Knowledge and the World: Challenges Beyond the Science Wars

Knowledge and the World: Challenges Beyond the Science Wars PDF Author: Martin Carrier
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662081296
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The fundamental question whether, or in which sense, science informs us about the real world has pervaded the history of thought since antiquity. Is what science tells us about the world determined unambiguously by facts or does the content of any scientific theory in some way depend on the human condition? "Sokal`s hoax" added a new dimension to this controversial debate, which very quickly came to been known as "Science Wars". "Knowledge and the World" examines and reviews the broad range of philosophical positions on this issue, stretching from realism to relativism, to expound the epistemic merits of science, and to address the central question: in which sense can science justifiably claim to provide a truthful portrait of reality? This book addresses everyone interested in the philosophy and history of science, and in particular in the interplay between the social and natural sciences.

Knowledge and the World: Challenges Beyond the Science Wars

Knowledge and the World: Challenges Beyond the Science Wars PDF Author: Martin Carrier
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662081296
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book

Book Description
The fundamental question whether, or in which sense, science informs us about the real world has pervaded the history of thought since antiquity. Is what science tells us about the world determined unambiguously by facts or does the content of any scientific theory in some way depend on the human condition? "Sokal`s hoax" added a new dimension to this controversial debate, which very quickly came to been known as "Science Wars". "Knowledge and the World" examines and reviews the broad range of philosophical positions on this issue, stretching from realism to relativism, to expound the epistemic merits of science, and to address the central question: in which sense can science justifiably claim to provide a truthful portrait of reality? This book addresses everyone interested in the philosophy and history of science, and in particular in the interplay between the social and natural sciences.

Beyond the Science Wars

Beyond the Science Wars PDF Author: Ullica Segerstrale
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791492397
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Beyond the Science Wars offers a broad contextualization of the "Science Wars"—an ongoing debate between scientists and social scientists over the nature and meaning of science—from interdisciplinary sociological, historical, scientific, political, and cultural perspectives. Beyond providing an understanding of the conflict itself, this book presents the comments of two science and technology studies' (STS) "founding fathers" (Bernard Barber and John Ziman), a scientist's protest that STS has abandoned its original mission, a historian's view of the fluctuating social support for science, and a sociologist's analysis of the motives of "anti-antiscience warriors." In addition, an STS statesman discusses ongoing structural changes in science, a sociologist sorts out different views of objectivity, and an STS veteran from the Science Wars brings us tales from the front and evaluates the meaning of recent events. Contributors include Bernard Barber, Henry H. Bauer, Valery Cholakov, Stephan Fuchs, Steve Fuller, Ullica Segerstrale, and John Ziman.

Beyond the Hoax

Beyond the Hoax PDF Author: Alan Sokal
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191623342
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 771

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Book Description
In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy. Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets - pseudo-science, religion, and misinformation in public life. 'Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left, the fundamentalists of the right, or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes, the bottom line is that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence, are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.' The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked.

After the Science Wars

After the Science Wars PDF Author: Keith Ashman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113461618X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The "War" in science is largely the discussion between those who believe that science is above criticism and those who do not. After the Science Wars is a collection of essays by leading philosophers and scientists, all attempting to bridge interdisciplinary gulfs in this discussion.

Science Wars

Science Wars PDF Author: Andrew Ross
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822318712
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Analyzing the antidemocratic tendencies within science and its institutions, they insist on a more accountable relationship between scientists and the communities and environments affected by their research.

The Two Cultures

The Two Cultures PDF Author: C. P. Snow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107606144
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
The importance of science and technology and future of education and research are just some of the subjects discussed here.

Drawing Out Leviathan

Drawing Out Leviathan PDF Author: Keith M. Parsons
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025310842X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
"... are dinosaurs social constructs? Do we really know anything about dinosaurs? Might not all of our beliefs about dinosaurs merely be figments of the paleontological imagination? A few years ago such questions would have seemed preposterous, even nonsensical. Now they must have a serious answer." At stake in the "Science Wars" that have raged in academe and in the media is nothing less than the standing of science in our culture. One side argues that science is a "social construct," that it does not discover facts about the world, but rather constructs artifacts disguised as objective truths. This view threatens the authority of science and rejects science's claims to objectivity, rationality, and disinterested inquiry. Drawing Out Leviathan examines this argument in the light of some major debates about dinosaurs: the case of the wrong-headed dinosaur, the dinosaur "heresies" of the 1970s, and the debate over the extinction of dinosaurs. Keith Parsons claims that these debates, though lively and sometimes rancorous, show that evidence and logic, not arbitrary "rules of the game," remained vitally important, even when the debates were at their nastiest. They show science to be a complex set of activities, pervaded by social influences, and not easily reducible to any stereotype. Parsons acknowledges that there are lessons to be learned by scientists from their would-be adversaries, and the book concludes with some recommendations for ending the Science Wars.

Higher Superstition

Higher Superstition PDF Author: Paul R. Gross
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421404877
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The widely acclaimed response to the postmodernists attacks on science, with a new afterword. With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors.

The Physics of Star Wars

The Physics of Star Wars PDF Author: Patrick Johnson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1507203306
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
"The Physics of Star Wars reveals the very real-life science behind the fantastical galaxy of Star Wars"--Back cover.

Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars

Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars PDF Author: Ethan Pollock
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691124674
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Introduction: Stalin, science, and politics after the Second World War -- "A Marxist should not write like that": the crisis on the "philosophical front" -- "The future belongs to Michurin": the agricultural academy session of 1948 -- "We can always shoot them later": physics, politics, and the atomic bomb -- "Battles of opinions and open criticism": Stalin intervenes in linguistics -- "Attack the detractors with certainty of total success": the Pavlov session of 1950 -- "Everyone is waiting": Stalin and the economic problems of communism -- Conclusion: science and the fate of the Stalinist system.