Being Aish'd

It is good that this was finally said out loud.

In Israel

"D" and I have been getting around a bit. We spent the night with a relative in Pardes Hannah a few days ago. We went to Ein Gedi and did the mud thing, the floating on the Dead Sea thing, some nature walks, and checked out a Talmud-era synagogue. We stopped in Jerusalem on the way back and we are headed to Haifa this afternoon for dinner. So far, so good.

Neo-Naive-Baconianism?

The philosophy of science has a long history. But it's modern history has it as a goal to understand the underlying logic of science, the scientific method, and scientific discovery.

The modern history of the philosophy of science starts with Francis Bacon. In what has now been dubbed "Naive Baconianism" the theory went that scientists amassed data and a theory somehow emerged about the data.

This was subsequently replaced by Popper's falsificationism where the claim is that scientists ever attempt to falsify their theories by proposing falsifying hypotheses and then testing them, ultimately either offering corroborating evidence or a falsifying instance.

Another competitor for a theory of how science works is Kuhn who said that science works in paradigm shifts. That is, there is a research program and scientists work with it until something better comes along.

Fayerabend also offered an alternative, so did Lakaos.

But what we are seeing now is the emergence of a new way of looking at the logic of science - the petabyte method. We take a massive amount of data - more than we ever could have handled previously and see what data emerges from that. The method allows for all sorts of unorthodox results, and much of it is largely independent of the paradigm that a given science works with. Of course the computer models still make assumptions about the data, but they are able to crunch the numbers in a way that is irrespective of what the numbers mean. It is very "structuralist" or "Hilbertian" in that way. I suspect that philosophers of science will have to start rethinking their views on Bacon, as scientists increasingly rely on huge data sets and computationally intense formulations of results.

More on this to come.

In Tel Aviv

"D" and I are in Tel Aviv right now. We've taken in some of the beach, some sun, and other things Israeli. Tomorrow we are off to Arad, we think, and then Ein Gedi. So far so good here in Israel.

My 'hood

I am back home now from a week-and-change in KY, and I took an hour to re-explore Brooklyn Heights. It is still as beautiful as ever. . . . more or less.

Almost every day since the beginning of the summer I noticed that somewhere on Montague Street there are annoying people, usually working in teams of two or more who want to stop you on the street and ask you to sign something, or more likely to contribute to some cause or other. I seem to recall last year when the Turkish restaurant had people on the street harassed people, I was very annoyed, same goes for the time the Jews for Jesus did it a year or two ago, and I think I am at that point now. It is either the Save the Children people, the ACLU, gay activists, DNC, Obamaheads, or some other do-gooder group that will not let me walk down the street unmolested. Is there some way to stop these people? Is this legal or are the police just too scared to enforce the law when it comes to the ACLU?

(Apparently this problem is at least 14 years old.)

Secondly, there are these hideous structures ruining the view from the southern part of the promenade. For months, these ugly scaffolds have been hanging around and I was wondering what they are going to be used for. Now I found out. They are used to pump water from the river in to the river.

There are four things I think worth considering here. First, the environmental impact on extracting metals from the ground, making steel, molding it to scaffolding, transporting it to Brooklyn and Govenors Island etc is non-negligible. In the grand scheme of things it isn't much, but it is something.

Secondly, It also takes electricity to run, and I don't know who is paying for that, but when office buildings are being asked to cut electrical use so that the grid doesn't go down during peak times, what can possibly justify the expenditure on this? Pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water upward takes lots of energy.

Third, the amount of tax-payer funded bureaucracy that went in to approving and planning this is also not negligible. It is not like someone filled out a form and it was approved and that was the whole government expense. I can't imagine how much this must have cost the taxpayers.

Finally, and I think most importantly, the things are useless and pointless. They are supposed to be "waterfalls" but really they look like construction sites without buildings after it rained, with torrents water falling off of them. Ugliest piece of "art" I've seen in a long time. And worse, the only way to really get a good view of them is to be standing in middle of the river. New York is not that desperate for attention or good art that we have to resort to this.

They attract people to the promenade to stare and take pictures of this crap, and that does little help but make parking that much harder around here (though I don't drive) and ups the demand (and hence price) for the restaurants and other stuff in the neighborhood (which I and most of the residents have little financial interest in). They are like tourists, but from here.

I can't wait for them to take down this junk.

KY

I am now leaving Kentucky where I spent the past week and change in charge of someone else's unit. It was a pretty good experience and I had a lot of fun.

I hope I never have to come to KY again.

I am exhausted.

Wilmington

Just got back from a friend's wedding in Wilmington, DE. There is nothing to do in that town. The wedding however was absolutely beautiful.

spelling issue

So here is something that I have been dealing with for a while, and I have to make a decision about, but I am torn. Any thoughts on this matter are appreciated.

Because of the way Yiddish phonology works, my last name is spelled with two ayyins in it (tzadi ayyin resh mem ayyin resh). My grandfather spells his name with two ayyins, as does one of his two sons. However, my generation is somewhat split. Some of us have dropped the ayyins in order to be in line with the Hebrew spelling (tzadi resh mem resh). The name, I believe, derives from a Yiddish word, so it makes sense to keep the Yiddish spelling. Though the Yiddish origins are a bit obscure. But I am not particularly fond of the Yiddish spelling, and when pronounced with ayyins as a Hebrew word, it sounds a bit bizarre. The word in Hebrew would be meaningless.


Keeping one ayyin as a compromise strikes me as a bit dumb, as it is the worst of both worlds.

I have no interest in actually changing the name, but I am torn over keeping or dropping the ayyins. Any thoughts?

. . . speaking of suing

Not sure how many of you remember the TV show "Sliders", but one scene has been coming to mind a lot lately. The crew lands in a world where some 91% of the population are lawyers and pretty much everyone sues everyone all the time. creepiness ensues.

Given our last post, we thought we had seen it all. But wait. . . middle aged Jewish guy sues thirty-something Asian girlfriend for dumping him. Given the fact that he did this, it is no wonder she left. He was nuts.

What is this world coming to? Obama, a lawyer, apparently believes that the function of the court is to make policy, and not enforce law. Maybe these people are hoping to find a left-wing recently dumped radical feminist judge who will award them money for being pathetic?

Why didn't I think of this

So a science studies professor freaks out at her students and calls them names because she is unable to convince them that her crazy ideas make sense. So she threatens to sue them.

This is just funny on so many levels. Clearly she is one of those freaks who really believes what she is talking about when she claims that the function of science and technology is to oppress women. She also believes that as an instructor her job is to talk at her students and not to them. She does not seem to believe that there are any standards for making a case, and if her students don't see what she takes to be obvious then they are "fascist demagogues". Clearly she is just nuts, and how she got to teach at Dartmouth is beyond me. And while I don't know that much about teaching, I know that if there is anyone whose job it is to be an adult in the class room - it's the instructor's. Priya Venkatesan has no such belief.

This is so bizarre.

Anyone heard of this John Stuart Mill fellow?

You would think if there was one publication in the world where the writers should be expected to have an inkling of what goes on in Academic life it would be in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Yet a political scientist there, a director of some center of research at Boston College displays the most complete ignorance of the point of his piece. His article laments the lack of attention that J. S. Mill gets among philosophers.

It is excusable to believe that no one reads Mill anymore. Perhaps he never took a philosophy class, or read a philosophy book. But had he done so, he would realize what a fool he is, as I would venture to say that the overwhelming number of ethics texts published struggle with Mill's ideas about utilitarianism and freedom. The overwhelming number of ethics courses and introductory philosophy courses devote some time to Mill's ideas on liberty, free speech, and utility. The majority of advanced texts and courses on Ethics devote time and space to Mill's ideas as well.

Of course the fact that ignorance is completely excusable does not justify his decision to write about it, or the Chronicle's decision to publish it. Did Alan Wolfe just not bother to ask a philosopher at Boston College if people still read Mill? There are plenty of people there who know Mill's work well.

I certainly hope that he does political science better than he does his public laments. I hear his next piece will talk about how classics don't read Homer, or perhaps how mathematicians no longer know geometry, or Protestants no longer pay attention to biblical texts. No wonder people think academics are out of touch.

In Canada

I am now in London, Ontario 3/5 of the way through a five day conference. Nice place to visit.

Review of Ladyman's Understanding Philosophy of Science

James Ladyman's Understanding Philosophy of Science is a pretty good beginning text in the philosophy of science. It is very well organized, and as straight forward as can be. There are two main sections. The first deals with the scientific method, the second deals with the question of realism.

The first section goes through the various stages in the philosophy, especially the question of induction, from the rather naive position of Francis Bacon through falsificationism and the theory of scientific revolutions.

The second section is about the question of realism, especially the problems created by underdetermination, explanation, and inference to the best explanation. There is a very good focus on van Fraassen and the nature of constructive empiricism.

This book is an excellent choice for a first introduction to the main questions in contemporary philosophy of science.

Review of Wesley Salmon's Four Decades of Scientific Explanation

Four Decades of Scientific Explanation Is an excellent overview of the history of scientific explanation as seen from the standpoint of one of its most significant contributors.

Since the late nineteenth century is is generally agreed that science provides explanations of the phenomena in the natural world. But exactly what does an explanation look like? What form does an explanation take? How do we recognize an explanation and distinguish it from pseudo-explanations and the like?

Salmon's history covers the discussion from Hempel to the state of the art in 1989 when the book was written. He covers all the major theories and all the major questions. The book is highly readable, and definitely a worthwhile investment for those who want to understand this corner of the philosophy of science.

Miami

Last weekend "D", "L", and "S" and I spent a few days in Miami. It was quite relaxing. I spent most of my time near the pool working. I think now I am suffering from nice weather withdrawal.

I am off playing soldier this weekend, and hopefully I will be able to get back to doing some serious work after that.