Related papers: Epistemological Distinctions Between Science and H…
What science does, what science could do, and how to make science work? If we want to know the answers to these questions, we need to be able to uncover the mechanisms of science, going beyond metrics that are easily collectible and…
The relationship of scientific knowledge development to technological development is widely recognized as one of the most important and complex aspects of technological evolution. This paper adds to our understanding of the relationship…
The main aim of this paper is to make a remark about the relation between (i) dualities between theories, as `duality' is understood in physics and (ii) equivalence of theories, as `equivalence' is understood in logic and philosophy. The…
Experience shows that disciplinary science cannot describe life without contradictions. We show that one of the fundamental reasons is the disciplinarity itself: the disciplines deal with a limited set of quantities. This way some 'outlaw'…
Until this century, the number of working female scientists has been indeterminate. Prevailing wisdom indicates that women, historically, have not excelled in the mathematics and sciences, for various reasons. These range from societal…
For obtaining causal inferences that are objective, and therefore have the best chance of revealing scientific truths, carefully designed and executed randomized experiments are generally considered to be the gold standard. Observational…
Empirical science needs to be based on facts and claims that can be reproduced. This calls for replicating the studies that proclaim the claims, but practice in most fields still fails to implement this idea. When such studies emerged in…
Dynamics, the study of change, is normally the subject of mechanics. Whether the chosen mechanics is ``fundamental'' and deterministic or ``phenomenological'' and stochastic, all changes are described relative to an external time. Here we…
Astrobiology is the field of science devoted to searching for life elsewhere in the Universe. It is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating results from multiple fields of science, and in this respect has strong synergies with 'big…
We discuss the problems of consensus and unity in science. The natural sciences seem to contrast with many other areas of endeavor in that a high level of consensus seems to exist in them. However, a careful analysis of the structure of…
The rise of human-information systems, cybernetic systems, and increasingly autonomous systems requires the application of epistemic frameworks to machines and human-machine teams. This chapter discusses higher-order design principles to…
I argue that, on a judicious reading of two existing criteria--one syntactic and the other semantic--dual theories can be taken to be empirically equivalent. The judicious reading is straightforward, but leads to the surprising conclusion…
Possible for science itself, conceptually, to have and will understand differently, let alone science also seen as technology, such as computer science. After all, science and technology are viewpoints diverse by either individual,…
This paper presents and philosophically assesses three types of results on the observational equivalence of continuous-time measure-theoretic deterministic and indeterministic descriptions. The first results establish observational…
There are two main opposing schools of statistical reasoning, Frequentist and Bayesian approaches. Until recent days, the frequentist or classical approach has dominated the scientific research, but Bayesianism has reappeared with a strong…
Scientific literature has itself been the subject of much scientific study, for a variety of reasons: understanding how results are communicated, how ideas spread, and assessing the influence of areas or individuals. However, most prior…
We introduce a logic for reasoning about evidence, that essentially views evidence as a function from prior beliefs (before making an observation) to posterior beliefs (after making the observation). We provide a sound and complete…
In this paper I review the problematic relationship between science and philosophy; in particular, I will address the question of whether science needs philosophy, and I will offer some positive perspectives that should be helpful in…
Some thoughts are presented on the inter-relation between beauty and truth in science in general and theoretical physics in particular. Some conjectural procedures that can be used to create new ideas, concepts and results are illustrated…
In abstract terms, ecosystem ecology is about determining when two ecosystems, superficially different, are alike in some deeper way. An external observer can choose any ecosystem property as being important. In contrast, two ecosystems are…