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Google+The Duhem-Quine thesis, when simplified, explains how a given set of facts can produce more than one apparently true conclusion: essentially, different background assumptions lead to different outcomes. A related concept is known as underdetermination: that a given set of evidence can be explained by more than one–potentially conflicting–theory. How does this impact the relationship between science and religion?
science studies
Objectivity, science, and (a)political action
Theodore M. Porter, in Trust in Numbers, argues that the American distrust of elites–and of government itself–has led to a focus on “mechanical objectivity,” or rules to make decisions. In many ways similar to what American jurists call “procedural due process,” the idea of to diminish the necessity of personal judgement in favor of predictable, “transparent” processes and thus lessen the number of disputes over the outcomes of a bureacratic decision.
David Noble on “The Religion of Technology”
In The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention, David Noble investigates the Western relationship between religion and technology.
The problem of expertise in a liberal democracy
If free discussion and debate is core to liberalism–as Turner, backed by old-school liberal theorists like John Stuart Mill, argue–then anything that interferes with public debate and decision-making also moves a society away from liberalism (note, once again, that this is not the opposite of conservatism in the modern sense).
Stephen Turner describes “The Social Study of Science before Kuhn”
Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions–in many ways established the modern field of science studies. Stephen Turner provides a brief, socioligist’s version of the lead-up to Kuhn’s seminal book.
Reforming government regulations: Stephen Breyer’s technocratic solutions
In Breaking the Vicious Circle, Justice Stephen Breyer tackles the problem of regulation and risk in the American context: “Justice Breyer identifies several systemic problems that plague the regulatory process in the United States. He discusses how public (mis)perceptions, congressional (over)reaction, and technical (un)certainty create a “vicious circle” that increasingly undermines the legitimacy of the regulatory process.”
Protecting vested interests in the face of new technology: the case of the Charles River Bridge
New developments and new approaches had permitted a new corporation to build a new bridge at a lower cost–and to make it free within a few years of its opening, while still turning a profit for its investors. But in doing so, the profit-making potential of the old bridge was destroyed (although investors had already made back their initial investment multiple times over).
But hadn’t the old company taken a risk initially? Didn’t its investors deserve to reap their new profits because they had taken the risk initially? Wouldn’t setting a precedent that their state-granted monopoly could be limited later actually inhibit future investment?
What is the First Amendment?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The (scientific) development of common-law precedent
One of the defining characteristics of common law (as opposed to civil law) is the binding nature of precedent, sometimes referred to by its Latin name of stare decisis. But before the seventeenth century, the defining characteristic of English common law was not this one, but rather that common law reflected universal and customary law, and as such the goal was for judges to utilize previous decisions as merely guides to help them get closer to the true (unwritten) laws of England, not as binding in themselves.
Narrative, free will, and legal responsibility: reading Cathy Gere reading Michael Gazzaniga
Michael Gazzaniga suggests that his finding that we construct post-hoc narratives potentially undermines the criminal requirement of mens rea (the “guilty mind” element of most crimes): if our actions are in many situations automatic, and our explanations of them–our decision-making moral sense, as it were–only post-hoc, then “‘My brain made me do it’ threatens to become a get-out-of-jail-free card available to everyone, not just to sufferers of fetal alcohol syndrome or schizophrenia.”
On “The Role of Technology in Human Affairs”
In The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yochai Benkler discusses his vision of the role of technology in historical change. He rejects an overly deterministic vision of technology (which he connects with Lewis Mumford and Marshall McLuhan), but also rejects a view of technology as immaterial to a society’s direction.
Why do legal history? First remarks on Kermit Hall’s The Magic Mirror
In The Magic Mirror: Law in American History, Kermit Hall quotes former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to explain why we should do legal history: “This abstraction called the Law is a magic mirror, [wherein] we see reflected, not only our own lives, but the lives of all men that have been!”
Further reflections on the nature of scientific evidence
For two weeks this July, I participated in a conference/summer session in Vienna (VISU) on the nature of scientific evidence. The program brought together students and lecturers from a number of disciplines.
Legal reasoning by analogy
My VISU presentation on reasoning in analogy in Warren and Brandeis’ famous 1890 law review article on privacy.
Bayesian networks and criminal defense
I have begun to consider the utility of formal methods of evidential evidence mapping. Even without deep mathematical knowledge, the formulas are useful in any presentation of statistics in a courtroom, and can help avoid common reasoning fallacies (like the “prosecutor’s fallacy”).
Initial reflections on the nature of scientific evidence
For the last week I’ve been a part of the Vienna Institute Summer University (VISU) at the University of Vienna, at a two-week conference on “The Nature of Scientific Evidence.” The program brings together graduate students from a variety of disciplines from around the world to discuss science-related topics.
