Counterknowledge, the corpus of pseudofactual narratives that dominate much of today’s discourse, shocks many in the scientific community. I often talk to scientists who cannot comprehend why intelligent people, some with science degrees, are so gullible that they take homeopathy drugs, read their horoscopes and believe that aliens frequently visit...
Month: May 2011
Cyborgs and free will
Augmenting physical ability by making use of techno-prostheses is as instinctive to primates as the sticks that some chimpanzees use to extract termites from their nests. The whole edifice of technological civilization has been exactly that, to implement knowledge collected on natural processes in order to achieve supernatural ends. It...
The ignorant miracle-workers
Is science the surest way of arriving at truth? Can we validate its worth beyond anyone’s doubt? Surely, the limits of knowledge have been discussed ad nauseum by the ancients. Aristotle did not approve of Platonic metaphysics, but ask any string theorist what she thinks about the laws of nature...
The roots (and futility) of conservation
The modern idea of conservation was born in 19th century evangelical United States and has its roots in literary - i.e. anti-evolution - Christian ideas about life on Earth and the age of our planet. According to these ideas, life on Earth is static and does not evolve. It was created ex nihilo...
Is Earth 6,000 years old?
Darwin used to be a deeply religious man. He studied theology at Cambridge and as a young man he looked forward to the lifelong service of a cleric. His professional outlook changed dramatically after he embarked in 1831 on a five-year voyage around the world aboard the HMS Beagle. His...
Aristotle on a chip
The reemergence of ancient notions in the modern field of bioinformatics Aristotle, in his zoological opus Historia Animalium (The history of animals), launches into his analysis of the animal kingdom by observing differences and similarities between the species. For example, he observes that bats and birds both have wings, so he surmises...
Darwin 101 for politicians
No other idea in human history has had a more profound impact on modern society than the evolutionary theory, independently conceived by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace 150 years ago. In neat, concise, transparent terms, it explains the multiversity of lifeforms that have replenished Earth since billions of years,...
Temnothorax de Condorset
How the collective intelligence of social animals can provide a new paradigm for ecological decision-making (notes of a lecture at Panteion University) Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was a pioneer in applying mathematics to the social sciences. His jury theorem states that if each member of a voting group is more likely than not...
Literature, science and the future society
Thomas S. Kuhn in his landmark opus “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” surmises from the study of contemporary historiography that the big revolutions in science have been changes of World View. I will argue in this short introduction that World Views are expressed through Literary Narratives and are defined by...
The book of the universe
Modern science is a hypertext narrative describing the birth and evolution of the Universe. Its chapters interconnect in multifarious ways with the many branches of scientific enquiry – and this includes the humanities - and many of the chapters are being written even today. Many important details are still missing,...