The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science write by Michael Strevens. This book was released on 2020-10-13. The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. “The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. • Why is science so powerful? • Why did it take so long—two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics—for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature. “With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational—and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth. Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.
The Knowledge Machine
The Knowledge Machine - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Knowledge Machine write by Michael Strevens. This book was released on 2022-02-03. The Knowledge Machine available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A groundbreaking and timely analysis of how science works and how we can preserve its power to grow our knowledge Over the last three centuries, huge leaps in our scientific understanding and, as a result, in our technology have completely transformed our way of life and our vision of the universe. Why is science so powerful? And why did we take so long to invent it - two thousand years after the invention of philosophy, mathematics and other disciplines that are the mark of civilization? The Knowledge Machine gives a radical answer, exploring how science calls on its practitioners to do something not supremely rational but rather apparently irrational: strip away all previous knowledge - such as theological or metaphysical beliefs - in order to channel unprecedented energy into observation and experiment. Rich with tales of discovery and misadventure, like Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, Strevens's stimulating and highly original investigation reframes what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.
The Knowledge Machine
The Knowledge Machine - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Knowledge Machine write by Michael Strevens. This book was released on 2020-10-01. The Knowledge Machine available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Rich with tales of discovery from Galileo to general relativity, a stimulating and timely analysis of how science works and why we need it. 'The best introduction to the scientific enterprise that I know. A wonderful and important book' David Wootton, author of The Invention of Science It is only in the last three centuries that the formidable knowledge-making machine we call modern science has transformed our way of life and our vision of the universe - two thousand years after the invention of law, philosophy, drama and mathematics. Why did we take so long to invent science? And how has it proved to be so powerful? The Knowledge Machine gives a radical answer, exploring how science calls on its practitioners to do something apparently irrational: strip away all previous knowledge - such as theological, metaphysical or political beliefs - and channel unprecedented energy into observation and experiment. In times of climate extremes, novel diseases and rapidly advancing technology, Strevens contends that we need more than ever to grasp the inner workings of our knowledge machine. 'A stylish and accessible investigation into the nature of the scientific method' Nigel Warburton, Philosophy Bites 'This elegant book takes us to the heart of the scientific enterprise' David Papineau, King's College London, author of Knowing the Score 'This book is a delight to read, richly illustrated with wonderfully told incidents from the history of natural science' Nancy Cartwright, University of California San Diego
Science and Values
Science and Values - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Science and Values write by Larry Laudan. This book was released on 1984. Science and Values available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science.
Making Medical Knowledge
Making Medical Knowledge - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Making Medical Knowledge write by Miriam Solomon. This book was released on 2015. Making Medical Knowledge available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. How is medical knowledge made? New methods for research and clinical care have reshaped the practices of medical knowledge production over the last forty years. Consensus conferences, evidence-based medicine, translational medicine, and narrative medicine are among the most prominent new methods. Making Medical Knowledge explores their origins and aims, their epistemic strengths, and their epistemic weaknesses. Miriam Solomon argues that the familiar dichotomy between the art and the science of medicine is not adequate for understanding this plurality of methods. The book begins by tracing the development of medical consensus conferences, from their beginning at the United States' National Institutes of Health in 1977, to their widespread adoption in national and international contexts. It discusses consensus conferences as social epistemic institutions designed to embody democracy and achieve objectivity. Evidence-based medicine, which developed next, ranks expert consensus at the bottom of the evidence hierarchy, thus challenging the authority of consensus conferences. Evidence-based medicine has transformed both medical research and clinical medicine in many positive ways, but it has also been accused of creating an intellectual hegemony that has marginalized crucial stages of scientific research, particularly scientific discovery. Translational medicine is understood as a response to the shortfalls of both consensus conferences and evidence-based medicine. Narrative medicine is the most prominent recent development in the medical humanities. Its central claim is that attention to narrative is essential for patient care. Solomon argues that the differences between narrative medicine and the other methods have been exaggerated, and offers a pluralistic account of how the all the methods interact and sometimes conflict. The result is both practical and theoretical suggestions for how to improve medical knowledge and understand medical controversies.
