When I teach Philosophy of Science, one of the books I use is Martin Gardner’s excellent Great Essays in Science, with selections from Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and other greats. The course has a unit on scientific fraud, including examples of the destructive effects of the politicization of science. Gardner’s anthology includes two […]
Scientific fraud and politics Read More »
The boy who harnessed the wind — a 14-year old who decides to design and build a windmill to bring electricity to his remote village in Malawi. A deeply human story of initiative, ingenuity, and independence. And here is the book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, at Amazon.
I just sent my first email from 36,000 feet, flying somewhere over Iowa or maybe Nebraska now. Which means we should all watch that excellent Louis CK video again: We live in a time of wonders.
High technology — very, very high Read More »
In raising the question of why philosophy begins with Thales, we first looked at Homer, the great shaper of the Greek mind before the philosophical and scientific revolution: Before philosophy: Homer’s world. In that post, I abstracted five statements from The Iliad: H1. Supernatural causation is part of the explanation for natural events. H2. Supernatural
Philosophy begins: Thales’ revolution Read More »
At a hotel recently I was zooming up in its sleek elevator to my room when I noticed something: no 13th floor.
The 13th floor and other superstitions Read More »
Prior to the discovery of germ theory and antiseptic, women frequently died of puerperal fever in the maternity ward at the University of Vienna Hospital. Enter Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian-born physician working at the Vienna hospital, one of the world’s leading medical establishments. Carl Hempel’s account of Semmelweis’s false starts, failed hypotheses, and eventual success
In class: Semmelweis as epistemological hero Read More »
Click on the image to see a larger map of the nearby universe, with us at the center. As described by Gregg Easterbrook: “The map contains about 100,000 dots. The dots are not stars; each dot represents a galaxy, and galaxies are thought to average about 100 billion stars each. Thus the area depicted contains
The universe near us Read More »
I think we have to consider sacrificing Maryland. Some of my best friends are Marylanders. Nothing personal, guys, but this healthcare thing is important, and there’s only one way to break the impasse: hard scientific experimenting. Here is the plan. We isolate Maryland and turn it into a giant test case. We send in a
We have to consider sacrificing Maryland Read More »