Download or read book Nature the Artful Modeler written by Nancy Cartwright and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How fixed are the happenings in Nature and how are they fixed? These lectures address what our scientific successes at predicting and manipulating the world around us suggest in answer. One—very orthodox—account teaches that the sciences offer general truths that we combine with local facts to derive our expectations about what will happen, either naturally or when we build a device to design, be it a laser, a washing machine, an anti-malarial bed net, or an auction for the airwaves. In these three 2017 Carus Lectures Nancy Cartwright offers a different picture, one in which neither we, nor Nature, have such nice rules to go by. Getting real predictions about real happenings is an engineering enterprise that makes clever use of a great variety of different kinds of knowledge, with few real derivations in sight anywhere. It takes artful modeling. Orthodoxy would have it that how we do it is not reflective of how Nature does it. It is, rather, a consequence of human epistemic limitations. That, Cartwright argues, is to put our reasoning just back to front. We should read our image of what Nature is like from the way our sciences work when they work best in getting us around in it, non plump for a pre-set image of how Nature must work to derive what an ideal science, freed of human failings, would be like. Putting the order of inference right way around implies that like us, Nature too is an artful modeler. Lecture 1 is an exercise in description. It is a study of the practices of science when the sciences intersect with the world and, then, of what that world is most likely like given the successes of these practices. Millikan's famous oil drop experiment, and the range of knowledge pieced together to make it work, are used to illustrate that events in the world do not occur in patterns that can be properly described in so-called "laws of nature." Nevertheless, they yield to artful modeling. Without a huge leap of faith, that, it seems, is the most we can assume about the happenings in Nature. Lecture 2 is an exercise in metaphysics. How could the arrangements of happenings come to be that way? In answer, Cartwright urges an ontology in which powers act together in different ways depending on the arrangements they find themselves in to produce what happens. It is a metaphysics in which possibilia are real because powers and arrangement are permissive—they constrain but often do not dictate outcomes (as we see in contemporary quantum theory). Lecture 3, based on Cartwright's work on evidence-based policy and randomized controlled trials, is an exercise in the philosophy of social technology: How we can put our knowledge of powers and our skills at artful modeling to work to build more decent societies and how we can use our knowledge and skills to evaluate when our attempts are working. The lectures are important because: They offer an original view on the age-old question of scientific realism in which our knowledge is genuine, yet our scientific principles are neither true nor false but are, rather, templates for building good models. Powers are center-stage in metaphysics right now. Back-reading them from the successes of scientific practice, as Lecture 2 does, provides a new perspective on what they are and how they function. There is a loud call nowadays to make philosophy relevant to "real life." That's just what happens in Lecture 3, where Cartwright applies the lesson of Lectures 1 and 2 to argue for a serious rethink of the way that we are urged—and in some places mandated—to use evidence to predict the outcomes of our social policies.
Download or read book The Dappled World written by Nancy Cartwright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-09-23 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is often supposed that the spectacular successes of our modern mathematical sciences support a lofty vision of a world completely ordered by one single elegant theory. In this book Nancy Cartwright argues to the contrary. When we draw our image of the world from the way modern science works - as empiricism teaches us we should - we end up with a world where some features are precisely ordered, others are given to rough regularity and still others behave in their own diverse ways. This patchwork makes sense when we realise that laws are very special productions of nature, requiring very special arrangements for their generation. Combining classic and newly written essays on physics and economics, The Dappled World carries important philosophical consequences and offers serious lessons for both the natural and the social sciences.
Download or read book How the Laws of Physics Lie written by Nancy Cartwright and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1983-06-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sequence of philosophical essays about natural science, Nancy Cartwright argues that fundamental explanatory laws, the deepest and most admired successes of modern physics, do not in fact describe the regularities that exist in nature. Yet she is not `anti-realist'. Rather, she draws a novel distinction, arguing that theoretical entities, and the complex and localized laws that describe them, can be interpreted realistically, but that the simple unifying laws of basic theory cannot.
Download or read book Modeler s Guide to Realistic Painting Finishing written by and published by Kalmbach Publishing, Co.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for the beginning plastic modeler who wants to learn more advanced techniques, this photo-driven guide includes an introduction to airbrushing and sections on brush painting, spray painting, weathering, and applying finishes.
Download or read book Models written by Soraya de Chadarevian and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now that '3-D models’ are so often digital displays on flat screens, it is timely to look back at the solid models that were once the third dimension of science. This book is about wooden ships and plastic molecules, wax bodies and a perspex economy, monuments in cork and mathematics in plaster, casts of diseases, habitat dioramas, and extinct monsters rebuilt in bricks and mortar. These remarkable artefacts were fixtures of laboratories and lecture halls, studios and workshops, dockyards and museums. Considering such objects together for the first time, this interdisciplinary volume demonstrates how, in research as well as in teaching, 3-D models played major roles in making knowledge. Accessible and original chapters by leading scholars highlight the special properties of models, explore the interplay between representation in two dimensions and three, and investigate the shift to modelling with computers. The book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the sciences, medicine, and technology, and in collections and museums.
Download or read book Art Science written by J. Paul Getty Museum and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, the award-winning Education Department of the J. Paul Getty Museum is making one of its much-lauded K–12 curricula available nationwide in an attractive and inexpensive print format. Art & Science was developed by the Getty’s expert educators, scientists, curators, and conservators, and tested by classroom teachers, and it connects to national and California state standards. Teachers and parents will find engaging lessons and activities divided into beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels for step-by-step learning. Art & Science mines the treasures of the Getty Museum to explore the many intersections of the visual arts with scientific disciplines. Full-color images of antiquities, decorative arts, drawings, manuscripts, painting, photography, and sculpture illuminate lesson plans about, for example: • The laws of physics that keep a bronze sculpture of a juggler from tipping over • The science that allows photographers to manipulate light and capture images on paper • The processes of radiation and convection that turn clay into porcelain • Scientific observation of the natural world as the subject for art • How scientists removed 2,000 years of oxidation and encrustation to reveal a priceless ancient sculpture The curriculum also contains a trove of resources, including handouts, “Questions for Teaching,” a timeline, glossary, and list of print and web sources for further research. There are also links to additional related lessons and images available on the Getty website. The full-page color images and special “lay flat” binding of Art & Science make it ideal for use with a digital document reader.
Download or read book Simulation and Similarity written by Michael Weisberg and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an account of modeling and idealization in modern scientific practice, focusing on concrete, mathematical, and computational models. The main topics of this book are the nature of models, the practice of modeling, and the nature of the relationship between models and real-world phenomena. In order to elucidate the model/world relationship, Weisberg develops a novel account of similarity called weighted feature matching.
Download or read book Crafts Through the Year written by Thomas Berger and published by Floris Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive book includes crafts for children to make at home or school. Detailed instructions, diagrams and color photographs on making a range of seasonal items are given: from decorated eggs and pompoms, straw and origami animals, to autumn garlands, lanterns, festive wreaths and paper window stars. Packed with enjoyable projects, this is the perfect resource for both parents and teachers. This is a fully revised compilation of the Christmas, Easter, and Harvest Craft Books.
Download or read book Hunting Causes and Using Them written by Nancy Cartwright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-05-31 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hunting Causes and Using Them argues that causation is not one thing, as commonly assumed, but many. There is a huge variety of causal relations, each with different characterizing features, different methods for discovery and different uses to which it can be put. In this collection of new and previously published essays, Nancy Cartwright provides a critical survey of philosophical and economic literature on causality, with a special focus on the currently fashionable Bayes-nets and invariance methods - and it exposes a huge gap in that literature. Almost every account treats either exclusively how to hunt causes or how to use them. But where is the bridge between? It's no good knowing how to warrant a causal claim if we don't know what we can do with that claim once we have it. This book will interest philosophers, economists and social scientists.
Download or read book Art School written by Steven Henry Madoff and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-09-11 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading international artists and art educators consider the challenges of art education in today's dramatically changed art world. The last explosive change in art education came nearly a century ago, when the German Bauhaus was formed. Today, dramatic changes in the art world—its increasing professionalization, the pervasive power of the art market, and fundamental shifts in art-making itself in our post-Duchampian era—combined with a revolution in information technology, raise fundamental questions about the education of today's artists. Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) brings together more than thirty leading international artists and art educators to reconsider the practices of art education in academic, practical, ethical, and philosophical terms. The essays in the book range over continents, histories, traditions, experiments, and fantasies of education. Accompanying the essays are conversations with such prominent artist/educators as John Baldessari, Michael Craig-Martin, Hans Haacke, and Marina Abramovic, as well as questionnaire responses from a dozen important artists—among them Mike Kelley, Ann Hamilton, Guillermo Kuitca, and Shirin Neshat—about their own experiences as students. A fascinating analysis of the architecture of major historical art schools throughout the world looks at the relationship of the principles of their designs to the principles of the pedagogy practiced within their halls. And throughout the volume, attention is paid to new initiatives and proposals about what an art school can and should be in the twenty-first century—and what it shouldn't be. No other book on the subject covers more of the questions concerning art education today or offers more insight into the pressures, challenges, risks, and opportunities for artists and art educators in the years ahead. Contributors Marina Abramovic, Dennis Adams, John Baldessari, Ute Meta Bauer, Daniel Birnbaum, Saskia Bos, Tania Bruguera, Luis Camnitzer, Michael Craig-Martin, Thierry de Duve, Clémentine Deliss, Charles Esche, Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Hans Haacke, Ann Lauterbach, Ken Lum, Steven Henry Madoff, Brendan D. Moran, Ernesto Pujol, Raqs Media Collective, Charles Renfro, Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Michael Shanks, Robert Storr, Anton Vidokle
Download or read book Consilience written by E. O. Wilson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-11-26 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in search of deep laws to unite them." —The Wall Street Journal One of our greatest scientists—and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for On Human Nature and The Ants—gives us a work of visionary importance that may be the crowning achievement of his career. In Consilience (a word that originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renews the Enlightenment's search for a unified theory of knowledge in disciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciences and the humanities. Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramatic links between fields. He explores the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture. He postulates the biological principles underlying works of art from cave-drawings to Lolita. Presenting the latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratorical eloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions of Newton, Einstein, and Richard Feynman.
Download or read book Corcoran Gallery of Art written by Corcoran Gallery of Art and published by Lucia Marquand. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative catalogue of the Corcoran Gallery of Art's renowned collection of pre-1945 American paintings will greatly enhance scholarly and public understanding of one of the finest and most important collections of historic American art in the world. Composed of more than 600 objects dating from 1740 to 1945.
Download or read book Nancy Cartwright s Philosophy of Science written by Luc Bovens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-06-03 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only book that addresses Cartwright's undoubted influence on the study of the philosophy of science. This critical assessment contains contributions from Cartwright's champions and critics, including leading scholars in the field such as Ronald N. Giere and Paul Teller.
Download or read book The Experimental Side of Modeling written by Isabelle F. Peschard and published by Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. This book was released on 2018 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative, multifaceted approach to scientific experiments as designed by and shaped through interaction with the modeling process The role of scientific modeling in mediation between theories and phenomena is a critical topic within the philosophy of science, touching on issues from climate modeling to synthetic models in biology, high energy particle physics, and cognitive sciences. Offering a radically new conception of the role of data in the scientific modeling process as well as a new awareness of the problematic aspects of data, this cutting-edge volume offers a multifaceted view on experiments as designed and shaped in interaction with the modeling process. Contributors address such issues as the construction of models in conjunction with scientific experimentation; the status of measurement and the function of experiment in the identification of relevant parameters; how the phenomena under study are reconceived when accounted for by a model; and the interplay between experimenting, modeling, and simulation when results do not mesh. Highlighting the mediating role of models and the model-dependence (as well as theory-dependence) of data measurement, this volume proposes a normative and conceptual innovation in scientific modeling--that the phenomena to be investigated and modeled must not be precisely identified at the start but specified during the course of the interactions arising between experimental and modeling activities. Contributors: Nancy D. Cartwright, U of California, San Diego; Anthony Chemero, U of Cincinnati; Ronald N. Giere, U of Minnesota; Jenann Ismael, U of Arizona; Tarja Knuuttila, U of South Carolina; Andrea Loettgers, U of Bern, Switzerland; Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech; Joseph Rouse, Wesleyan U; Paul Teller, U of California, Davis; Michael Weisberg, U of Pennsylvania; Eric Winsberg, U of South Florida.
Download or read book The Knowledge Machine How Irrationality Created Modern Science written by Michael Strevens and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. • Why is science so powerful? • Why did it take so long—two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics—for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature. “With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational—and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth. Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.
Download or read book Evidence Based Policy written by Nancy Cartwright and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last twenty or so years, it has become standard to require policy makers to base their recommendations on evidence. That is now uncontroversial to the point of triviality--of course, policy should be based on the facts. But are the methods that policy makers rely on to gather and analyze evidence the right ones? In Evidence-Based Policy, Nancy Cartwright, an eminent scholar, and Jeremy Hardie, who has had a long and successful career in both business and the economy, explain that the dominant methods which are in use now--broadly speaking, methods that imitate standard practices in medicine like randomized control trials--do not work. They fail, Cartwright and Hardie contend, because they do not enhance our ability to predict if policies will be effective. The prevailing methods fall short not just because social science, which operates within the domain of real-world politics and deals with people, differs so much from the natural science milieu of the lab. Rather, there are principled reasons why the advice for crafting and implementing policy now on offer will lead to bad results. Current guides in use tend to rank scientific methods according to the degree of trustworthiness of the evidence they produce. That is valuable in certain respects, but such approaches offer little advice about how to think about putting such evidence to use. Evidence-Based Policy focuses on showing policymakers how to effectively use evidence, explaining what types of information are most necessary for making reliable policy, and offers lessons on how to organize that information.
Download or read book Hydrodynamics and Water Quality written by Zhen-Gang Ji and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary reference for the modeling of hydrodynamics and water quality in rivers, lake, estuaries, coastal waters, and wetlands This comprehensive text perfectly illustrates the principles, basic processes, mathematical descriptions, case studies, and practical applications associated with surface waters. It focuses on solving practical problems in rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal waters, and wetlands. Most of the theories and technical approaches presented within have been implemented in mathematical models and applied to solve practical problems. Throughout the book, case studies are presented to demonstrate how the basic theories and technical approaches are implemented into models, and how these models are applied to solve practical environmental/water resources problems. This new edition of Hydrodynamics and Water Quality: Modeling Rivers, Lakes, and Estuaries has been updated with more than 40% new information. It features several new chapters, including one devoted to shallow water processes in wetlands as well as another focused on extreme value theory and environmental risk analysis. It is also supplemented with a new website that provides files needed for sample applications, such as source codes, executable codes, input files, output files, model manuals, reports, technical notes, and utility programs. This new edition of the book: Includes more than 120 new/updated figures and 450 references Covers state-of-the-art hydrodynamics, sediment transport, toxics fate and transport, and water quality in surface waters Provides essential and updated information on mathematical models Focuses on how to solve practical problems in surface waters—presenting basic theories and technical approaches so that mathematical models can be understood and applied to simulate processes in surface waters Hailed as “a great addition to any university library” by the Journal of the American Water Resources Association (July 2009), Hydrodynamics and Water Quality, Second Edition is an essential reference for practicing engineers, scientists, and water resource managers worldwide.
