Download or read book The Flight from Science and Reason written by Paul R. Gross and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Evidence of a flight from reason is as old as human record-keeping: the fact of it certainly goes back an even longer way. Flight from science specifically, among the forms of rational inquiry, goes back as far as science itself... But rejection of reason is now a pattern to be found in most branches of scholarship and in all the learned professions."--from the introduction In the widely acclaimed Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt offered a spirited response to the "science bashers," raising serious questions about the growing criticism of scientific practice from humanists and social scientists on the academic left. Now, in The Flight from Science and Reason, Gross and Levitt are joined by Martin W. Lewis to bring together a diverse and distinguished group of scholars, scientists, and experts to engage these questions from a wide variety of perspectives. The authors take on critics of science whose views range from moderate to extreme, from social constructivists to deconstructionists, from creationists and feminists to Afro-centrists. They discuss the rise of "alternative medicine" and radical environmentalism (here skewered as "ecosentimentalism"). They explain why the "uncertainty principle" does not work as a metaphor for ambiguity, and why "chaos theory" cannot be invoked without an understanding of mathematics. Throughout, they grapple with the paradox inherent in arguing with opponents who contend that reason itself, and thus logic, is suspect. Distributed for the New York Academy of Sciences

Download or read book The Flight from Science and Reason written by Paul R. Gross and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book End Of Knowing written by Fred Newman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-10 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1997. This volume discusses the notion of whether there is a limit to knowledge and 'One Way to Know', in addition to the suggestion that that we no longer need to know, and whether our continued employment of knowing (cognition, epistemology) is useful or useless and destructive of human life and development.

Download or read book Science Technology and Governance written by John De la Mothe and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology examines Love's Labours Lost from a variety of perspectives and through a wide range of materials. Selections discuss the play in terms of historical context, dating, and sources; character analysis; comic elements and verbal conceits; evidence of authorship; performance analysis; and feminist interpretations. Alongside theater reviews, production photographs, and critical commentary, the volume also includes essays written by practicing theater artists who have worked on the play. An index by name, literary work, and concept rounds out this valuable resource.

Download or read book The Quest for Truth written by F. Leroy Forlines and published by Randall House Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This invaluable tool seriously discusses profound truths that apply to every facet of life. Biblical truth should be made applicable to the total personality. The "inescapable questions of life" are answered from the standard of God's authoritative Word.

Download or read book The Will To Create written by Astrida Orle Tantillo and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Better known as a poet and dramatist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was also a learned philosopher and natural scientist. Astrida Orle Tantillo offers the first comprehensive analysis of his natural philosophy, which she contends is rooted in creativity.Tantillo analyzes GoetheÆs main scientific texts, including his work on physics, botany, comparative anatomy, and metereology. She critically examines his attempts to challenge the basic tenets of Newtonian and Cartesian science and to found a new natural philosophy. In individual chapters devoted to different key principles, she reveals how this natural philosophy—which questions rationalism, the quantitative approach to scientific inquiry, strict gender categories, and the possibility of scientific objectivity—illuminates GoetheÆs standing as both a precursor and critic of modernity.Tantillo does not presuppose prior knowledge of Goethe or science, and carefully avoids an overreliance on specialized jargon. This makes The Will to Create accessible to a wide audience, including philosophers, historians of science, and literary theorists, as well as general readers.

Download or read book Of Literature and Knowledge written by Peter Swirski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-02-12 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Of Literature and Knowledge looks ... like an important advance in this new and very important subject... literature is about to become even more interesting." – Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University. Framed by the theory of evolution, this colourful and engaging volume presents a new understanding of the mechanisms by which we transfer information from narrative make-believe to real life. Ranging across game theory and philosophy of science, as well as poetics and aesthetics, Peter Swirski explains how literary fictions perform as a systematic tool of enquiry, driven by thought experiments. Crucially, he argues for a continuum between the cognitive tools employed by scientists, philosophers and scholars or writers of fiction. The result is a provocative study of our talent and propensity for creating imaginary worlds, different from the world we know yet invaluable to our understanding of it. Of Literature and Knowledge is a noteworthy challenge to contemporary critical theory, arguing that by bridging the gap between literature and science we might not only reinvigorate literary studies but, above all, further our understanding of literature.

Download or read book Seveneves written by Neal Stephenson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years. What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . . Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

Download or read book Archaeological Fantasies written by Garrett G. Fagan and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Including case studies, this collection of engaging and stimulating essays written by a diverse group of scholars, scientists and writers examines the phenomenon of pseudoarchaeology from a variety of perspectives.

Download or read book The Flight from Reason written by Arnold Lunn and published by . This book was released on 1931 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Flight from Reason by Arnold Lunn (1932).

Download or read book The American Academic Profession written by Stephen Richards Graubard and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book covers well the issues and problems of the U.S. academic profession in the second half of the twentieth century." -- Contemporary Science The tale of the American academic profession-that large company of men and women, unprecedented in its size and diversity-needs to be written. A large historical literature on America's colleges and universities exists, but much of it is unashamedly hagiographic. On the other hand, more critical works see American universities as being in dire need of massive reform. This charge is not sustained by the contributors to The American Academic Profession, who hope to shatter the code of silence that passes for discretion, by focusing on the forces that have conspired to create the American academic profession. Graubard includes contributions from important scholars around the world: "How the Academic Profession is Changing" by Arthur Levine; "Small Worlds, Different Worlds: The Uniqueness and Troubles of American Academic Professions" by Burton R. Clark; "The Elusive Academic Profession: Complexity and Change" by Francis Oakley; "Uncertainties in the Changing Academic Profession" by Walter E. Massey; "Stewards of Opportunity: America's Public Community Colleges" by Patrick M. Callan; "Public Universities as Academic Workplaces" by Patricia J. Gumport; "Survival of the Fittest? Postgraduate Education and the Professoriate at the Fin de Sicle" by R. M. Douglas; "Reflections on the Culture Wars" by Eugene Goodheart; "A Blow Is Like an Instrument" by Charles Bernstein; "The Science Wars and the Future of the American Academic Profession" by Jay A. Labinger; "The Scientist as Academic" by Cheryl B. Leggon; "The 'Place' of Knowledge in the American Academic Profession" by Sheldon Rothblatt; "Border Crossings: Organizational Boundaries and Challenges to the American Professoriate" by Theodore R. Mitchell; "The Development of Information Technology in American Higher Education" by Martin Trow; and "An International Academic Crisis? The American Professoriate in Comparative Perspective" by Philip G. Altbach. The American Academic Profession is not sanguine about what is currently happening in higher education, or what it imagines the future portends. It simply asks the question: Can a society truly understand its universities and colleges when it has moved too quickly from uncritical admiration to uniformed and ungenerous complaint? This volume intends to dispel some long-persistent myths in favor of objective truth. It is a must for anyone interested in academic problems, for those who work in higher education, and for everyone interested in American ideas, traditions, and social and intellectual history. Stephen R. Graubard is editor of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and its journal, Daedalus, and professor of history emeritus at Brown University.

Download or read book How We Reason written by Philip Nicholas Johnson-Laird and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good reasoning can lead to success; bad reasoning can lead to catastrophe. Yet, it's not obvious how we reason, and why we make mistakes. This book looks at the mental processes that underlie our reasoning. It provides the most accessible account yet of the science of reasoning.

Download or read book Higher Superstition written by Paul R. Gross and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1997-12-03 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The widely acclaimed response to the postmodernists attacks on science, with a new afterword. With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors.

Download or read book Book of Flight written by Judith E. Rinard and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the world of flight documents the milestones in aviation history that changed the world, from the development of ballooning to the mission to Mars.

Download or read book Interpretation written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journal of political philosophy.

Download or read book The Flight of the Intellectuals written by Paul Berman and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2010 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an elegantly written consideration of American attitudes towards Islamic thinkers, Paul Berman, one of America's leading intellectuals and champion for progressive thought, conducts a searing examination of the West's fumbling efforts to establish a healthy discourse with what is coined 'moderate Islam'. Berman engages with many of today's most important issues - contemporary anti-Semitism, anti-feminism and the presence of home grown fundamentalists - to present a stunning commentary on the media's inability to detect dangerous ideas in contemporary society.

Download or read book What s Wrong with Benevolence written by Andrew Irvine and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-07-21 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is benevolence a virtue? In many cases it appears to be so. But when it comes to the ''enlarged benevolence'' of the Enlightenment, David Stove argues that the answer is clearly no. In this insightful, provocative essay, Stove builds a case for the claim that when benevolence is universal, disinterested and external, it regularly leads to the forced redistribution of wealth, which in turn leads to decreased economic incentives, lower rates of productivity, and increased poverty.As Stove points out, there is an air of paradox in saying that benevolence may be a cause of poverty. But there shouldn't be. Good intentions alone are never sufficient to guarantee the success of one's endeavors. Utopian schemes to reorganize the world have regularly ended in failure.Easily the most important example of this phenomenon is twentieth - century communism. As Stove reminds us, the attractiveness of communism - the ''emotional fuel'' of communist revolutionaries for over a hundred years - has always been ''exactly the same as the emotional fuel of every other utopianism: the passionate desire to alleviate or abolish misery.'' Yet communism was such a monumental failure that millions of people today are still suffering its consequences.In this most prescient of essays, Stove warns contemporary readers just how seductive universal political benevolence can be. He also shows how the failure to understand the connection between benevolence and communism has led to many of the greatest social miseries of our age.