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Tag:philosophy-of-scienceClear

The thing that astonishes me is that the geologists and biologists seem quite unaware of the philosophical chaos that underlies their own work — they proceed as though the universe were already explained, and their only task were to fill in the details.
— William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)

3w ago

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. And yet this refinement is purchased at a terrible price — the price of losing touch with the concrete and the living, and of substituting for it a pale, bloodless abstraction.

2mo ago

themarginalian.org

Martian Gargoyles and Lunar Fish: Chilean Artist Alejandra Acosta’s Wondrous Embroidered Illustrations for This World’s First Book Theorizing Life on Other Worlds

It was the seed for the marvelously multifaceted field of astrobiology, at the beating heart of which is the question not of where life is but what life is.

5mo ago

longreads.com

What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?

But the burden of proof, he cautions, remains with the infinity doubters. If you could somehow prove experimentally that the physical universe is indeed finite, even the most ardent backers of the higher infinite would likely take a moment to pause and reflect.

6mo ago

The most terrible thing about materialism is not that it assumes the world to be made of atoms, but that it assumes this ideal notion of material atoms to be something particularly scientific, particular real, or particularly philosophic.

6mo ago

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