science

Science particularly as related to creation and the creation-evolution controversy

Galileo’s method

Extracts about Galileo from Scientific Method: An historical and philosophical introduction by Barry Gower (Routledge, 1997): Galileo took great pains to ensure that his readers would be persuaded that his conclusions were correct. p. 23 The science of motion was then understood to be a study of the causes of motion, and to be, like […]

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Mathematics and beauty

Extracts from Scientific Method in Ptolemy’s Harmonics by Andrew Barker (Cambridge University Press 2004): Mathematics is not the study of all quantities and all quantitative relations indiscriminately. It is the science of beauty. Its task, at the theoretical level, is to interpret, in terms of ‘rationally’ or mathematically intelligible form, the features, movements or states

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Composition order

Written compositions organized by temporal order are narratives. Items such as descriptions of people, places, or objects are organized as they occur to the narrator, for example, as the narrator takes apart an object or walks through a building or meets various people. This is a common method of composition but there are others. Spatial

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History and science balanced

As I’ve noted before (here etc.) history and science have different aims and methods. Mixing them just confuses both of them. There is no genuine “historical science” or “scientific history”. History narrates particulars among unique events. Science theorizes universals among repeatable events. In physics time is homogeneous: an experiment is the same whether conducted today

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Abstract and concrete movements

Abstraction in Western culture has increased over time, so much so that Hegel made this the engine of history: his dialectic is a progression from the concrete to the less concrete, the abstract to the more abstract. Certainly, the history of natural science shows this progression. Modern physics is more abstract than classical physics. Every

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Lorentz factor from light clocks

Space and time are inverse perspectives on motion. Space is three dimensions of length. Time is three dimensions of duration. Space is measured by a rigid rod at rest, whereas time is measured by a clock that is always in motion relative to itself. This is illustrated by deriving the Lorentz factor for time dilation

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Three kinds of empirical science

This post is related to an old post here. Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of empirical science, which correspond to three views of nature. (1) The ancient view of empirical science is represented by Aristotle, which includes the careful observation of undisturbed nature. Motion, for example, meant natural motion, not “violent” motion in which

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Terminology contexts

This post continues the one here. While I avoid coining new terms or new definitions, some have been necessary. To have a consistent vocabulary, I try to imagine contexts in which they easily fit. Some words are simply variations of words in use: distime is like distance; dischronment is like displacement; chronation is like location;

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Intentional and extensional causes

This post continues previous posts on causes, especially the one here. Final and formal causes constitute top-down causality, which may lead to efficient and material causes. Material and efficient (mechanism) causes constitute bottom-up causality, which may lead to formal and final causes. Top-down is intentional. Bottom-up is extensional. The Inverse Causality Principle states that top-down

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