Philosophy of Science, broadly construed, is as old as philosophy itself. It was only in the early twentieth century that it emerged as a distinct sub-discipline with its own professional standards and institutional structures, and it has come a long way since these pioneering days. During the century’s first four decades the focus was primarily on what nowadays would be referred to as Ôgeneral philosophy of science’, the study of problems that arise in all scientific disciplines alike. Since the 1960s (...) philosophers have increasingly paid attention to issues in particular sciences – at the beginning primarily in mathematics, physics and biology. Later on chemistry, economics, and the social sciences followed suit. And in the last few decades these so-called Ôphilosophies of the special sciences’ have reached unprecedented maturity. The 1960s saw another important development: the entry of history of science into philosophical debates, which led to a style of argument that based philosophical analysis on detailed historical case studies. In the 1980s, finally, sociological, and more generally humanities, perspectives on science entered the scene and contributed yet another way to approach the study of both the practices and the results of the sciences. This plenitude of schools, movements, and approaches can be bewildering, and keeping track of all of them is a Herculean task. So novices and seasoned practitioner alike may be grateful for a guiding hand, and that is what the new Routledge Companion to.. (shrink)

We have synthesized a 582,970-base pair Mycoplasma genitalium genome. This synthetic genome, named M. genitalium JCVI-1.0, contains all the genes of wild-type M. genitalium G37 except MG408, which was disrupted by an antibiotic marker to block pathogenicity and to allow for selection. To identify the genome as synthetic, we inserted "watermarks" at intergenic sites known to tolerate transposon insertions. Overlapping "cassettes" of 5 to 7 kilobases (kb), assembled from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, were joined by in vitro recombination to produce intermediate (...) assemblies of approximately 24 kb, 72 kb ("1/8 genome"), and 144 kb ("1/4 genome"), which were all cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes in Escherichia coli. Most of these intermediate clones were sequenced, and clones of all four 1/4 genomes with the correct sequence were identified. The complete synthetic genome was assembled by transformation-associated recombination cloning in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, then isolated and sequenced. A clone with the correct sequence was identified. The methods described here will be generally useful for constructing large DNA molecules from chemically synthesized pieces and also from combinations of natural and synthetic DNA segments. 10.1126/science.1151721. (shrink)

Our chronically impoverished explanatory capacity in respect of P-consciousness is highly suggestive of a problem with science itself, rather than its lack of acquisition of some particular knowledge. The hidden assumption built into science is that science itself is a completed human behaviour. Removal of this assumption is achieved through a simple revision to our science model which is constructed, outlined and named ‘dual aspect science’ (DAS). It is constructed with reference to existing science being ‘single aspect science’. DAS is (...) consistent with and predictive of the very explanatory poverty that generated it and is simultaneously a seamless upgrade; no existing law of nature is altered or lost. The framework is completely empirically self-consistent and is validated empirically. DAS eliminates the behavioural inconsistencies currently inhabiting a world in which single aspect science has been inherited rather than chosen and in which its presuppositions are implemented through habit rather than by scientific examination of options by the scientists actually carrying out science. The proposed DAS framework provides a working vantage point from which an explanation of P-consciousness becomes expected and meaningful. The framework requires that we rediscover what we scientists do and then discover something new about ourselves: that how we have been doing science is not the entire story. Dual aspect science shows us what we have not been doing. (shrink)

An archive of Mark Sharlow's two blogs, "The Unfinishable Scroll" and "Religion: the Next Version." Covers Sharlow's views on metaphysics, epistemology, mind, science, religion, and politics. Includes topics and ideas not found in his papers.

The present paper aims to contribute to the substantivalism versus relationalism debate and to defend general relativity (GR) against pseudoscientific attacks in a novel, especially inclusive way. This work was initially motivated by the desire to establish the incompatibility of any ether theories with accelerated cosmic expansion and inflation (motto: where would a hypothetical medium supposedly come from so fast?). The failure of this program is of interest for emergent GR concepts in high energy particle physics. However, it becomes increasingly (...) important to guard scientific results against their misrepresentation by fundamentally anti-scientific agendas. We therefore argue that although it is not known whether the perceived space-time is fundamental (rather than a condensed state or a particular membrane), in a fundamental theory, space-time must be abstract relational: fundamental space-time is the consistent spatial-temporal arrangement of events. To pursue its own goals, this work should be accessible to a wide audience: physicists, philosophers of science, those being tempted by anti-relativity theories, but also those who vigorously defend some orthodox relativity that is not actually supported by GR. It must thus be extensive in order to satisfy the different parties’ desire to have included and understood their respective positions. (shrink)