Knowing

epistemology, science, kinds of knowledge, methodology

Science in history

Scientific theories are in principle subject to underdetermination in that multiple theories could account for the data. In the natural sciences this possibility is strongly resisted. When Darwin proposed his theory in 1859, he could not show that a version of special creation would not account for the data. What he and Huxley did instead was […]

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Nature and what?

A recent meta-analysis on the old question of nature vs. nurture (Meta-Analysis of Twin Correlations and Heritability) concluded that overall the variation of human traits and disease is 49% due to genetic factors and 51% due to environmental factors. There is a similar question about nature vs. culture in anthropology and education. Evolutionary theory is

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Historical accuracy and precision

Accuracy refers to closeness of measurements to the true value. Precision refers to variation of measurements to each other. So precision is relative but accuracy is absolute. Accuracy and precision can apply to statements as well as measurements. For example, if I say, “Today is Tuesday. This is the third day of the week.” but

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The real scientific method

The real scientific method is the inductive method invented by Socrates and elaborated by Aristotle, Bacon, and Whewell. It is different from the hypothetico-deductive method invented by JS Mill in the 19th century which is passed off as the method of modern science. Consider Francis Bacon. He called immature concepts “notions”. Induction starts with notions

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Philosophical realism

Philosophical realism, or simply realism, is a philosophy that begins where we all begin: with our common sense, our common everyday experience. When Samuel Johnson famously dismissed Berkeley’s idealist philosophy with his “I refute Berkeley thus” and then kicked a rock, he was asserting realism in contrast with idealism. There are basically two kinds of anti-realist

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From Newton to Darwin

Ancient Greek astronomy distinguished the ordered cosmos of the superlunary world from the disordered chaos of the sublunary world [see Remi Brague’s book The Wisdom of the World, English translation 2003, University of Chicago Press]. Isaac Newton undermined this distinction with his laws of physics published in 1687 by showing that universal gravitation accounted for

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Evolutionary theology

The problem with evolutionary theology — theology that accepts universal evolution — is not that it denies the creation of the universe (it doesn’t) but that it minimizes the role of the creator. From the evolutionary position that’s exactly the point: explain as much as possible without reference to God, the supernatural, or the miraculous.

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The origin of species terminology

Creationism in a philosophical/scientific context was first propounded by Socrates (David Sedley, Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity, 2007). Socrates did not provide specifics but it is often said that Plato and Aristotle did: biological species were like logical species and so did not change — species were fixed — and purportedly this is what creationists have

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Fact, value, and science

The modern distinction between fact and value goes back to David Hume who argued that “is” does not imply “ought” — there is no way to get from facts to values. This contrasts with the Aristotelian philosophy in which everything has a nature so that what something is and what it ought to be is defined by

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Articles about creationism

Articles about creationism (and intelligent design) almost always misrepresent them for one or more of the following reasons: (1) Articles about creationism don’t quote or reference documents by creationists. Instead they explain what the author thinks creationism is. However, the author is wrong about what creationism is and ends up arguing against a position that

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