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The Ten Big Questions
Website
Questions and answers on the interface of science, ethics and philosophy, including time travel, artificial intelligence and the big bang theory
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Introduction to Philosophy of Science (PDF), Malcolm Forster
Website
According to one definition, a general philosophy of science seeks to describe and understand how science works within a wide range of sciences. This does not have to include every kind of science. But it had better not be confined to a single branch of a
single science, for such an understanding would add little to what scientists working in that area already know.
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On the Inherent Incompleteness of Scientific Theories
Website
We examine the question of whether scientific theories can ever be complete. For two closely related reasons, we will argue that they cannot. The first reason is the inability to determine what are “valid empirical observations”, a result that is based on a self-reference Gödel/Tarski-like proof. The second reason is the existence of “meta-empirical” evidence of the inherent incompleteness of observations. These reasons, along with theoretical incompleteness, are intimately connected to the notion of belief and to theses within the philosophy of science: the Quine-Duhem (and underdetermination) thesis and the observational/theoretical distinction failure. Some puzzling aspects of the philosophical theses will become clearer in light of these connections. Other results that follow are: no absolute measure of the informational content of empirical data, no absolute measure of the entropy of physical systems, and no complete computer simulation of the natural world are possible. The connections with the mathematical theorems of Gödel and Tarski reveal the existence of other connections between scientific and mathematical incompleteness: computational irreducibility, complexity, infinity, arbitrariness and self-reference. Finally, suggestions will be offered of where a more rigorous (or formal) “proof” of scientific incompleteness can be found.
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Briefing on Einstein's Theory of Relativity
Website
Executive level briefing on Relativity... this explains it nicely, in just one page. It also demonstrates just how the World would be a physically disfunctional place if Relativity were not so. [Minor improvement to paragraphs 5 & 7, Feb-13-05]
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History and Philosophy of Science Essays
Website
Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science, covering falsificationism, theory-ladenness and Ockham's Razor in particular.
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The Primate Brain Atlas
Website
The Primate Brain Atlas is a digital cytoarchitectural atlas based on high-resolution images of serial sections of monkey brains that is fully integrated with a high-speed database server for querying and retrieving data about primate brain structure and function over the internet.
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