Page 5 of 14
Underdetermination and the balance between religion and science
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.
April 2012 / 5 min.
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 is to diminish the necessity of personal judgement in favor of predictable, […]
April 2012 / 5 min.
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.
April 2012 / 6 min.
Four planning rules to avoid project disasters
One key reason to study history? To learn from the past: (1) take small steps. (2) favor reversibility, (3) plan on surprises, and (4) plan on human inventiveness.
April 2012 / 3 min.
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. Here’s a quick summary of his key points: Bacon and Comte Turner begins with Francis Bacon’s “The New Atlantis” (1627). Although Bacon’s work was more political […]
April 2012 / 5 min.
Privacy and the First Amendment: privacy as property?
In Copyright and the First Amendment: The Unexplored, Unbroken Historical Practice, Terry Hart does an excellent job of exploring why the First Amendment has never been held to interfere with the enforcement of copyright, including pre-publication injunctive relief.
April 2012 / 2 min.
Contract law in the antebellum 19th century
The so-called “contracts clause” appears in Article I, section 10, clause 1 of the United States Constitution: “No State shall … pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” What did this mean before the Civil War?
March 2012 / 7 min.
Freedom to contract at the end of the nineteenth century
In Kermit Hall’s words, the nineteenth century saw the “triumph of contract” over property, tort, and equity, as the law came “to ratify those forms of inequality that the market system produces.”
March 2012 / 3 min.
Post-war contract law in the nineteenth century
In many respects, the so-called “black codes” put in place in the South immediately after the Civil War exemplify the potential extremes of nineteenth-century contract law. Although these laws only lasted for a few years before the Republican Congress – dominated by Northerners after the secession of the South – stepped in and forced the South to accept new […]
March 2012 / 3 min.
Is everything old new again? Learning from the history of technology
Peter Decherney, Nathan Ensmenger, and Christopher S. Yoo recently published an article, Are Those Who Ignore History Doomed to Repeat it?, on Tim Wu’s book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires.
March 2012 / 3 min.