Recently I’ve been reading The War on Science by Chris Turner. Turner chronicles the Harper government’s steady dismantling of Canada’s environmental science infrastructure and the instantiation of anti-environmentalism into public policy. Turner documents Harper’s apparent insistence on thwarting environmental research and erecting barriers between evidence and policy. Turner places his critique in an historical contextContinue reading “The War on Science and its Secular Cloak”
Author Archives: swoodill
Science, Evidence, and Narrative
Science, Evidence, and Narrative I’ve heard it said that the way we see the world in some ways determines the world we see. I think this is true, though I’m not well equipped to delve into this from any deep philosophical vantage point. And I don’t mean to suggest any type of supernatural causation instantiated viaContinue reading “Science, Evidence, and Narrative”
Evidence, the Death of Evidence, and Finding Some Good Questions
The recent announcement by the Canadian Federal government of the closing and consolidation of Fisheries and Oceans libraries has the media, once again, reporting outrage on what appears to be the present government’s war on science. A quiet outrage has developed among academics and researchers as they mourn the loss of priceless data and artifacts. I callContinue reading “Evidence, the Death of Evidence, and Finding Some Good Questions”
Hype in Science: How can respectable journals publish such c**p? oh, and peer-review
On December 7, 2013, the Atlantic Node of Situating Science Strategic Knowledge Cluster hosted a one day public series of discussions exploring six case studies of overselling, misrepresentation or biasing in the presentation of scientific research. Included in these case studies was a discussion of the NASA supported research article published in Science that claimed the discovery of bacteria from arsenicContinue reading “Hype in Science: How can respectable journals publish such c**p? oh, and peer-review”
Citizens and Science: Really?
On Monday, October 21, 2013, Dr. Yves Gingras (UQAM) opened the Science and Society Sympoium 2013 with a talk entitled “The Transformations in the Relations between Science, Policy and Citizens.” Humorous and insightful, Dr. Gingras inspired a great deal of conversation and set the tone for a very productive three days that focused on howContinue reading “Citizens and Science: Really?”
The Idea of Evolution
The Slow Fix by Ivan E. Coyote
Ivan E. Coyote is a transgendered writer/storyteller who grew up in the Yukon and now lives in Vancouver. This book is his latest and it is a compilation of short stories. The stories are not really fiction; they are based on real life experience, though I doubt that they would fit neatly into any oneContinue reading “The Slow Fix by Ivan E. Coyote”
Marriage and Morals–Bertrand Russell
Well, I have not too much to say about this yet. I am interested in the particular alignment between the wife and the prostitute. Not that this idea is new to me, it’s just that this work seems to be particularly foundational. As one goes through this blog there appears to be a divergent setContinue reading “Marriage and Morals–Bertrand Russell”
Natural Kinds Pt 2
Natural Kinds: Rosy Dawn, Scholastic Twilight by Ian Hacking. Basically and simply: there are no such things as “natural kinds.” Despite the fact that the concept has an endowed history and has functioned well for certain conceptual purposes (eg. as a mode of clear-cut classifying such as is required by the scholastic tradition), the conceptContinue reading “Natural Kinds Pt 2”
Natural Kinds
The Origins of ‘Natural Kinds’: Keeping ‘Essentialism” at Bay in the Age of Reform Gordon McOuat Intellectual History Review 19(2) 2009: 211-230 Essentialism-here refers to the idea that for any specific thing there is some absolutely necessary element(s) present thus allowing for a percise definition. Natural Kinds-groups of entities that share a set of necessaryContinue reading “Natural Kinds”
Limitless 