Ed Feser has a great dissection of the “Nothing but…” approach to philosophy and science. And that is, of course, exactly what the “mechanical” conception of the world that the early modern philosophers put in place of the Scholastics’ Aristotelian philosophy of nature made possible. The world was reconceived as a machine or collection of… Continue reading
Category: science
Tom Bethell and the Romance of Scientific HeresyBack in November I linked to Stephen Barr’s post spanking American Spectator columnist Tom Bethell for his long held, ideological grudge against Einstein –and further, his irresponsibly uncritical championing of a pet theory devised by his friend and fellow traveler, the late Petr Beckmann–which Bethell has now summarized… Continue reading
Mead drubs the Times for its poor coverage of Climategate: Admit mistakes? Open up their data? Change the way the work? You mean there was something wrong with the way climate science was operating last year? Is the Times telling us that the climate scientists–on the basis of whose work the whole world is debating… Continue reading
Nice interview of astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter on his work in the 1990s revealing how the universe’s expansion rate is accelerating. If he were still alive, Fr. Georges Lemaitre would have been thrilled at this discovery. (Not that he would have stuck his tongue out at Einstein or Fred Hoyle or anything…)
Humphrey Clarke is not impressed with Jason Rosenhouse’s recent review of Galileo Goes to Jail. Rosenhouse’s reaction to the book demonstrates the difficulties of refuting the set of comfortable myths that people on both side of the science-religion debate tend to subscribe to. Although you might succeed in denting them, you will commonly find that… Continue reading