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.
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.
In reaction to claims that copyright exists to protect creators because of the effort they’ve put into their work, Techdirt points us to a Supreme Court case that clearly says otherwise. History and precedent back it up.
In Science and Social Inequality by Sandra Harding, I found a discussion of claims to “absolute truth” in science (and the fear of relativism) particularly interesting.
It is so much more fun to “expound” on the “adaptable” Constitution and simply pretend that the “hard-wired” one can always be “worked around.” But what if it can’t? What if there is a gorilla (or rattlesnake) in the room?
John Pfaff continues his interesting discussion of science, the adversarial process, and the law at PrawfsBlawg:
So far I have looked at how to incorporate systematic reviews into our current legal framework, whether through court-appointed Rule 706 experts or through special masters or technical advisors assisting judges in their Daubert or Frye decisions. In both cases, [...]
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Minneapolis News – Westlaw rises to legal publishing fame by selling free information:
West makes its money by selling free, public information – specifically, court documents – to lawyers. On this simple model, the company raked in $3.5 billion in revenue last year, placing it on a par, sales-wise, with retail giant [...]
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The Uneasy Case for Intellectual Property Rights in Traditional Knowledge by Stephen Munzer, Kal Raustiala:
Should traditional knowledge—the understanding or skill possessed by indigenous peoples pertaining to their culture and folklore and their use of native plants for medicinal purposes—receive protection as intellectual property? This Article examines nine major arguments from the moral, political [...]
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Law, War, and the History of Time – Balkinization:
I’ve posted a new paper on SSRN on a theme I’ve blogged about here and here: Law, War, and the History of Time. While I wrote this paper in the interest of making sense out of the 20th century history of law and [...]
PrawfsBlawg: A Misguided Philosophy of Science:
During my first year as a economics graduate student, I spent at most two minutes thinking about the philosophy behind empirical work. On the first day of my year-long econometrics sequence, our professor quickly reminded us that hypotheses cannot be proven, only disproven. That was it. I don’t even [...]
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