A Dialog with a Madman – Existential Comics
Came across this awesome philosophical comic site with some pretty profound contemplations. I found this particular entry relevant to our recent discussions. Click through to see the whole thing. via A Dialog with a Madman - Existential Comics. h/t Conscious Entities
Falsifiability is useful, but a matter of judgment
Our discussions last week on Jim Baggott's book, 'Farewell to Reality', and Sean Carroll's Edge response, left me pondering falsifiability, the idea that theories should be falsifiable in order to be considered science. Falsifiability is a criteria identified by the philosopher Karl Popper. Popper was arguing against a conception held at the time by logical … Continue reading Falsifiability is useful, but a matter of judgment
SMBC: Momentary molecular arrangements
Today's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is too relevant to this blog's conversations for me to pass up calling your attention to it. Click through to see the full size version. via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Ask Ethan #20: Is the Mars One crew doomed? – Starts With A Bang
What Mars One is counting on is that they can safely land a heavier payload than ever before, that they can do it more precisely than ever before (as in, within just a few hundred meters of previous successful landings), and they can do it for only 12% of the projected costs, with a total … Continue reading Ask Ethan #20: Is the Mars One crew doomed? – Starts With A Bang
Mars exploration is always 20 years in the future
There is a lot of news about the assessment of experts on the feasibility of a manned mission to Mars. Sending humans to Mars by the 2030s is affordable, a group of experts finds, but some key changes are needed if it is going to happen. I remember as a boy in the 1970s reading that we'd … Continue reading Mars exploration is always 20 years in the future
Do we all do science?
Massimo Pigluici has a cartoon response up on Rationally Speaking in reply to Sam Harris' Edge response. Harris thinks that science is defined too narrowly, is suspicious of talk of the limits of science, and sees the distinction between science, philosophy, and history as illusory. Massimo sees this as too broad. I may be missing … Continue reading Do we all do science?
Unapologetics: Time to ditch falsifiability?
SelfAwarePatterns made me aware of this essay by theoretical physicist Sean Carroll who expressed opinion that some scientific theories can still be called scientific, even though they are claimed to be unfalsifiable:
Modern physics stretches into realms far removed from everyday experience, and sometimes the connection to experiment becomes tenuous at best. String theory and other approaches to quantum gravity involve phenomena that are likely to manifest themselves only at energies enormously higher than anything we have access to here on Earth. The cosmological multiverse and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics posit other realms that are impossible for us to access directly. Some scientists, leaning on Popper, have suggested that these theories are non-scientific because they are not falsifiable.
The truth is the opposite. Whether or not we can observe them directly, the entities involved in these theories are either real or they are not. Refusing to contemplate…
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The End of the World: Science or Religion? | Seth Shostak
Harold Camping died last month. In case you don't remember, Camping, the president of evangelical Family Radio, predicted that the world would end in 2011. Twice. He made these prognostications on the basis of numerology, which sounds like it might be a sophomore-level math subject, but isn't. The data for the calculations Camping used to … Continue reading The End of the World: Science or Religion? | Seth Shostak
The path to moral behavior | Machines Like Us
The brakes of your car fail suddenly and on your path are five people who will certainly be hit and killed. You can steer, but if you do another pedestrian will find himself on your course. Just one. What do you do: do you take action and kill one person or do you do nothing … Continue reading The path to moral behavior | Machines Like Us
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