In “Islam and Science,” an article written for the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, Nasr attempts to give a broad overview of the relationship of Islam to modern science and technology. He makes some key points regarding to criticism of Western science from an Islamic point a view.
Since at least McLean v. Arkansas in 1981, Creationists — Christian fundamentalists who oppose evolution — have turned, intriguingly, to philosophy of science to try to justify the inclusion of Creationism alongside evolution in science classrooms.
The still-in-draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, beloved of some, is hated by many–including Google, apparently.
There is a philosophical thesis (attributed jointly to Pierre Duhem and Willard Quine) that, when simplified, explains how a given set of facts can produce more than one apparently true conclusion: essentially, different background assumptions lead to different conclusions. A related concept is known as underdetermination: that a given set of evidence can be explained by more than one–potentially conflicting–theory.
Within the context of the contemporary vaccination debate, neither side has a monopoly on a particular kind of argument.
There is a long history of opposition to vaccination, opposition that dates back to its earliest uses in Europe and North America to fight smallpox. Opponents have made claims ranging from accusations that vaccination interferes with “God’s will” to claims that it actually contributed to the spread of smallpox instead of preventing it.
Why is it that modern Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists seem to struggle with accepting science today? Why does this struggle emerge especially around biology, particularly evolution? And why have many evangelicals turned to approaches like “Intelligent Design,” which instead of replacing science with religion, instead seeks to co-opt science within terms acceptable to Protestant evangelicalism?
300 years ago Saturday, the Statute of Anne created the first modern system of copyright.
By near the end of the nineteenth century, Jennerian vaccination had become a generally (but not universally) accepted medical practice. But it still had its critics.
In colonial America, quarantine was a state-sponsored restriction on individual liberty in the name of public health, and was accepted by the public. Early inoculation, on the other hand, was done by individuals, and was immediately resisted by the public.
I don’t believe universities (in their best form, at least) are easily replicated by technological means of information dissemination. But despite the advantages their physicality and tradition offers, many universities have tended to see themselves as simply the means to fill students up with information, stick an “approved” stamp on them, and send them out into the world.
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