argue that the victory of the scientific naturalists came from deliberate strategies executed over a generation to gain control of the institutions of scientific education and to re-imagine the history of their discipline. Rather than a sudden revolution, the similarity between theistic and naturalistic science allowed for a relatively smooth transition in practice from the old guard to the new. "Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon" explores this shift through a parallel study of two major scientific figures: James Clerk Maxwell, a devout Christian physicist, and Thomas Henry Huxley, the iconoclast biologist who coined the word agnostic. Both were deeply engaged in the methodological, institutional, and political issues that were crucial to the theistic-naturalistic transformation. The author s astute examination of the ascendance of scientific naturalism sheds new light on the controversies over science and religion in modern America. "
Billions Billions
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Author : Carl Sagan
language : en
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date : 1998-05-12
Billions Billions written by Carl Sagan and has been published by Ballantine Books this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1998-05-12 with Science categories.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century? Here, too, is a rare, private glimpse of Sagan’s thoughts about love, death, and God as he struggled with fatal disease. Ever forward-looking and vibrant with the sparkle of his unquenchable curiosity, Billions & Billions is a testament to one of the great scientific minds of our day. Praise for Billions & Billions “[Sagan’s] writing brims with optimism, clarity and compassion.”—Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel “Sagan used the spotlight of his fame to illuminate the abyss into which stupidity, greed, and the lust for power may yet dump us. All of those interests and causes are handsomely represented in Billions & Billions.”—The Washington Post Book World “Astronomer Carl Sagan didn’t live to see the millennium, but he probably has done more than any other popular scientist to prepare us for its arrival.”—Atlanta Journal & Constitution “Billions & Billions can be interpreted as the Silent Spring for the current generation. . . . Human history includes a number of leaders with great minds who gave us theories about our universe and origins that ran contrary to religious dogma. Galileo determined that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around. Darwin challenged Creationism with his Evolution of Species. And now, Sagan has given the world its latest challenge: Billions & Billions.”—San Antonio Express-News “[Sagan’s] inspiration and boundless curiosity live on in the gift of his work.”—Seattle Times & Post-Intelligencer “Couldn’t stay awake in your high school science classes? This book can help fill in the holes. Acclaimed scientist Carl Sagan combines his logic and knowledge with wit and humor to make a potentially dry subject enjoyable to read.”—The Dallas Morning News
Magic Science And Religion In Early Modern Europe
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Author : Mark A. Waddell
language : en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date : 2021-01-28
Magic Science And Religion In Early Modern Europe written by Mark A. Waddell and has been published by Cambridge University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-01-28 with History categories.
An accessible new exploration of the vibrant world of early modern Europe through a focus on magic, science, and religion.
Copernicus Darwin And Freud
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Author : Friedel Weinert
language : en
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Release Date : 2008-11-10
Copernicus Darwin And Freud written by Friedel Weinert and has been published by John Wiley & Sons this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2008-11-10 with Science categories.
Copernicus, Darwin, & Freud “Why is Darwin less the Copernicus than the Kepler of biology? What are good criteria for scientific revolutions? Shift of perspective? Replacement of paradigms? Reweaving conceptual networks? Explanatory gain? Restructuring the constraint space? Threatening worldviews? Whoever wants to learn more about these and many other important issues of history and philosophy of science will have to read on!” Klaus Hentschel, University of Stuttgart “Friedel Weinert has done a rare and excellent thing in this book: he has shown how the philosophy of science is intimately connected with the development of physical, biological, and social sciences and that argument concerning the foundations of these sciences cannot be advanced without reference to philosophy. It is a clearly written and engaging book that will be informative for teachers, students, and the lay public alike.” Robert Nola, University of Auckland
The End Of Science
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Author : John Horgan
language : en
Publisher: Basic Books
Release Date : 2015-04-14
The End Of Science written by John Horgan and has been published by Basic Books this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015-04-14 with Science categories.
As staff writer for Scientific American, John Horgan has a window on contemporary science unsurpassed in all the world. Who else routinely interviews the likes of Lynn Margulis, Roger Penrose, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Kuhn, Chris Langton, Karl Popper, Stephen Weinberg, and E.O. Wilson, with the freedom to probe their innermost thoughts? In The End Of Science, Horgan displays his genius for getting these larger-than-life figures to be simply human, and scientists, he writes, "are rarely so human . . . so at there mercy of their fears and desires, as when they are confronting the limits of knowledge."This is the secret fear that Horgan pursues throughout this remarkable book: Have the big questions all been answered? Has all the knowledge worth pursuing become known? Will there be a final "theory of everything" that signals the end? Is the age of great discoverers behind us? Is science today reduced to mere puzzle solving and adding detains to existing theories? Horgan extracts surprisingly candid answers to there and other delicate questions as he discusses God, Star Trek, superstrings, quarks, plectics, consciousness, Neural Darwinism, Marx's view of progress, Kuhn's view of revolutions, cellular automata, robots, and the Omega Point, with Fred Hoyle, Noam Chomsky, John Wheeler, Clifford Geertz, and dozens of other eminent scholars. The resulting narrative will both infuriate and delight as it mindless Horgan's smart, contrarian argument for "endism" with a witty, thoughtful, even profound overview of the entire scientific enterprise. Scientists have always set themselves apart from other scholars in the belief that they do not construct the truth, they discover it. Their work is not interpretation but simple revelation of what exists in the empirical universe. But science itself keeps imposing limits on its own power. Special relativity prohibits the transmission of matter or information as speeds faster than that of light; quantum mechanics dictates uncertainty; and chaos theory confirms the impossibility of complete prediction. Meanwhile, the very idea of scientific rationality is under fire from Neo-Luddites, animal-rights activists, religious fundamentalists, and New Agers alike. As Horgan makes clear, perhaps the greatest threat to science may come from losing its special place in the hierarchy of disciplines, being reduced to something more akin to literaty criticism as more and more theoreticians engage in the theory twiddling he calls "ironic science." Still, while Horgan offers his critique, grounded in the thinking of the world's leading researchers, he offers homage too. If science is ending, he maintains, it is only because it has done its work so well.
Einstein History And Other Passions
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Author : Gerald James Holton
language : en
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Release Date : 2000
Einstein History And Other Passions written by Gerald James Holton and has been published by Harvard University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2000 with Biography & Autobiography categories.
"[The] book makes a wonderfully cohesive whole. It is rich in ideas, elegantly expressed. I highly recommend it to any serious student of science and culture."--Lucy Horwitz, Boston Book Review "An important and lasting contribution to a more profound understanding of the place of science in our culture."--Hans C. von Baeyer, Boston Sunday Globe "[Holton's] themes are central to an understanding of the nature of science, and Holton does an excellent job of identifying and explaining key features of the scientific enterprise, both in the historical sense and in modern science...I know of no better informed scientist who has studied the nature of science for half a century."--Ron Good, Science and Education Through his rich exploration of Einstein's thought, Gerald Holton shows how the best science depends on great intuitive leaps of imagination, and how science is indeed the creative expression of the traditions of Western civilization.
Grand Theories And Everyday Beliefs
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Author : Wallace Matson
language : en
Publisher: OUP USA
Release Date : 2011-12-09
Grand Theories And Everyday Beliefs written by Wallace Matson and has been published by OUP USA this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-12-09 with History categories.
This unconventional book by a distinguished historian of philosophy tells the story of how humans became rational beings.