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Changing technology, changing expectations of privacy
My goal here is to compare and contrast the legal changes that occurred as new technologies-state-run postal services, the telegraph, the telephone, and email, for example-emerged, and through this to seek insight into these larger questions.
November 2010 / 4 min.
Dorinda Outram on the Enlightenment
In her book The Enlightenment, Dorinda Outram gives a broad introduction to the history and historiography of the Enlightenment.
October 2010 / 8 min.
Technology and the archive
One of the primary interests of mine is the connection between technology and law. The development of archives is one place where this connection plays out in practice. This I am deeply interested in the question presented by Schwartz and Cook present as to what the impact of new technologies-like “postal services, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, photography”-was on “on the production, preservation, and use of records and archives since the mid-nineteenth century.”
October 2010 / 3 min.
The archive and the state
Archives, the collection of files and materials (electronic or physical) stored and maintained for future reference, have an intimate connection with state power-after all, those who are in power fund and create them, leading archives to reflect the ideas, beliefs and sometimes contradictions of those who control them.
October 2010 / 3 min.
Measuring the impact of technology on the law
It’s difficult to come up with more quantitative measurements to look at how technology has impacted law. One could look at the development of new technologies (via patent applications, perhaps?) and then look to see how soon afterwards the invention began to show up in legal cases. Another interesting idea would be to see if changes in technology-the development of new citation systems, more rapid dissemination of decisions and publications, and later the creation of electronic repositories such as Lexis and Westlaw-had any impact on the way lawyers and judges developed law.
August 2010 / 3 min.
Looking forward to reading the new Adrian Johns book
So illustrious a source as the Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends the new book by Adrian Johns.
June 2010 / 1 min.
Was medieval Islamic culture inhospitable to science?
Myth #4 in Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion is Syed Nomanul Haq’s article entitled “That Medieval Islamic Culture was Inhospitable to Science.”
June 2010 / 2 min.
Modern Islam and science: an article by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
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.
May 2010 / 5 min.
Popper, Kuhn, and Creationism
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.
May 2010 / 3 min.
Causation, faith, and intelligent design
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.
May 2010 / 4 min.