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POPSThe Physical World as a Virtual Reality (by Brian Whitworth) The abstract continues: ... It is suggested that whether the world is an objective reality or a virtual reality is a matter for science to resolve. Modern information science can suggest how core physical properties like space, time, light, matter and movement could derive from information processing. Such an approach could reconcile relativity and quantum theories, with the former being how information processing creates space-time, and the latter how it creates energy and matter.
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POPSSciTalks SciTalks collects talks and lectures by scientists on a variety of topics.
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POPSTedTalks: Brain Science About to Fundamentally Change Computing (Jeff Hawkins, 2003) To date, there hasn't been an overarching theory of how the human brain really works, Jeff Hawkins argues in this compelling talk. That's because we still haven't defined intelligence accurately. But one thing's for sure, he says: The brain isn't like a powerful computer processor. It's more like a memory system that records everything we experience and helps us predict, intelligently, what will happen next. Bringing this new brain science to computer devices will enable powerful new applications -- and it will happen sooner than you think.
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POPSPoliticizing Science: The Alchemy of Policymaking (Free Ebook) In this book leading scientists share their experiences and observations of developing and testing hypotheses, offering insights on the dangers of manipulating science for political gain. It describes how politicization--whether by misapplication, overextension, or outright manipulation of the scientific record to advance particular policy agendas--imposes expenditures of money, missed opportunities, and burdens on the economy.
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POPSThe Politicization of Science Great article! You'll need bugmenot to log in & read it. Apart from the fact that in reality decision-makers rarely are the wise, unbiased, and entirely objective people textbooks would have them be, this model fails to consider the real-world phenomenon of “an excess of objectivity.” “Excess of objectivity” is a term coined by Dan Sarewitz, professor of science and society at Arizona State University (ASU), who, in an interview for bridges, claims that “there is plenty of science to go around. You don’t really need to distort the science. All you need to do in many cases is find the right science. That is not an indictment of science or scientists, but a statement about the complexity of reality and nature and the difficulty of defining problems in very narrow ways.”
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POPSA New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram (Lecture) worth watching, on cellular automata, complexity, randomness, nature, mathematics, science, biology, natural selection, networks, space-time, physics, causality, relativity, determinism, quantum mechanics, computational irreducibility, ... (not necessarily in that order) His book is freely available online: http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html (see also The Nature of Code )
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POPSDiscovery and Confirmation in Evolutionary Psychology - By Machery E From the (unclippable) pdf: In this article, I propose to clarify and evaluate various aspects of evolutionary psychologists’ methodology, with a special focus on their heuristics of discovery—i.e., their methods for developing plausible hypotheses—and their strategies of confirmation—i.e., their methods for providing empirical support for these hypotheses.2 I will also evaluate several well-known objections raised against evolutionary psychology. Source points to other publications by Machery (who focuses on theoretical issues that are raised by psychology and cognitive science)
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POPSPEAR: Anomalies Research - Publications (Online) ... much more @ source ... The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program was established at Princeton University in 1979 by Robert G. Jahn, then Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to pursue rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes common to contemporary engineering practice. -- It was Jahn's decision to close the lab. He set out to prove the existence of the effect and, at 76, believes the work is done. But such tiny deviations from chance have not convinced mainstream scientists, and the lab's results have been studiously ignored by the wider community. Apart from a couple of early reviews , Jahn's papers were rejected from mainstream journals. Jahn believes he was unfairly judged because of the questions he asked, not because of methodological flaws.
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POPSGlobal Warming, 'The Science' & the Politics ... read the full article ... The unfortunate thing is that many people still hold onto a ‘normal’ faith in science such that it can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow. Fred Singer has this view of science; so does Mark Lynas. That is why they reduce their exchange to one about scientific truth rather than about values, perspectives and political preferences. If the battle of science is won, then the war of values will be won.
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POPSThe Denial Industry very interesting article on climate change denial, its deniers, frontgroups, funding & the so called 'debate'. must read
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POPSWhat Are You Optimistic About? - The Edge Annual Question 2007 The Edge asks a very interesting question to a whole bunch of leading thinkers, scientists, philosophers, etc. each year. This is this years question. Last years question was: "What is your Dangerous Idea"? Question of 2005 was " What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it ? I only clipped a tiny selection of the candidates & links to their answers of this years question. It's a great resource. Really worth checking out. Just click one of the links I clipped & feed yourselves with some optimism. ( ;-) to invictus)
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