Part 4 is here. Chapter Four on the Goals of Science Education describes how Maxwell and Huxley each volunteered to teach at the Working Men’s College but for very different reasons. p. 119 – This idea that a religious intent is incompatible with science education is a major part of the educational side of modern […]
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Part 3 of this series is here. This post covers Chapter Three on the Limits of Science. Note: “man of science” was the common expression for scientist in Britain until the 20th c. p. 80 – Victorian science saw many dramatic shifts in what counted as “science,” and figures such as Huxley and Maxwell were
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Part 2 of this series is here. This post covers the last section of Chapter Two, which is on miracles. I offer some comments of my own at the end. p. 71 – Miracles Building on this reading of uniformity, the scientific naturalists thought they had one attack for which there was no counter. Miracles,
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Part 1 of this series is here. The excerpts below barely do justice to what is in the book. Chapter Two is on the uniformity of natural laws, also called the uniformity of nature. p. 34 – … the assumption that the universe was governed by uninterrupted laws was a fundamental part of natural philosophy.
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Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science by Matthew Stanley (Univ. of Chicago Press, Nov. 2014) is basically the first book to tell the story of how science was redefined in the 19th century. Most people don’t know it even happened and few know how. I bought a copy of this
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The Roman Republic lasted almost five centuries (509 to 27 BC) before becoming the Roman Empire. The American Republic (aka USA) has taken a little over two centuries before becoming the American Empire. In what ways has this already happened? (1) The “judicial usurpation of politics” — i.e., the overruling of the legislative process by
It is common to read statements like this: “For the vast majority of biologists, the debate over whether evolution occurs took place in the 19th century and has long been settled — evolution won.” (1) The problem with this statement is that it was not a scientific position that won but a philosophical and political
Methodological naturalism is considered a strategy for conducting natural science, in which naturalism is temporarily assumed but not affirmed as a metaphysical reality. But for those who reject metaphysical naturalism, it is unacceptable to assume a falsehood for any purpose, except to prove that it leads to absurdity. For example, it would be nonsense for
I’ve written about terminology and used new terms before, for example, Movement and dimensions. I want to take another look at coining new terms needed for studying movement and the symmetry of space and time. In what follows, the terms pace, lenticity and relentation have new senses. Consider these parallel terms, defined with respect to
Controversies are a staple of today’s world, whether on the news media or the minds of people dealing with changes and counter-changes, or charges and counter-charges. In most cases reporting of controversies is very poor. Partisans have a difficult time even understanding their opponents and make points that are often irrelevant. What follows are some
