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Computer science research has led to many breakthrough innovations but has also been scrutinized for enabling technology that has negative, unintended consequences for society. Given the increasing discussions of ethics in the news and…
Contradiction is often seen as a defect of intelligent systems and a dangerous limitation on efficiency. In this paper we raise the question of whether, on the contrary, it could be considered a key tool in increasing intelligence in…
Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…
Emerging research frontiers and computational advances have gradually transformed cognitive science into a multidisciplinary and data-driven field. As a result, there is a proliferation of cognitive theories investigated and interpreted…
Deconstruction of the theme of the 2017 FQXi essay contest is already an interesting exercise in its own right: Teleology is rarely useful in physics --- the only known mainstream physics example (black hole event horizons) has a very mixed…
The crisis in the reproducibility of experiments invites a re-evaluation of methods of inquiry and validation procedures. The text challenges current assumptions of knowledge acquisition and introduces G-complexity for defining decidable…
Various models of the information society have been developed so far and they are so different from country to country that it would be rather unwise to look for a single, allencompassing definition. In our time a number of profound…
Science is a crowning glory of the human spirit and its applications remain our best hope for social progress. But there are limitations to current science and perhaps to any science. The general mind-body problem is known to be intractable…
Recent developments in foundations of physics have given rise to a class of views suggesting that physically meaningful descriptions must always be relativized to a physical perspective. In this article I distinguish between strong physical…
A common hope of many physics educators and researchers is that students leave the course with a stronger sense that physics is relevant to them than when they entered the course. Multiple survey measures have attempted to measure shifts in…
Human understanding of randomness and variation is shaped by a number of cognitive biases. Here we relate a lesser-known cognitive bias, the "outcome orientation", to medical questions and describe the harm that the outcome orientation can…
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…
Correctly assessing a scientist's past research impact and potential for future impact is key in recruitment decisions and other evaluation processes. While a candidate's future impact is the main concern for these decisions, most measures…
Astrobiology is a scientific discipline that studies life in the Universe. We call it a discipline and not a science because some authors have cast doubts over its epistemological status by calling it 'a science without an object of study'.…
Statistical hypothesis testing is the central method to demarcate scientific theories in both exploratory and inferential analyses. However, whether this method befits such purpose remains a matter of debate. Established approaches to…
The last decades saw dramatic progress in brain research. These advances were often buttressed by probing single variables to make circumscribed discoveries, typically through null hypothesis significance testing. New ways for generating…
The gap between theory and practice is well-documented in educational research. Physics teachers' willingness to apply research findings in practice may be influenced by a sceptical attitude towards science education research. This study…
We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account for so…
Replicability and reproducibility of experimental results are primary concerns in all the areas of science and IR is not an exception. Besides the problem of moving the field towards more reproducible experimental practices and protocols,…
Physicists are increasingly beginning to take seriously the possibility of laws outside the traditional time-evolution paradigm; yet our understanding of determinism is still predicated on a forwards time-evolution picture, making it…