Archive for February, 2008
« Previous EntriesClimate in Jan/Feb 2008: Wait a minute
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008Previously I wrote eight entries on climate and the ongoing discussion of global warming. At the time I presented a contrast between the global warming crowd and the solar causation crowd. There is quite a bit of news in the last 12 months that has only served to sharpen the contrast between the groups and [...]
BREAK: Gravity Probe B - update Sept 2007
Monday, February 18th, 2008Another update for Gravity Probe B in preparation for presentation of conclusions in November.
http://einstein.stanford.edu/
Origins #5: Natural Philosophy within Christianity
Monday, February 18th, 2008Original July 7, 2007.
In the course of the history of Christianity, Greek and Roman philosophy has always been close by as part of the culture. And often it influenced language and thought. In Late Antiquity the ancient philosophies were still being interpreted and practiced by the pagan schools and stood literally side by side with [...]
Origins #4: Creation Science as Natural Philosophy
Monday, February 18th, 2008The term “Creation Science” refers to a body of work started in the late 1950s that started as an attempt to gather new natural observational evidence or interpret existing evidence according to a specific historical world view. This historical world view is based upon a literal reading of the creation account contained in the biblical [...]
Origins #3: Darwinism (Evolution) as Natural Philosophy
Monday, February 18th, 2008Original: July 3, 2007.
In the first two posts I have proposed that there is a basic distinction between experimental science in the strict sense, based upon the scientific method of repeatable experiment, and Natural Philosophy, which is a structured systematic description of the nature of the cosmos that may rely on at least some untestable [...]
Origins #2: Specific Brief Examples of Natural PhilosophyThe last post was introductory in nature and generalized to the point of being somewhat obscure. So in this post, I will become more specific by looking at three examples of Natural Philosophy from antiquity.
Monday, February 18th, 2008The last post was introductory in nature and generalized to the point of being somewhat obscure. So in this post, I will become more specific by looking at three examples of Natural Philosophy from antiquity.
Among the Greeks in antiquity there was a school of philosophy called the Stoics.[1] Among the primary divisions of Stoic teachings [...]
Origins #1: Natural Philosophy and Modern Science
Monday, February 18th, 2008Original: July 2, 2007.
The first entry in this blog referred to a category of thought historically known as Natural Philosophy and relates it to the work of Philip Melanchthon, one of the most important figures in sixteenth century European education and the Lutheran reformation.
Natural Philosophy in the history of ideas goes back to ancient Greece [...]
Climate Talk #8: So what?
Monday, February 18th, 2008Original April 28, 2007.
So even if one grants that average global temperatures are rising (and hardly anyone denies this) and that at least a significant portion of this rise is anthropogenic, that is, caused by human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, so what? I have often joked that we in Nebraska would not [...]
Climate Talk #7: It’s the sun, stupid
Monday, February 18th, 2008Original: April 10, 2007.
One of the main alternative claims to anthropogenic global warming is that the rise in global temperatures is due to solar effects. Nothing seems more naturally intuitive. Essentially all atmospheric heat is due to energy the earth receives from the sun. Any variation in the output of energy from the sun, so [...]
Climate Talk #6: Its all natural, but where is the evidence
Monday, February 18th, 2008Original: April 1, 2007.
These weak links (and others) in the majority view as well as other less scientific motivations[1] have led to a body of alternative proposals to explain the change in environment that is now being observed and described as global warming. Many, if not most, of these alternative proposals use some form of [...]
