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  2. A miscellany of epistemes

A miscellany of epistemes

By evolvingthoughts on March 20, 2007.

Some more or less random links that I am grouping under the epistemology of philosophy of science.

For those who have not reached Level 9 or higher in the Illuminati, "epistemology" has nothing to do with getting drunk, but with how knowledge is acquired (episteme means "understanding, skill or knowledge of some field").

First, Medlar Comfits has a nice essay on what science is compared to the sort of "believe authority" view of creationists. Also, this is a really nice blog I hadn't previously seen, with for instance articles on the use of English to communicate by ESL writers. Well worth a visit, and not merely because she liked my Gilbert and Sullivan parody for PZ's birthday.

Scientific American's blog asks if the freeze in NIH grants for medical research is a deliberate attempt to cede the US's lead in biomedical science. A fourth year of frozen funding combined with a 3.7% inflation rate for medical research means a real fall. Perhaps a case of lowering expectations? Gotta pay for that war somehow...

Some nifty video of moons circling Saturn at MSNBC.

But most important - a parody of anti-homosexual "studies" done as anti-heterosexual. In which the author not only parodies these "scientific" studies but explains reference by reference and rhetorical move by move, what he is doing. Download the PDF here. Apart from anything else, it is a great case study of Bad Science, such as we meet in the various campaigns against reality in creationism, intelligent design, climate change, vaccination and so on.

Tags
creationism
General Science
Philosophy of Science
Politics

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but as a taxpayer I have to ask - didn't NIH budgets rise 10% per year for several years this decade? I don't want to rain on the parade, but I think a few years of really flat spending were almost sure to follow and it is the researchers fault for not realizing this. Come on and be adult - oh wait I guess that means whining...

Well, since I said that the funding has remained flat for four years, and this is 2007, one might reasonably conclude that funding was not flat before (let's see, 7 minus 4 equals 3) 2003.

As to rising 10%, I'd like to see some figures for this.

For those who have not reached Level 9 or higher in the Illuminati, "epistemology" has nothing to do with getting drunk ...

Funny, that what I always wind doing whenever someone starts talking about epistemology ...