science

sciences in general, what they are and their methods

Science or stories

Science has no stories. Stories have characters, plots, and narratives. Science has data, hypotheses, postulates, and theories. Science and stories are different. They should be kept separate. Stories can refer to science or be about scientists, but that is not part of science. Science can refer to stories or collect data from stories, but that […]

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Technology and science

It’s not uncommon to hear an argument like this: “If you use modern technology, you are buying into all of modern science.” But that’s like saying, “If you celebrate Christmas, you are agreeing with all Christian doctrines.” For example, many Japanese celebrate Christmas, but only 1% of the country is Christian. Similarly, all sorts of

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Interesting universe

This post continues a series on history and science, see here and here. The development of the comparative method in linguistics led to the genealogy of languages in the 19th century. This diachronic approach was largely abandoned in the 20th century with the rise of synchronic theories. In short, linguistics pivoted from history to science.

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From natures to nature

This post follows on a previous post here. How did we get from natures to nature? In a word, nominalism. The many natures of pre-modern science have been transformed into one nature or Nature, reified if not personified as a thing or force or being. Nominalism is the teaching that universals or qualities or natures

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Nominal breakthroughs

Modern science is quantitative, not qualitative. The top breakthroughs in modern science have broken through traditional distinctions of quality or kind. Consider the following: (1) Newton’s theory of gravitation broke through the traditional distinction between the sublunar and supralunar universe (e.g., the earth and the heavens). All motion is subject to the same laws. (2)

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Wise knowledge

Presuppositions are a priori suppositions, usually unstated. They are not inevitable. Presuppositions may be replaced with suppositions. That is, presuppositions may be made explicit. For example, someone might say, “I will flip a coin. If it is heads, I will adopt presupposition A; if it is tails, I will adopt presupposition B.” In that case,

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Middle ontologies

As the previous post noted here, nominalism seeks a minimal ontology, that is, a minimum of qualities. This qualitative parsimony leads toward the ultimate minimum ontology: an ontology of one. That is, the assertion that there is only one quality, one kind of stuff, whatever it may be called – matter, energy, or whatever. This

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Science and history again

To some extent the sciences of society and history can be pursued as if they were natural sciences. For example, groups of people exhibit some characteristics of natural objects, and so reflect physics to some extent. On the other hand, the physics of social beings is different in a complementary way from the physics of

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Science and metaphysics again

The Scholastics developed a cosmology with the Earth at absolute rest in the center of moving concentric spheres. Ptolemy’s geocentric astronomy with its epicycles was thought to be consistent with the Scholastic cosmology. When geocentrism was challenged by the early scientists, the whole Scholastic cosmology was thought to be undermined. The difference between science and

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Formal and material space and time

Science makes no metaphysical claims but it is not unusual for scientists to make metaphysical claims, sometimes even in their scientific publications. That has confused the relationship between science and metaphysics. The philosophies of scientific realism and naturalism have further confused the relationship between science and metaphysics. As a Christian I must say that if

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