Pseudo-Science, Scientism, and Science: Fallacies in the Logic of Scientific Testing
GARY MAR, Stony Brook University
June 12-14, 2008 in Stony Brook, Long Island, NY
The modern sciences are among the most remarkable of human achievements yet science has been taken hostage in culture wars. Although we live in the most scientifically-impacted societies of all time, there are many popular misunderstandings about the nature of science and the logic of scientific testing. Ideological conceptions of science abound in the culture wars between creationists and Darwinists, between logical positivists and prophets of New Age science, between advocates of strong artificial intelligence and those of quantum mechanical conceptions of the mind. The purpose of this short course is to equip college teachers with tools for identifying fallacies of theory testing and to have a model of a good scientific test of a theory. This will be done through three case studies. Tuition $210
|