Identifying Future-Proof Science

Identifying Future-Proof Science PDF Author: Peter Vickers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192677217
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Is science getting at the truth? The sceptics - those who spread doubt about science - often employ a simple argument: scientists were 'sure' in the past, and then they ended up being wrong. Through a combination of historical investigation and philosophical-sociological analysis, Identifying Future-Proof Science defends science against this potentially dangerous scepticism. Indeed, we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever, so long as science continues. How do we identify future-proof claims? This appears to be a new question for science scholars, and not an unimportant one. Peter Vickers argues that the best way to identify future-proof science is to avoid any attempt to analyse the relevant first-order scientific evidence, instead focusing purely on second-order evidence. Specifically, a scientific claim is future-proof when the relevant scientific community is large, international, and diverse, and at least 95% of that community would describe the claim as a 'scientific fact'. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity.

Identifying Future-Proof Science

Identifying Future-Proof Science PDF Author: Peter Vickers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192677217
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Is science getting at the truth? The sceptics - those who spread doubt about science - often employ a simple argument: scientists were 'sure' in the past, and then they ended up being wrong. Through a combination of historical investigation and philosophical-sociological analysis, Identifying Future-Proof Science defends science against this potentially dangerous scepticism. Indeed, we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever, so long as science continues. How do we identify future-proof claims? This appears to be a new question for science scholars, and not an unimportant one. Peter Vickers argues that the best way to identify future-proof science is to avoid any attempt to analyse the relevant first-order scientific evidence, instead focusing purely on second-order evidence. Specifically, a scientific claim is future-proof when the relevant scientific community is large, international, and diverse, and at least 95% of that community would describe the claim as a 'scientific fact'. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity.

Identifying Future-proof Science

Identifying Future-proof Science PDF Author: Peter John Vickers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191953774
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Explores how to identify future-proof science. Peter Vickers takes a transdisciplinary approach in his analysis of 'scientific fact' in order to defend science against potentially dangerous scepticism.

Future-Proof Science

Future-Proof Science PDF Author: Peter Vickers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192862731
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Is science getting at the truth? The sceptics - those who spread doubt about science - often employ a simple argument: scientists were 'sure' in the past, and then they ended up being wrong. Through a combination of historical investigation and philosophical-sociological analysis, Identifying Future-Proof Science defends science against this potentially dangerous scepticism. Indeed, we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever, so long as science continues. How do we identify future-proof claims? This appears to be a new question for science scholars, and not an unimportant one. Peter Vickers argues that the best way to identify future-proof science is to avoid any attempt to analyse the relevant first-order scientific evidence, instead focusing purely on second-order evidence. Specifically, a scientific claim is future-proof when the relevant scientific community is large, international, and diverse, and at least 95% of that community would describe the claim as a 'scientific fact'. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity.

Understanding Inconsistent Science

Understanding Inconsistent Science PDF Author: Peter Vickers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199692025
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Peter Vickers examines 'inconsistent theories' in the history of science—theories which, though contradictory, are held to be extremely useful. He argues that these 'theories' are actually significantly different entities, and warns that the traditional goal of philosophy to make substantial, general claims about how science works is misguided.

Resisting Scientific Realism

Resisting Scientific Realism PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415210
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Provides a spirited defence of anti-realism in philosophy of science. Shows the historical evidence and logical challenges facing scientific realism.

The Tangle of Science

The Tangle of Science PDF Author: Ann C. (PhD candidate Thresher, PhD candidate University of California San Diego)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198866348
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Science is remarkably reliable. It puts people on the moon, performs laser eye surgery, tells us about ancient civilizations and species, and predicts the future of our climate. What underwrites this reliability? This book argues that the standard answers--the scientific method, rigour, and objectivity--are insufficient for the job. Here we propose a new model of science which places its products front and centre. In The Tangle of Science we show how any reliable piece of science is underpinned by a vast, diverse, and thick network of other scientific products. In doing so we bring back into focus areas of science that have been long neglected, emphasizing how every product, from the screws that hold the space shuttle together, to ways of measuring the consumer price index, to Einstein's theory of general relativity, work together to support results we can trust.

Matters of Significance

Matters of Significance PDF Author: Marinus van IJzendoorn
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1800086504
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Application of scientific findings to effective practice and informed policymaking is an aspiration for much research in the biomedical, behavioural, and developmental sciences. But too often translations of science to practice are conceptually narrow, ethically underspecified, and developed quickly as salves to an urgent problem. For developmental science, widely implemented parenting interventions are prime examples of technical translations from knowledge about the causes of children’s mental distress. Aiming to support family relationships and facilitate adaptive child development, these programmes are rushed through when the scientific findings on which they are based remain contested and without ethical grounding of their aims. In Matters of Significance, Marinus van IJzendoorn and Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg draw on 40 years of experience with theoretical, empirical, meta-analytic and translational work in child development research to highlight the complex relations between replication, translation and academic freedom. They argue that challenging fake facts promulgated by under-replicated and under-powered studies is a critical type of translation beyond technical applications. Such challenges can, in the highlighted field of attachment and emotion regulation research, bust popular myths about the decisive role of genes, hormones, or the brain on parenting and child development, with a balancing impact for practice and policymaking. The authors argue that academic freedom from interference by pressure groups, stakeholders, funders, or university administrators in the core stages of research is a necessary but besieged condition for adversarial research and myth busting. Praise for Matters of Significance ‘This thoughtful volume is an accessible overview of the authors’ field-shaping collaborative research on attachment and an indispensable primer on differentiating between sense and nonsense in the service of producing cumulative developmental science and ethically translating its core insights.’ Glenn I. Roisman, University of Minnesota ‘The truly original arguments presented in Matters of Significance go beyond attachment, as they concern the nature of developmental science and its relation to ethical, cultural, legal and political issues.’ Jay Belsky, University of California, Davis

Contemporary Scientific Realism

Contemporary Scientific Realism PDF Author: Timothy D. Lyons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197554636
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Scientific realists claim we can justifiably believe that science is getting at the truth. However, they have faced historical challenges: various episodes across history appear to demonstrate that even strongly supported scientific theories can be overturned and left behind. In response, realists have developed new positions and arguments. As a result of specific challenges from the history of science, and realist responses, we find ourselves with an ever-increasing dataset bearing on the (possible) relationship between science and truth. The present volume introduces new historical cases impacting the debate and advances the discussion of cases that have only very recently been introduced. At the same time, shifts in philosophical positions affect the very kind of case study that is relevant. Thus, the historical work must proceed hand in hand with philosophical analysis of the different positions and arguments in play. It is with this in mind that the volume is divided into two sections, entitled "Historical Cases for the Debate" and "Contemporary Scientific Realism." All sides agree that historical cases are informative with regard to how, or whether, science connects with truth. Defying proclamations as early as the 1980s announcing the death knell of the scientific realism debate, here is that rare thing: a philosophical debate making steady and definite progress. Moreover, the progress it is making concerns one of humanity's most profound and important questions: the relationship between science and truth, or, put more boldly, the epistemic relation between humankind and the reality in which we find ourselves.

Art and Entertainment

Art and Entertainment PDF Author: Andy Hamilton
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0429938713
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Philosophers have discussed art – or artistic practices such as poetry – since ancient times. But systems of art and entertainment appeared only in the modern era – in the West, during the 18th and 19th centuries. And philosophers have largely neglected the concept of entertainment. In this book Andy Hamilton explores art and entertainment from a philosophical standpoint. He argues, against modernist theory, that art and entertainment are not opposites, but form a loosely connected conceptual system. Against postmodernism, however, he insists on their vital differences. Hamilton begins by questioning the received modernist view, examining artist-entertainers including Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. Entertainment, he argues, is by nature audience-centred – but so is art, in a different way. Thus while art should pass the test of time, entertainment must pass the test of its own time – it has to entertain at the time it is produced. Art and entertainment are inter-dependent concepts, and must be understood together with other aesthetic concepts including criticism, genius, canons and design. These concepts form the subject of later chapters of this book, where Hamilton develops a meritocratic position that is neither elitist nor populist. He also addresses the contemporary charge of cultural appropriation, and qualifies it. An innovative feature of the book is the inclusion of dialogues with artists, critics and academics that help to recast or reformulate the debate. Art and Entertainment: A Philosophical Exploration is essential reading for those working in art and aesthetics, and will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as cultural studies, music and film studies, with an interest in entertainment.

The Ideas-Informed Society

The Ideas-Informed Society PDF Author: Chris Brown
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1837530106
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Presenting concepts from academia, industry, and practice, The Ideas-Informed Society closes the gap between the ideal of the ideas-informed society and reality - the chapters conceive what an ideal ideas-informed society would look like, the key ingredients of an ideas-informed society, and how to make it happen.