Nature, the Artful Modeler

Nature, the Artful Modeler
Author :
Publisher : Open Court Publishing
Total Pages : 161
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780812694727
ISBN-13 : 0812694724
Rating : 4/5 (27 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Nature, the Artful Modeler by : Nancy Cartwright

Download or read book Nature, the Artful Modeler written by Nancy Cartwright and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How fixed are the happenings in Nature and how are they fixed? These lectures address what our scientific successes at predicting and manipulating the world around us suggest in answer. One—very orthodox—account teaches that the sciences offer general truths that we combine with local facts to derive our expectations about what will happen, either naturally or when we build a device to design, be it a laser, a washing machine, an anti-malarial bed net, or an auction for the airwaves. In these three 2017 Carus Lectures Nancy Cartwright offers a different picture, one in which neither we, nor Nature, have such nice rules to go by. Getting real predictions about real happenings is an engineering enterprise that makes clever use of a great variety of different kinds of knowledge, with few real derivations in sight anywhere. It takes artful modeling. Orthodoxy would have it that how we do it is not reflective of how Nature does it. It is, rather, a consequence of human epistemic limitations. That, Cartwright argues, is to put our reasoning just back to front. We should read our image of what Nature is like from the way our sciences work when they work best in getting us around in it, non plump for a pre-set image of how Nature must work to derive what an ideal science, freed of human failings, would be like. Putting the order of inference right way around implies that like us, Nature too is an artful modeler. Lecture 1 is an exercise in description. It is a study of the practices of science when the sciences intersect with the world and, then, of what that world is most likely like given the successes of these practices. Millikan's famous oil drop experiment, and the range of knowledge pieced together to make it work, are used to illustrate that events in the world do not occur in patterns that can be properly described in so-called "laws of nature." Nevertheless, they yield to artful modeling. Without a huge leap of faith, that, it seems, is the most we can assume about the happenings in Nature. Lecture 2 is an exercise in metaphysics. How could the arrangements of happenings come to be that way? In answer, Cartwright urges an ontology in which powers act together in different ways depending on the arrangements they find themselves in to produce what happens. It is a metaphysics in which possibilia are real because powers and arrangement are permissive—they constrain but often do not dictate outcomes (as we see in contemporary quantum theory). Lecture 3, based on Cartwright's work on evidence-based policy and randomized controlled trials, is an exercise in the philosophy of social technology: How we can put our knowledge of powers and our skills at artful modeling to work to build more decent societies and how we can use our knowledge and skills to evaluate when our attempts are working. The lectures are important because: They offer an original view on the age-old question of scientific realism in which our knowledge is genuine, yet our scientific principles are neither true nor false but are, rather, templates for building good models. Powers are center-stage in metaphysics right now. Back-reading them from the successes of scientific practice, as Lecture 2 does, provides a new perspective on what they are and how they function. There is a loud call nowadays to make philosophy relevant to "real life." That's just what happens in Lecture 3, where Cartwright applies the lesson of Lectures 1 and 2 to argue for a serious rethink of the way that we are urged—and in some places mandated—to use evidence to predict the outcomes of our social policies.

The Dappled World

The Dappled World
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 410
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781139936361
ISBN-13 : 1139936360
Rating : 4/5 (61 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Dappled World by : Nancy Cartwright

Download or read book The Dappled World written by Nancy Cartwright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-09-23 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is often supposed that the spectacular successes of our modern mathematical sciences support a lofty vision of a world completely ordered by one single elegant theory. In this book Nancy Cartwright argues to the contrary. When we draw our image of the world from the way modern science works - as empiricism teaches us we should - we end up with a world where some features are precisely ordered, others are given to rough regularity and still others behave in their own diverse ways. This patchwork makes sense when we realise that laws are very special productions of nature, requiring very special arrangements for their generation. Combining classic and newly written essays on physics and economics, The Dappled World carries important philosophical consequences and offers serious lessons for both the natural and the social sciences.

How the Laws of Physics Lie

How the Laws of Physics Lie
Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Total Pages : 232
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191519901
ISBN-13 : 0191519901
Rating : 4/5 (01 Downloads)

Book Synopsis How the Laws of Physics Lie by : Nancy Cartwright

Download or read book How the Laws of Physics Lie written by Nancy Cartwright and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1983-06-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sequence of philosophical essays about natural science, Nancy Cartwright argues that fundamental explanatory laws, the deepest and most admired successes of modern physics, do not in fact describe the regularities that exist in nature. Yet she is not `anti-realist'. Rather, she draws a novel distinction, arguing that theoretical entities, and the complex and localized laws that describe them, can be interpreted realistically, but that the simple unifying laws of basic theory cannot.

Evidence-Based Policy

Evidence-Based Policy
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 209
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199986705
ISBN-13 : 0199986703
Rating : 4/5 (05 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Evidence-Based Policy by : Nancy Cartwright

Download or read book Evidence-Based Policy written by Nancy Cartwright and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last twenty or so years, it has become standard to require policy makers to base their recommendations on evidence. That is now uncontroversial to the point of triviality--of course, policy should be based on the facts. But are the methods that policy makers rely on to gather and analyze evidence the right ones? In Evidence-Based Policy, Nancy Cartwright, an eminent scholar, and Jeremy Hardie, who has had a long and successful career in both business and the economy, explain that the dominant methods which are in use now--broadly speaking, methods that imitate standard practices in medicine like randomized control trials--do not work. They fail, Cartwright and Hardie contend, because they do not enhance our ability to predict if policies will be effective. The prevailing methods fall short not just because social science, which operates within the domain of real-world politics and deals with people, differs so much from the natural science milieu of the lab. Rather, there are principled reasons why the advice for crafting and implementing policy now on offer will lead to bad results. Current guides in use tend to rank scientific methods according to the degree of trustworthiness of the evidence they produce. That is valuable in certain respects, but such approaches offer little advice about how to think about putting such evidence to use. Evidence-Based Policy focuses on showing policymakers how to effectively use evidence, explaining what types of information are most necessary for making reliable policy, and offers lessons on how to organize that information.

Modeler's Guide to Realistic Painting & Finishing

Modeler's Guide to Realistic Painting & Finishing
Author :
Publisher : Kalmbach Publishing, Co.
Total Pages : 84
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0890243913
ISBN-13 : 9780890243916
Rating : 4/5 (13 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Modeler's Guide to Realistic Painting & Finishing by :

Download or read book Modeler's Guide to Realistic Painting & Finishing written by and published by Kalmbach Publishing, Co.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for the beginning plastic modeler who wants to learn more advanced techniques, this photo-driven guide includes an introduction to airbrushing and sections on brush painting, spray painting, weathering, and applying finishes.

Nature and Society

Nature and Society
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 322
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781134827152
ISBN-13 : 1134827156
Rating : 4/5 (52 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Nature and Society by : Philippe Descola

Download or read book Nature and Society written by Philippe Descola and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this book focus on the relationship between nature and society from a variety of theoretical and ethnographic perspectives. Their work draws upon recent developments in social theory, biology, ethnobiology, epistemology, sociology of science, and a wide array of ethnographic case studies -- from Amazonia, the Solomon Islands, Malaysia, the Mollucan Islands, rural comunities from Japan and north-west Europe, urban Greece, and laboratories of molecular biology and high-energy physics. The discussion is divided into three parts, emphasising the problems posed by the nature-culture dualism, some misguided attempts to respond to these problems, and potential avenues out of the current dilemmas of ecological discourse.

The Art of Modeling Dynamic Systems

The Art of Modeling Dynamic Systems
Author :
Publisher : Courier Corporation
Total Pages : 418
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780486131719
ISBN-13 : 0486131718
Rating : 4/5 (19 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Art of Modeling Dynamic Systems by : Foster Morrison

Download or read book The Art of Modeling Dynamic Systems written by Foster Morrison and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text illustrates the roles of statistical methods, coordinate transformations, and mathematical analysis in mapping complex, unpredictable dynamical systems. It describes the benefits and limitations of the available modeling tools, showing engineers and scientists how any system can be rendered simpler and more predictable. Written by a well-known authority in the field, this volume employs practical examples and analogies to make models more meaningful. The more universal methods appear in considerable detail, and advanced dynamic principles feature easy-to-understand examples. The text draws careful distinctions between mathematical abstractions and observable realities. Additional topics include the role of pure mathematics, the limitations of numerical methods, forecasting in the presence of chaos and randomness, and dynamics without calculus. Specialized techniques and case histories are coordinated with a carefully selected and annotated bibliography. The original edition was a Library of Science Main Selection in May, 1991. This new Dover edition features corrections by the author and a new Preface.