Download or read book The Convergence of Scientific Knowledge written by Vincent F. Hendricks and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is this, this ain't something else, this is this -Robert De Niro, Deerhunter his book may to some extent be viewed as the continuation of my T Doctoral thesis Epistemology, Methodology and Reliability. The dissertation was, first of all, a methodological study of the reliable performance of the AGM-axioms (Alchourr6n, Gardenfors and Makin son) of belief revision. Second of all the dissertation included the first steps toward an epistemology for the limiting convergence of knowledge for scientific inquiry methods of both discovery and assessment. The idea of methodological reliability as a desirable property of a scientific method was introduced to me while I was a visiting Ph. D. -student at the Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University in Pitts burgh, Pennsylvania, USA in 1995-96. Here I became acquainted with formal learning theory. Learning theory provides a variety of formal tools for investigating a number of important issues within epistemology, methodology and the philosophy of science. Especially with respect to the problem of induc tion, but not exclusively. The Convergence of Scientific Knowledge-a view from the limit utilizes a few concepts from formal learning theory to study problems in modal logic and epistemology. It should be duely noted that this book has virtually nothing to do with formal learning theory or inductive learning problems.
Download or read book The Convergence of Scientific Knowledge written by Vincent F. Hendricks and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2001-03-31 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is this, this ain't something else, this is this -Robert De Niro, Deerhunter his book may to some extent be viewed as the continuation of my T Doctoral thesis Epistemology, Methodology and Reliability. The dissertation was, first of all, a methodological study of the reliable performance of the AGM-axioms (Alchourr6n, Gardenfors and Makin son) of belief revision. Second of all the dissertation included the first steps toward an epistemology for the limiting convergence of knowledge for scientific inquiry methods of both discovery and assessment. The idea of methodological reliability as a desirable property of a scientific method was introduced to me while I was a visiting Ph. D. -student at the Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University in Pitts burgh, Pennsylvania, USA in 1995-96. Here I became acquainted with formal learning theory. Learning theory provides a variety of formal tools for investigating a number of important issues within epistemology, methodology and the philosophy of science. Especially with respect to the problem of induc tion, but not exclusively. The Convergence of Scientific Knowledge-a view from the limit utilizes a few concepts from formal learning theory to study problems in modal logic and epistemology. It should be duely noted that this book has virtually nothing to do with formal learning theory or inductive learning problems.
Download or read book Convergence of Knowledge Technology and Society written by Mihail C. Roco and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume aims to document the most important worldwide accomplishments in converging knowledge and technology, including converging platforms, methods of convergence, societal implications, and governance in the last ten years. Convergence in knowledge, technology, and society is the accelerating, transformative interaction among seemingly distinct scientific disciplines, technologies, and communities to achieve mutual compatibility, synergism, and integration, and through this process to create added value for societal benefit. It is a movement that is recognized by scientists and thought leaders around the world as having the potential to provide far-reaching solutions to many of today’s complex knowledge, technology, and human development challenges. Four essential and interdependent convergence platforms of human activity are defined in the first part of this report: nanotechnology-biotechnology-information technology and cognitive science (“NBIC”) foundational tools; Earth-scale environmental systems; human-scale activities; and convergence methods for societal-scale activities. The report then presents the main implications of convergence for human physical potential, cognition and communication, productivity and societal outcomes, education and physical infrastructure, sustainability, and innovative and responsible governance. As a whole, the report presents a new model for convergence. To effectively take advantage of this potential, a proactive governance approach is suggested. The study identifies an international opportunity to develop and apply convergence for technological, economic, environmental, and societal benefits. The panel also suggests an opportunity in the United States for implementing a program aimed at focusing disparate R and D energies into a coherent activity - a "Societal Convergence Initiative”. This study received input from leading academic, industry, government, and NGO experts from the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Download or read book The Science of God written by Gerald L. Schroeder and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-06-16 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the readers of The Language of God, another instant classic from "a sophisticated and original scholar" (Kirkus Reviews) that disputes the idea that science is contrary to religion. In The Science of God, distinguished physicist and Biblical scholar Gerald L. Schroeder demonstrates the surprising parallels between a variety of Biblical teachings and the findings of biochemists, paleontologists, astrophysicists, and quantum physicists. In a brilliant and wide-ranging discussion of key topics that have divided science and religion—free will, the development of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of man—Schroeder argues that the latest science and a close reading of the Bible are not just compatible but interdependent. This timely reissue of The Science of God features a brand-new preface by Schroeder and a compelling appendix that addresses the highly publicized experiment in 2008 in which scientists attempted to re-create the chemical composition of the cosmos immediately after the Big Bang. It also details Schroeder’s lucid explanations of complex scientific and religious concepts, such as the theory of relativity, the passage of time, and the definitions of crucial Hebrew words in the Bible. Religious skeptics, Biblical literalists, scientists, students, and physicists alike will be riveted by Schroeder’s remarkable contribution to the raging debate between science and religion.
Download or read book Emergence and Convergence written by Mario Bunge and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two problems continually arise in the sciences and humanities, according to Mario Bunge: parts and wholes and the origin of novelty. In Emergence and Convergence, he works to address these problems, as well as that of systems and their emergent properties, as exemplified by the synthesis of molecules, the creation of ideas, and social inventions. Along the way, Bunge examines further topical problems, such as the search for the mechanisms underlying observable facts, the limitations of both individualism and holism, the reach of reduction, the abuses of Darwinism, the rational choice-hermeneutics feud, the modularity of the brain vs. the unity of the mind, the cluster of concepts around 'maybe,' the uselessness of many-worlds metaphysics and semantics, the hazards posed by Bayesianism, the nature of partial truth, the obstacles to correct medical diagnosis, and the formal conditions for the emergence of a cross-discipline. Bunge is not interested in idle fantasies, but about many of the problems that occur in any discipline that studies reality or ways to control it. His work is about the merger of initially independent lines of inquiry, such as developmental evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, and socio-economics. Bunge proposes a clear definition of the concept of emergence to replace that of supervenience and clarifies the notions of system, real possibility, inverse problem, interdiscipline, and partial truth that occur in all fields.
Download or read book Convergence written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-06-16 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Convergence of the life sciences with fields including physical, chemical, mathematical, computational, engineering, and social sciences is a key strategy to tackle complex challenges and achieve new and innovative solutions. However, institutions face a lack of guidance on how to establish effective programs, what challenges they are likely to encounter, and what strategies other organizations have used to address the issues that arise. This advice is needed to harness the excitement generated by the concept of convergence and channel it into the policies, structures, and networks that will enable it to realize its goals. Convergence investigates examples of organizations that have established mechanisms to support convergent research. This report discusses details of current programs, how organizations have chosen to measure success, and what has worked and not worked in varied settings. The report summarizes the lessons learned and provides organizations with strategies to tackle practical needs and implementation challenges in areas such as infrastructure, student education and training, faculty advancement, and inter-institutional partnerships.
Download or read book Scientific Research in Education written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-03-28 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researchers, historians, and philosophers of science have debated the nature of scientific research in education for more than 100 years. Recent enthusiasm for "evidence-based" policy and practice in educationâ€"now codified in the federal law that authorizes the bulk of elementary and secondary education programsâ€"have brought a new sense of urgency to understanding the ways in which the basic tenets of science manifest in the study of teaching, learning, and schooling. Scientific Research in Education describes the similarities and differences between scientific inquiry in education and scientific inquiry in other fields and disciplines and provides a number of examples to illustrate these ideas. Its main argument is that all scientific endeavors share a common set of principles, and that each fieldâ€"including education researchâ€"develops a specialization that accounts for the particulars of what is being studied. The book also provides suggestions for how the federal government can best support high-quality scientific research in education.
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 Knowing New Biotechnologies written by Matthias Wienroth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The areas of personal genomics and citizen science draw on – and bring together – different cultures of producing and managing knowledge and meaning. They also cross local and global boundaries, are subjects and objects of transformation and mobility of research practices, evaluation and multi-stakeholder groups. Thirdly, they draw on logics of ‘convergence’: new links between, and new kinds of, stakeholders, spaces, knowledge, practices, challenges and opportunities. This themed collection of essays from nationally and internationally leading scholars and commentators advances and widens current debates in Science and Technology Studies and in Science Policy concerning ‘converging technologies’ by complementing the customary focus on technical aspirations for convergence with the analysis of the practices and logics of scientific, social and cultural knowledge production that constitute contemporary technoscience. In case studies from across the globe, contributors discuss the ways in which science and social order are linked in areas such as direct-to consumer genetic testing and do-it-yourself biotechnologies. Organised into thematic sections, ‘Knowing New Biotechnologies’ explores: • ways of understanding the dynamics and logics of convergences in emergent biotechnologies • governance and regulatory issues around technoscientific convergences • democratic aspects of converging technologies – lay involvement in scientific research and the co-production of biotechnology and social and cultural knowledge.
Download or read book The Universe in a Single Atom written by Dalai Lama and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2006-09-12 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Niels Bohr, Einstein. Their insights shook our perception of who we are and where we stand in the world, and in their wake have left an uneasy coexistence: science vs. religion, faith vs. empirical inquiry. Which is the keeper of truth? Which is the true path to understanding reality? After forty years of study with some of the greatest scientific minds, as well as a lifetime of meditative, spiritual, and philosophic study, the Dalai Lama presents a brilliant analysis of why all avenues of inquiry—scientific as well as spiritual—must be pursued in order to arrive at a complete picture of the truth. Through an examination of Darwinism and karma, quantum mechanics and philosophical insight into the nature of reality, neurobiology and the study of consciousness, the Dalai Lama draws significant parallels between contemplative and scientific examinations of reality. This breathtakingly personal examination is a tribute to the Dalai Lama’s teachers—both of science and spirituality. The legacy of this book is a vision of the world in which our different approaches to understanding ourselves, our universe, and one another can be brought together in the service of humanity.
Download or read book Handbook of Science and Technology Convergence written by William Bainbridge and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists and engineers have long been aware of the tension between narrow specialization and multidisciplinary cooperation, but now a major transformation is in process that will require technical fields to combine far more effectively than formerly in the service of human benefit. This handbook will catalog all the ways this can be accomplished and the reasons it must be. Nature is a single coherent system and diverse methods of scientific and engineering investigations should reflect this interlinked and dynamic unity. Accordingly, general concepts and ideas should be developed systematically in interdependence, with cause-and-effect pathways, for improved outcomes in knowledge, technology and applications. At the same time, industrial and social applications rely on integration of disciplines and unification of knowledge. Thus, convergence is both a fundamental principle of nature and a timely opportunity for human progress. This handbook will represent the culmination of fifteen years of workshops, conferences and publications that initially explored the connections between nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and new technologies based on cognitive science. A constant emphasis on human benefit then drew in the social sciences, even as shared scientific and ethical principles brought in sustainability of the Earth environment and the challenge of equitable economic advancement. The intellectual contributions of literally hundreds of scientists and engineers established a number of research methods and analytical principles that could unite disparate fields. The culmination has been called Convergence of Knowledge and Technology for the benefit of Society (CKTS), defined as the escalating and transformative interactions among seemingly different disciplines, technologies, communities and domains of human activity to achieve mutual compatibility, synergism and integration.
Download or read book How Knowledge Grows written by Chris Haufe and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that the development of scientific practice and growth of scientific knowledge are governed by Darwin’s evolutionary model of descent with modification. Although scientific investigation is influenced by our cognitive and moral failings as well as all of the factors impinging on human life, the historical development of scientific knowledge has trended toward an increasingly accurate picture of an increasing number of phenomena. Taking a fresh look at Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in How Knowledge Grows Chris Haufe uses evolutionary theory to explain both why scientific practice develops the way it does and how scientific knowledge expands. This evolutionary model, claims Haufe, helps to explain what is epistemically special about scientific knowledge: its tendency to grow in both depth and breadth. Kuhn showed how intellectual communities achieve consensus in part by discriminating against ideas that differ from their own and isolating themselves intellectually from other fields of inquiry and broader social concerns. These same characteristics, says Haufe, determine a biological population’s degree of susceptibility to modification by natural selection. He argues that scientific knowledge grows, even across generations of variable groups of scientists, precisely because its development is governed by Darwinian evolution. Indeed, he supports the claim that this susceptibility to modification through natural selection helps to explain the epistemic power of certain branches of modern science. In updating and expanding the evolutionary approach to scientific knowledge, Haufe provides a model for thinking about science that acknowledges the historical contingency of scientific thought while showing why we nevertheless should trust the results of scientific research when it is the product of certain kinds of scientific communities.
Download or read book Management of Convergence in Innovation written by Fredrik Hacklin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-15 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by the fascination about dramatic structural and competitive changes within telecommunication and information technology in dustries during the past decade, the convergence phenomenon has increasingly gained my personal attention throughout my work and studies. Therefore, not entirely coincidentally, this book was written as the result of my doctoral research at ETH Zurich, which turned out to be a challenging, yet highly rewarding endeavor. However, this work would not have been possible without the enduring support of several people. First, I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor Prof. Fritz Fahrni, for providing me with the opportunity to conduct exciting research projects in close collaboration with industry, and for supporting me with solid guidance and advice all the way. Also, I would like to thank Dr. Christian Marxt, for urging me to pursue the chosen line of enquiry, as well as for his devoted coaching, both at ETH and at Stanford, both within and beyond of?ce hours. Furthermore, I am grateful to Prof. Georg von Krogh, for his encouraging feedback and valuable comments during various inspiring discussions.
Download or read book Scientific Realism written by Jarrett Leplin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.
Download or read book Conjectures and Refutations written by Karl Raimund Popper and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conjectures and Refutations is one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge, but our aims and our standards, grow through an unending process of trial and error.
Download or read book Cognitive Semantics and Scientific Knowledge written by András Kertész and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book focuses on the question of how and to what extent cognitive semantic approaches can contribute to the new field of the cognitive science of science. The argumentation is based on a series of instructive case studies which are intended to test the prospects and limits of the metascientific application of both holistic and modular cognitive semantics. The case studies show that, while cognitive semantic research is able to solve problems which have traditionally been the domain of the philosophy of science, it also encounters serious limits. The prospects and the limits thus revealed suggest new research topics which in future can be tackled by cognitive semantic approaches to the cognitive science of science.
Download or read book The Political Implications of Scientific Knowledge EU Funded Policy Research and Immigration Policies in Italy written by Marco Boschele and published by goWare. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work endeavours to assess the impact of EU funded research on both, social science policy research and the policy making process at national level. Attempts, in the past, to include the social sciences in the decision making process have raised questions about the validity of scientific knowledge, in terms of its objectivity, and in terms of its legitimizing element. The starting point of this investigation, therefore, is the relationship between research and policy making. Subsequently, it considers the development of social science research in the field of immigration. At EU level it analyses the changes in the dynamics of migration and how the EU research Framework Programmes have responded. At national level it seeks to place the concept of citizenship and nationality law within the tradition of the social sciences in Italy and to understand how social science research has contributed to the development of policies. The investigation also analyses the research policy approach at institutional level in Italy and the involvement of Italian universities and organizations in the FP6 and FP7 to determine if there takes place an internationalization/Europeanization of social science research on immigration and/or the construction of a ‘non-national discourse’. There is a formation of a discourse in the field of immigration research which follows the Commission directives but due to the Italian policy making process closed to academic and experts influence this discourse does not permeate the process of immigration policies making.
