# kb

id: dialogue-concerning-the-two-chief-world-systems-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems-4.md
category: reference
title: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:51.634483+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dialogue-concerning-the-two-chief-world-systems-20260505-0
summary:
Copernicus has succeeded in reducing some of the uneven motions of Ptolemy who had to deal with motions that sometimes go fast, sometimes slow, and sometimes backwards, by means of vast epicycles. Mars, above the Sun's sphere, often falls far below it, then soars above it. These anomalies are cured by the annual movement of the Earth. This is explained by a diagram in which the varying motion of Jupiter is shown using the Earth's orbit. Simplicio produces another booklet in which theological arguments are mixed with astronomic, but Salviati refuses to address the issues from Scripture. So he produces the argument that the fixed stars must be at an inconceivable distance with the smallest larger than the whole orbit of the Earth. Salviati explains that this all comes from a misrepresentation of what Copernicus said, resulting in a huge over-calculation of the size of a sixth magnitude star. But many other famous astronomers over-estimated the size of stars by ignoring the brightness factor. Not even Tycho, with his accurate instruments, set himself to measure the size of any star except the Sun and Moon. But Salviati (Galileo) was able to make a reasonable estimate simply by hanging a cord


id: dialogue-concerning-the-two-chief-world-systems-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems-5.md
category: reference
title: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:51.634483+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dialogue-concerning-the-two-chief-world-systems-20260505-0
summary:
=== Day four === They are in Sagredo's house in Venice, where tides are an important issue, and Salviati wants to show the effect of the Earth's movement on the tides. He first points out the three periods of the tides: daily (diurnal), generally with intervals of 6 hours of rising and six more of falling; monthly, seemingly from the Moon, which increases or decreases these tides; and annual, leading to different sizes at the equinoxes. He considers first the daily motion. Three varieties are observed: in some places the waters rise and fall without any forward motion; in others they move towards the east and back to the west without rising or falling; in still others there is a combination of both—this happens in Venice where the waters rise on entering and fall on leaving. In the Straits of Messina there are very swift currents between Scylla and Charybdis. In the open Mediterranean the alteration of height is small but the currents are noticeable. Simplicio counters with the peripatetic explanations, which are based on the depths of the sea, and the dominion of the Moon over the water, though this does not explain the risings when the Moon is


id: hardness-comparison-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardness_comparison-0.md
category: reference
title: Hardness comparison
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardness_comparison
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:52.811579+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hardness-comparison-20260505-0
summary:
A variety of hardness-testing methods are available, including the Vickers, Brinell, Rockwell, Meyer and Leeb tests. Although it is impossible in many cases to give an exact conversion, it is possible to give an approximate material-specific comparison table for steels. == Hardness comparison table == == References == == Further reading == ISO 18265: "Metallic materials — Conversion of hardness values" (2013) ASTM E140-12B(2019)e1: "Standard Hardness Conversion Tables for Metals Relationship Among Brinell Hardness, Vickers Hardness, Rockwell Hardness, Superficial Hardness, Knoop Hardness, Scleroscope Hardness, and Leeb Hardness" (2019) == External links == Hardness Conversion Table – Brinell, Rockwell, Vickers – Various steels . (Archived) (archived November 11, 2011) Rockwell to Brinell conversion chart (Brinell, Rockwell A, B, C) Struers hardness conversion table (Vickers, Brinell, Rockwell B, C, D)


id: integrative-and-comparative-biology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrative_and_Comparative_Biology-0.md
category: reference
title: Integrative and Comparative Biology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrative_and_Comparative_Biology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:53.887193+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: integrative-and-comparative-biology-20260505-0
summary:
Integrative and Comparative Biology is the scientific journal for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (formerly the American Society of Zoologists). Prior to volume 42 (2002), the journal was known as American Zoologist ISSN 0003-1569. == See also == List of zoology journals == External links == Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology


id: life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-energy-sources-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources-0.md
category: reference
title: Life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of energy sources
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:55.007247+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-energy-sources-20260505-0
summary:
Greenhouse gas emissions are one of the environmental impacts of electricity generation. Measurement of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions involves calculating the global warming potential (GWP) of energy sources through life-cycle assessment. These are usually sources of only electrical energy but sometimes sources of heat are evaluated. The findings are presented in units of global warming potential per unit of electrical energy generated by that source. The scale uses the global warming potential unit, the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), and the unit of electrical energy, the kilowatt hour (kWh). The goal of such assessments is to cover the full life of the source, from material and fuel mining through construction to operation and waste management. In 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change harmonized the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) findings of the major electricity generating sources in use worldwide. This was done by analyzing the findings of hundreds of individual scientific papers assessing each energy source. Coal is by far the worst emitter, followed by natural gas, with solar, wind and nuclear all low-carbon. Hydropower, biomass, geothermal and ocean power may generally be low-carbon, but poor design or other factors could result in higher emissions from individual power stations. For all


id: life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-energy-sources-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources-1.md
category: reference
title: Life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of energy sources
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:55.007247+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-energy-sources-20260505-0
summary:
Although the life cycle assessments of each energy source should attempt to cover the full life cycle of the source from cradle-to-grave, they are generally limited to the construction and operation phase. The most rigorously studied phases are those of material and fuel mining, construction, operation, and waste management. However, missing life cycle phases exist for a number of energy sources. At times, assessments variably and sometimes inconsistently include the global warming potential that results from decommissioning the energy supplying facility, once it has reached its designed life-span. This includes the global warming potential of the process to return the power-supply site to greenfield status. For example, the process of hydroelectric dam removal is usually excluded as it is a rare practice with little practical data available. Dam removal however is becoming increasingly common as dams age. Larger dams, such as the Hoover Dam and the Three Gorges Dam, are intended to last "forever" with the aid of maintenance, a period that is not quantified. Therefore, decommissioning estimates are generally omitted for some energy sources, while other energy sources include a decommissioning phase in their assessments. Along with the other prominent values of the paper, the median value presented of


id: relationship-between-mathematics-and-physics-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_mathematics_and_physics-0.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between mathematics and physics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_mathematics_and_physics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:56.241240+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-mathematics-and-physics-20260505-0
summary:
The relationship between mathematics and physics has been a subject of study of philosophers, mathematicians and physicists since antiquity, and more recently also by historians and educators. Generally considered a relationship of great intimacy, mathematics has been described as "an essential tool for physics" and physics has been described as "a rich source of inspiration and insight in mathematics". Some of the oldest and most discussed themes are about the main differences between the two subjects, their mutual influence, the role of mathematical rigor in physics, and the problem of explaining the effectiveness of mathematics in physics. In his work Physics, one of the topics treated by Aristotle is about how the study carried out by mathematicians differs from that carried out by physicists. Considerations about mathematics being the language of nature can be found in the ideas of the Pythagoreans: the convictions that "Numbers rule the world" and "All is number", and two millennia later were also expressed by Galileo Galilei: "The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics". == Historical interplay == Before giving a mathematical proof for the formula for the volume of a sphere, Archimedes used physical reasoning to discover the solution (imagining


id: relationship-between-mathematics-and-physics-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_mathematics_and_physics-1.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between mathematics and physics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_mathematics_and_physics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:56.241240+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-mathematics-and-physics-20260505-0
summary:
Rigor is indispensable in pure mathematics. But many definitions and arguments found in the physics literature involve concepts and ideas that are not up to the standards of rigor in mathematics. For example, Freeman Dyson characterized quantum field theory as having two "faces". The outward face looked at nature and there the predictions of quantum field theory are exceptionally successful. The inward face looked at mathematical foundations and found inconsistency and mystery. The success of the physical theory comes despite its lack of rigorous mathematical backing. Some mathematicians, such as Arthur Jaffe and Frank Quinn, argue that non-rigorous mathematical work can sometimes bring benefits too. == Philosophical problems == Some of the problems considered in the philosophy of mathematics are the following: Explain the effectiveness of mathematics in the study of the physical world: "At this point an enigma presents itself which in all ages has agitated inquiring minds. How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?" —Albert Einstein, in Geometry and Experience (1921). Clearly delineate mathematics and physics: For some results or discoveries, it is difficult to say to


id: criticism-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:57.789406+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Criticism of science addresses problems within science in order to improve science as a whole and its role in society. Criticisms come from philosophy, from social movements like feminism, and from within science itself. The emerging field of metascience seeks to increase the quality of and efficiency of scientific research by improving the scientific process. == Philosophical critiques == Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend advanced the idea of epistemological anarchism, which holds that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge, and that the idea that science can or should operate according to universal and fixed rules is unrealistic, pernicious and detrimental to science itself. Feyerabend advocates a democratic society where science is treated as equal to other ideologies or social institutions such as religion, and education, or magic and mythology, and considers the dominance of science in society authoritarian and unjustified. He also contended (along with Imre Lakatos) that the demarcation problem of distinguishing science from pseudoscience on objective grounds is not possible and thus fatal to the notion of science running according to fixed, universal rules. Feyerabend also criticized science for not having evidence for its own philosophical


id: criticism-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:57.789406+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Reproducibility === The social sciences, such as social psychology, have long suffered from the problem of their studies being largely not reproducible. Now, medicine has come under similar pressures. In a phenomenon known as the replication crisis, journals are less likely to publish straight replication studies so it may be difficult to disprove results. Another result of publication bias is the Proteus phenomenon: early attempts to replicate results tend to contradict them. However, there are claims that this bias may be beneficial, allowing accurate meta-analysis with fewer publications. === Cognitive biases === Critics argue that the biggest bias within science is motivated reasoning, whereby scientists are more likely to accept evidence that supports their hypothesis and more likely to scrutinize findings that do not. Scientists do not practice pure induction but instead often come into science with preconceived ideas and often will, unconsciously or consciously, interpret observations to support their own hypotheses through confirmation bias. For example, scientists may re-run trials when they do not support a hypothesis but use results from the first trial when they do support their hypothesis. It is often argued that while each individual has cognitive biases, these biases are corrected for when scientific


id: criticism-of-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:07:57.789406+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The mass media face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate requires considerable expertise regarding the matter. Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may know little about other ones they are suddenly asked to cover. Many issues damage the relationship of science to the media and the use of science and scientific arguments by politicians. As a very broad generalisation, many politicians seek certainties and facts whilst scientists typically offer probabilities and caveats. However, politicians' ability to be heard in the mass media frequently distorts the scientific understanding by the public. Examples in Britain include the controversy over the MMR inoculation, and the 1988 forced resignation of a government minister, Edwina Currie, for revealing the high probability that battery eggs were contaminated with Salmonella. Some scientists and philosophers suggest that scientific theories are more or less shaped by the dominant political, economic, or cultural models of the time, even though the scientific community may claim to


id: academese-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academese-0.md
category: reference
title: Academese
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academese
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:00.060379+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academese-20260505-0
summary:
Academese is the unnecessary use of jargon in academia, particularly in academic writing in social science and humanities; it is contrasted with plain language. The term is often but not always pejorative, and occasionally can be used to refer to complex but necessary terminology. Critics of academese argue that it usually creates unnecessary difficulty in communication, with the harshest critics arguing this is intentional with writers aiming to impress the readers and hide the fact that they are not saying anything of substance. == Related concepts == In the context of medical sciences, a similar term, medicalese, exists; likewise, legal science jargon is called legalese. In the context of the English language, the term Engfish has also been used ("sounds like English but stinks like a fish"). Another related and highly pejorative term is academic bullshit. == History, examples of usage and criticism == The usage of the word in English has been traced to at least 1917, and is attributed to Will Durant, who in his Philosophy and the Social Problem defined it as an opposite of "plain language". Academic writing, particularly in the fields of art and literary criticism, was the subject of criticism by George Orwell in


id: against-method-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method-0.md
category: reference
title: Against Method
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:01.290497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: against-method-20260505-0
summary:
Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge is a 1975 book by Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. The central thesis of the book is that science should become an anarchic enterprise. In the context of the work, the term "anarchy" refers to epistemological anarchy, which does not remain within one single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would restrict scientific progress. The work is notable in the history and philosophy of science partially due to its detailed case study of Galileo's hypothesis that the earth rotates on its axis and has since become a staple reading in introduction to philosophy of science courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. Against Method contains many verbatim excerpts from Feyerabend's earlier papers including "Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism", "How to be a Good Empiricist: A Plea for Tolerance in Matters Epistemological", and "Problems of Empiricism, Part I." Because of this, Feyerabend claims that "[Against Method] is not a book, it is a collage." Later editions of Against Method included passages from Science in a Free Society. == Publication, Translations, and Editions == Feyerabend began writing Against Method in 1968 and it was originally released as a long paper


id: against-method-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method-1.md
category: reference
title: Against Method
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:01.290497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: against-method-20260505-0
summary:
=== Counterinduction === Feyerabend contends that for every methodological rule, there is a 'counter rule' – namely, a methodological rule that recommends the opposite of its counter – which also has value. As an example of this general hypothesis, Feyerabend defends 'counterinduction' as the counter rule to inductivism and "induction by falsification" as a valuable methodological rule. Counterinduction involves developing theories that are inconsistent with currently accepted empirical evidence, which is the opposite of the (then) commonly accepted rule that theories should be developed that are consistent with known facts. Feyerabend argues for counterinduction by showing that theories that conflict with known facts are useful for revealing 'natural interpretations' which must be made explicit so that they can be examined. Natural interpretations are interpretations of experience, expressed in language, that follow automatically and unconsciously from describing observations. After a theory has been accepted for a long period of time, it becomes habit to describe events or processes using certain concepts. Because, Feyerabend argues, observation underdetermines the ways we describe what we observe, theories that redescribe experience in new ways force us to make comparisons between old natural interpretations and new ones. This is the first step to evaluating the plausibility


id: against-method-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method-2.md
category: reference
title: Against Method
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:01.290497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: against-method-20260505-0
summary:
=== Galileo case study === The primary case study in Against Method is Galileo's hypothesis that the earth rotates on its axis. According to Feyerabend's reconstruction, Galileo did not justify this hypothesis by reference to known facts, nor did he offer an unfalsified conjecture that had more empirical content than its predecessor. Rather, Galileo's hypothesis would rationally have been considered to be false by the existing evidence at the time, and it is lower in empirical content than Aristotelian theory of motion. Moreover, Galileo did not provide arguments to justify his contention but instead used propaganda. According to the existing evidence in the early 17th century, the position that the earth rotates on its axis would have rightly been regarded as false. For example, Galileo's theory of the tides suggested by the motion of the earth was inaccurate and the differences "were big enough to be known even to the most bleary-eyed sailor." In addition, the motion of the earth on its axis leads to the wrong predictions of the relative brightness of Mars and Venus when measured with the naked eye. To correct for these mistakes, Galileo introduces new evidence through his telescope. However, the telescope was not theoretically


id: against-method-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method-3.md
category: reference
title: Against Method
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:01.290497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: against-method-20260505-0
summary:
=== Discovery/justification distinction === Herbert Feigl criticizes Feyerabend's earlier work, including the paper edition of Against Method, for conflating the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. According to this distinction, formulated by Hans Reichenbach and Karl Popper, there is no logic about how scientists develop scientific theories but there should be a logic of confirming or disconfirming scientific theories. Once this distinction is accepted, then Feyerabend's claim that 'anything goes' would be a truism and would not run against logical empiricism. Feyerabend's response in Against Method is to reject the validity of the discovery/justification distinction. He argues that while the distinction can be maintained abstractly, it does not find a "point of attack" in scientific practice. This is because the two contexts are not separated in different phases of scientific research but are always comingled. Discounting evidence, for example is often necessary for scientific discovery but is rejected when seeking justification. Justifying scientific theories has implications for what research is conducted and, therefore, questions about what is justified also affects the paths open to discovery. === Criticism of Lakatos === The first edition of Against Method contains a chapter devoted to critically discussing Lakatos' methodology


id: against-method-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method-4.md
category: reference
title: Against Method
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:01.290497+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: against-method-20260505-0
summary:
== Aftermath == Feyerabend responded to these criticisms in several follow-up publications, many of which he collected in Science in a Free Society. He was extremely frustrated by the quality of the reviews of Against Method, leading him to accuse them of illiteracy and a lack of competence. In his autobiography, he writes that he sometimes wishes that "he had never written that fucking book." This response led to Feyerabend's gradual removal from the academic community which also corresponded to changes of research topics in his work in the 1980s. == References == == Further reading == The first, 1970 edition, is available for download in pdf form from the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science (part of the University of Minnesota). Follow this link path: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science > 4. Analyses of Theories & Methods of Physics and Psychology. 1970. Editors: M. Radner and S. Winokur > Open Access > Under the "Whoops!" message click 'Download' From the resulting file '4_Theories&Methods.zip' you need the three Feyerabend sections, 4_2_1_Feyerabend.pdf, 4_2_2_Feyerabend.pdf, 4_2_3_Feyerabend.pdf and the immediate following article on A Picture Theory of Theory Meaning (sic) (4_3_Hanson.pdf) in order to get the complete set of footnotes. Discussion of


id: the-age-of-the-world-picture-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_the_World_Picture-0.md
category: reference
title: The Age of the World Picture
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_the_World_Picture
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:02.490744+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-age-of-the-world-picture-20260505-0
summary:
"The Age of the World Picture" or "The Age of the World View" (German: Die Zeit des Weltbildes) is a 1938 lecture by Martin Heidegger in which he addresses the metaphysical ground of modern science. It was published in the essay collection Off the Beaten Track in 1950. == English translations == The essay has been translated as "The Age of the World View" by Marjorie Grene (1951) and as "The Age of the World Picture" by William Lovitt (1977) and Julian Young (2002). == Critique == Sidonie Kellerer believes that Heidegger published the text to show his “inner resistance” after the mid-1930s against the Nazi regime and as evidence for his early refusal of National Socialism and his rejection of a modern ideology that resulted in the totalitarian system. Emphasizing the differences between the published text and the original lecture delivered in 1938, she thinks that the differences show "the artful falsifications" used by Heidegger in order to re-establish his reputation. == References == == External links == The Age of the World Picture: Hermeneutics and the Weltanschauung Theory The Age of the World-Picture is a Fine Thirty-Two (at the Time of Writing) The Age of the World Picture


id: anarcho-primitivism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism-0.md
category: reference
title: Anarcho-primitivism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:06.474180+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anarcho-primitivism-20260505-0
summary:
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of civilization and a branch of green anarchism that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, abandonment of large-scale organization and all technology other than prehistoric technology, and the dissolution of agriculture. Anarcho-primitivists critique the origins and alleged progress of the Industrial Revolution and industrial society. Most anarcho-primitivists advocate for a tribal-like way of life while some see an even simpler lifestyle as beneficial. According to anarcho-primitivists, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence during the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to coercion, social alienation, and social stratification. Anarcho-primitivism argues that civilization is at the root of societal and environmental problems. Primitivists also consider domestication, technology and language to cause social alienation from "authentic reality". As a result, they propose the abolition of civilization and a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. == Roots == The roots of primitivism lay in Enlightenment philosophy and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. The early-modern philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau blamed agriculture and cooperation for the development of social inequality and causing habitat destruction. In his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau depicted the state of nature as a "primitivist utopia"; however,


id: antiscience-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience-0.md
category: reference
title: Antiscience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:07.722110+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiscience-20260505-0
summary:
Antiscience is a set of attitudes and a form of anti-intellectualism that involves a rejection of science and the scientific method. People holding antiscientific views do not accept science as an objective method that can generate universal knowledge. Antiscience commonly manifests through rejection of scientific ideas such as climate change and evolution and the effectiveness of vaccination. It also includes pseudoscience, methods that claim to be scientific but reject the scientific method. Antiscience can lead to belief in false conspiracy theories and alternative medicine. Lack of trust in science has been linked to the promotion of political extremism, corruption and distrust in medical treatments. == History == In the early days of the Scientific Revolution, scientists such as Robert Boyle (1627–1691) found themselves in conflict with those such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who were skeptical of whether science was a satisfactory way to obtain genuine knowledge about the world. Hobbes' stance is regarded by Ian Shapiro as an antiscience position: In his Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics,...[published in 1656, Hobbes] distinguished 'demonstrable' fields, as 'those the construction of the subject whereof is in the power of the artist himself,' from 'indemonstrable' ones 'where the causes are to seek


id: antiscience-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience-1.md
category: reference
title: Antiscience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:07.722110+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiscience-20260505-0
summary:
The term "scientism", originating in science studies, was adopted and is used by sociologists and philosophers of science to describe the views, beliefs and behavior of strong supporters of applying ostensibly scientific concepts beyond its traditional disciplines. Specifically, scientism promotes science as the best or only objective means to determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, implying a cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations considered not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards. The word is commonly used in a pejorative sense, applying to individuals who seem to be treating science in a similar way to a religion. The term reductionism is occasionally used in a similarly pejorative way (as a more subtle attack on scientists). However, some scientists feel comfortable being labelled as reductionists, while agreeing that there might be conceptual and philosophical shortcomings of reductionism. However, non-reductionist (see Emergentism) views of science have been formulated in varied forms in several scientific fields like statistical physics, chaos theory, complexity theory, cybernetics, systems theory, systems biology, ecology, information theory, etc. Such fields tend to assume that strong interactions between units produce new phenomena in "higher" levels that cannot be accounted


id: antiscience-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience-2.md
category: reference
title: Antiscience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:07.722110+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiscience-20260505-0
summary:
Historically, antiscience first arose as a reaction against scientific materialism. The 18th century Enlightenment had ushered in "the ideal of a unified system of all the sciences", but there were those fearful of this notion, who "felt that constrictions of reason and science, of a single all-embracing system... were in some way constricting, an obstacle to their vision of the world, chains on their imagination or feeling". Antiscience then is a rejection of "the scientific model [or paradigm]... with its strong implication that only that which was quantifiable, or at any rate, measurable... was real". In this sense, it comprises a "critical attack upon the total claim of the new scientific method to dominate the entire field of human knowledge". However, scientific positivism (logical positivism) does not deny the reality of non-measurable phenomena, only that those phenomena should not be adequate to scientific investigation. Moreover, positivism, as a philosophical basis for the scientific method, is not consensual or even dominant in the scientific community (see philosophy of science). Recent developments and discussions around antiscience attitudes reveal how deeply intertwined these beliefs are with social, political, and psychological factors. A study published by Ohio State News on July 11, 2022, identified


id: antiscience-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience-3.md
category: reference
title: Antiscience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:07.722110+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiscience-20260505-0
summary:
=== Ecology and health sphere === Within the ecological and health spheres, Levins identifies a conflict "not between science and antiscience, but rather between different pathways for science and technology; between a commodified science-for-profit and a gentle science for humane goals; between the sciences of the smallest parts and the sciences of dynamic wholes... [he] offers proposals for a more holistic, integral approach to understanding and addressing environmental issues". These beliefs are also common within the scientific community, with for example, scientists being prominent in environmental campaigns warning of environmental dangers such as ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. In the medical sphere, patients and practitioners may choose to reject science and adopt a pseudoscientific approach to health problems. This can be both a practical and a conceptual shift and has attracted strong criticism: "therapeutic touch, a healing technique based upon the laying-on of hands, has found wide acceptance in the nursing profession despite its lack of scientific plausibility. Its acceptance is indicative of a broad antiscientific trend in nursing". Glazer also criticises the therapists and patients, "for abandoning the biological underpinnings of nursing and for misreading philosophy in the service of an antiscientific world-view". In contrast, Brian Martin criticized


id: antiscience-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience-4.md
category: reference
title: Antiscience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:07.722110+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiscience-20260505-0
summary:
== Bibliography == A Bullock & S Trombley [Eds.], The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, third edition, London: Harper Collins, 1999 Burger, P and Luckman, T, "The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise" in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966 Collins, Harry and Pinch, Trevor, The Golem. What everyone should know about science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993 Gross, Paul R and Norman Levitt, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994 Gerald Holton, Science and anti-science, Harvard University Press, 1993 ISBN 0674792998 Knorr-Cetina, Karin D, & Mulkay, Michael, Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science, Sage Publications Ltd, 1983 Knorr-Cetina, Karin D, Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge, Harvard University Press, 1999 Levins, R. "Ten propositions on science and antiscience" in Social Text, 46/47:101–111, 1996. Levins, R. "Touch Red," in Judy Kaplan an Linn Shapiro, eds., Red Diapers: Growing up in the Communist Left, U. of Illinois, 1998, pp. 257–266. Levins, R. "Dialectics and systems theory" in Science and Society 62(3):373–399, 1998. Levins, R. "The internal and external in explanatory theories", Science as Culture, 7(4):557–582, 1998. Levins, R. and Lopez C. "Toward an ecosocial


id: betrayers-of-the-truth-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayers_of_the_Truth-0.md
category: reference
title: Betrayers of the Truth
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayers_of_the_Truth
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:08.823295+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: betrayers-of-the-truth-20260505-0
summary:
Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science is a book by William Broad and Nicholas Wade, published in 1982 by Simon & Schuster in New York, and subsequently (1983) also by Century Publishing in London, and with a simplified subtitle as Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in Science by Oxford University Press in 1985. The book is a critique of some widely held beliefs about the nature of science and the scientific process. Broad and Wade argue that the conventional wisdom that science is a strictly logical process, with objectivity the essence of scientist's attitudes, errors being speedily corrected by rigorous peer scrutiny and experiment replication, is a mythical ideal. Our conclusion, in brief, is that science bears little resemblance to its conventional portrait. We believe that the logical structure discernible in scientific knowledge says nothing about the process by which the structure was built or the mentality of the builders. In the acquisition of knowledge, scientists are not guided by logic and objectivity alone, but also by such nonrational factors as rhetoric, propaganda, and personal prejudice. Scientists do not depend solely on rational thought, and have no monopoly on it. The authors


id: big-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Big science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:09.997499+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: big-science-20260505-0
summary:
Big science is a term used by scientists and historians of science to describe a series of changes in science which occurred in industrial nations during and after World War II, as scientific progress increasingly came to rely on large-scale projects usually funded by national governments or groups of governments. Individual or small group efforts, or small science, are still relevant today as theoretical results by individual authors may have a significant impact, but very often the empirical verification requires experiments using constructions, such as the Large Hadron Collider, costing between $5 and $10 billion. == Development == While science and technology have always been important to and driven by warfare, the increase in military funding of science following the second World War was on a scale wholly unprecedented. James Conant, in a 1941 letter to Chemical Engineering News, said that World War II "is a physicist's war rather than a chemist's," a phrase that was cemented in the vernacular in post-war discussion of the role that those scientists played in the development of new weapons and tools, notably the proximity fuse, radar, and the atomic bomb. The bulk of these last two activities took place in a new form


id: big-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Big science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:09.997499+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: big-science-20260505-0
summary:
When history looks at the 20th century, she will see science and technology as its theme; she will find in the monuments of Big Science—the huge rockets, the high-energy accelerators, the high-flux research reactors—symbols of our time just as surely as she finds in Notre Dame a symbol of the Middle Ages. ... We build our monuments in the name of scientific truth, they built theirs in the name of religious truth; we use our Big Science to add to our country's prestige, they used their churches for their cities' prestige; we build to placate what ex-President Eisenhower suggested could become a dominant scientific caste, they built to please the priests of Isis and Osiris. Weinberg's article addressed criticisms of the way in which the era of Big Science could negatively affect science — such as astronomer Fred Hoyle's contention that excessive money for science would only make science fat and lazy — and encouraged, in the end, limiting Big Science only to the national laboratory system and preventing its incursion into the university system. Since Weinberg's article there have been many historical and sociological studies on the effects of Big Science both in and out of the laboratory. Soon


id: conquest-of-abundance-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Abundance-0.md
category: reference
title: Conquest of Abundance
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Abundance
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:11.113483+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: conquest-of-abundance-20260505-0
summary:
Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction versus the Richness of Being is the last book by the Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, published posthumously by the University of Chicago Press in 1999. It is edited by Bert Terpstra and includes a foreword from Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend, Feyerabend's 4th and final wife. The book was uncompleted due to Feyerabend's death in 1994 and was written to fulfill a promise made to Borrini-Feyerabend. The unfinished manuscript was published alongside several other previously published papers that engaged with the core themes of the book. == Translations == Conquest of Abundance has been translated into four languages: Spanish translation by Radamés Molina and César Mora: La conquista de la abundancia: La abstracción frente a la riqueza del ser, Paidós: Barcelona and Buenos Aires 2001, 336 pp. Italian translation by P. Adamo: Conquista dell'abbondanza: Storie dello scontro fra astrazione e ricchezza dell'essere, Raffaello Cortina: Milan 2002, 350 pp. German translation by Volker Böhnigk and Rainer Noske: Die Vernichitung der Vielfalt: Ein Bericht, Peter Engelmann (ed.), Passagen: Vienna 2005, 344 pp. Portuguese translation by Cecília Prada and Marcelo Rouanet: A Conquista da Abundância, Unisinos: São Leopoldo 2005. == Content == Conquest of Abundance contains two


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-0.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
Criticism of the theory of relativity of Albert Einstein was mainly expressed in the early years after its publication in the early twentieth century, on scientific, pseudoscientific, philosophical, or ideological bases. Though some of these criticisms had the support of reputable scientists, Einstein's theory of relativity is now accepted by the scientific community. Reasons for criticism of the theory of relativity have included alternative theories, rejection of the abstract-mathematical method, and alleged errors of the theory. Antisemitic objections to Einstein's Jewish heritage also occasionally played a role in these objections. There are still some critics of relativity today, but their opinions are not shared by the majority in the scientific community. == Special relativity == === Relativity principle versus electromagnetic worldview === Around the end of the 19th century, the view was widespread that all forces in nature are of electromagnetic origin (the "electromagnetic worldview"), especially in the works of Joseph Larmor (1897) and Wilhelm Wien (1900). This was apparently confirmed by the experiments of Walter Kaufmann (1901–1903), who measured an increase of the mass of a body with velocity which was consistent with the hypothesis that the mass was generated by its electromagnetic field. Max Abraham (1902) subsequently sketched


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-1.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Claimed experimental refutations === Kaufmann–Bucherer–Neumann experiments: To conclusively decide between the theories of Abraham and Lorentz, Kaufmann repeated his experiments in 1905 with improved accuracy. However, in the meantime the theoretical situation had changed. Alfred Bucherer and Paul Langevin (1904) developed another model, in which the electron is contracted in the line of motion, and dilated in the transverse direction, so that the volume remains constant. While Kaufmann was still evaluating his experiments, Einstein published his theory of special relativity. Eventually, Kaufmann published his results in December 1905 and argued that they are in agreement with Abraham's theory and require rejection of the "basic assumption of Lorentz and Einstein" (the relativity principle). Lorentz reacted with the phrase "I am at the end of my Latin", while Einstein did not mention those experiments before 1908. Yet, others started to criticize the experiments. Max Planck (1906) alluded to inconsistencies in the theoretical interpretation of the data, and Adolf Bestelmeyer (1906) introduced new techniques, which (especially in the area of low velocities) gave different results and which cast doubts on Kaufmann's methods. Therefore, Bucherer (1908) conducted new experiments and arrived at the conclusion that they confirm the mass formula of relativity and


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-2.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Acceleration in special relativity === It was also claimed that special relativity cannot handle acceleration, which would lead to contradictions in some situations. However, this assessment is not correct, since acceleration actually can be described in the framework of special relativity (see Acceleration (special relativity), Proper reference frame (flat spacetime), Hyperbolic motion, Rindler coordinates, Born coordinates). Paradoxes relying on insufficient understanding of these facts were discovered in the early years of relativity. For example, Max Born (1909) tried to combine the concept of rigid bodies with special relativity. That this model was insufficient was shown by Paul Ehrenfest (1909), who demonstrated that a rotating rigid body would, according to Born's definition, undergo a contraction of the circumference without contraction of the radius, which is impossible (Ehrenfest paradox). Max von Laue (1911) showed that rigid bodies cannot exist in special relativity, since the propagation of signals cannot exceed the speed of light, so an accelerating and rotating body will undergo deformations. Paul Langevin and von Laue showed that the twin paradox can be completely resolved by consideration of acceleration in special relativity. If two twins move away from each other, and one of them is accelerating and coming back to


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-3.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Aether and absolute space === Many physicists (like Hendrik Lorentz, Oliver Lodge, Albert Abraham Michelson, Edmund Taylor Whittaker, Harry Bateman, Ebenezer Cunningham, Charles Émile Picard, Paul Painlevé) were uncomfortable with the rejection of the aether, and preferred to interpret the Lorentz transformation based on the existence of a preferred frame of reference, as in the aether-based theories of Lorentz, Larmor, and Poincaré. However, the idea of an aether hidden from any observation was not supported by the mainstream scientific community, therefore the aether theory of Lorentz and Poincaré was superseded by Einstein's special relativity which was subsequently formulated in the framework of four-dimensional spacetime by Minkowski. Others such as Herbert E. Ives argued that it might be possible to experimentally determine the motion of such an aether, but it was never found despite numerous experimental tests of Lorentz invariance (see tests of special relativity). Also attempts to introduce some sort of relativistic aether (consistent with relativity) into modern physics such as by Einstein on the basis of general relativity (1920), or by Paul Dirac in relation to quantum mechanics (1951), were not supported by the scientific community (see Luminiferous aether#End of aether?). In his Nobel lecture, George F. Smoot


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-4.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== General covariance === Einstein emphasized the importance of general covariance for the development of general relativity, and took the position that the general covariance of his 1915 theory of gravity ensured implementation of a generalized relativity principle. This view was challenged by Erich Kretschmann (1917), who argued that every theory of space and time (even including Newtonian dynamics) can be formulated in a covariant way, if additional parameters are included, and thus general covariance of a theory would in itself be insufficient to implement a generalized relativity principle. Although Einstein (1918) agreed with that argument, he also countered that Newtonian mechanics in general covariant form would be too complicated for practical uses. Although it is now understood that Einstein's response to Kretschmann was mistaken (subsequent papers showed that such a theory would still be usable), another argument can be made in favor of general covariance: it is a natural way to express the equivalence principle, i.e., the equivalence in the description of a free-falling observer and an observer at rest, and thus it is more convenient to use general covariance together with general relativity, rather than with Newtonian mechanics. Connected with this, also the question of absolute motion was


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-5.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
== Philosophical criticism == The consequences of relativity, such as the change of ordinary concepts of space and time, as well as the introduction of non-Euclidean geometry in general relativity, were criticized by some philosophers of different philosophical schools. Many philosophical critics had insufficient knowledge of the mathematical and formal basis of relativity, which led to the criticisms often missing the heart of the matter. For example, relativity was misinterpreted as some form of relativism. However, this is misleading as it was emphasized by Einstein or Planck. Although space and time did become relative in Einstein's theories, and inertial frames of reference are handled on equal footing, on the other hand, the theory makes natural laws invariant—examples are the constancy of the speed of light and the covariance of Maxwell's equations. Consequently, Felix Klein (1910) called it the "invariant theory of the Lorentz group" instead of relativity theory, and Einstein (who reportedly used expressions like "absolute theory") sympathized with this expression as well. Critical responses to relativity were also expressed by proponents of neo-Kantianism (Paul Natorp, Bruno Bauch etc.), and phenomenology (Oskar Becker, Moritz Geiger etc.). While some of them only rejected the philosophical consequences, others rejected also the physical


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-6.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Academic and non-academic criticism === Some academic scientists, especially experimental physicists such as the Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, as well as Ernst Gehrcke, Stjepan Mohorovičić, Rudolf Tomaschek and others criticized the increasing abstraction and mathematization of modern physics, especially in the form of relativity theory, and later quantum mechanics. It was seen as a tendency to abstract theory building, connected with the loss of intuitive "common sense". In fact, relativity was the first theory, in which the inadequacy of the "illustrative" classical physics was thought to have been demonstrated. Some of Einstein's critics ignored these developments and tried to revitalize older theories, such as aether drag models or emission theories (see "Alternative Theories"). However, those qualitative models were never sufficiently advanced to compete with the success of the precise experimental predictions and explanatory powers of the modern theories. Additionally, there was also a great rivalry between experimental and theoretical physicists, as regards the professorial activities and the occupation of chairs at German universities. The opinions clashed at the "Bad Nauheim debates" in 1920 between Einstein and (among others) Lenard, which attracted much public attention. In addition, there were many critics (with or without physical training) whose


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-7.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
While the theory of relativity was enthusiastically studied in Japan and China, it faced criticism in nations with older scientific establishments. Shortly before and during World War I, there appeared some nationalistically motivated criticisms of relativity and modern physics. For example, French theoretical physicists Pierre Duhem regarded relativity as the product of the "too formal and abstract" German spirit, which was in conflict with "common sense". In Germany the Jewish ancestry of some leading relativity proponents such as Einstein and Minkowski made them targets of racially minded critics, although many of Einstein's German critics did not show evidence of such motives. The engineer Paul Weyland, a known nationalistic agitator, arranged the first public meeting against relativity in Berlin in 1919. While Lenard and Stark were also known for their nationalistic opinions, they declined to participate in Weyland's rallies, and Weyland's campaign eventually fizzled out due to a lack of prominent speakers. Lenard and others instead responded to Einstein's challenge to his professional critics to debate his theories at the scientific conference held annually at Bad Nauheim. While Einstein's critics, assuming without any real justification that Einstein was behind the activities of the German press in promoting the triumph of relativity,


id: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity-8.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of the theory of relativity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_relativity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:12.267518+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-the-theory-of-relativity-20260505-0
summary:
=== A Hundred Authors Against Einstein === A collection of various criticisms can be found in the book Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein (A Hundred Authors Against Einstein), published in 1931. It contains very short texts from 28 authors, and excerpts from the publications of another 19 authors. The rest consists of a list that also includes people who only for some time were opposed to relativity. The most targeted one is space-time followed by the speed of light as a constant and the relativity of simultaneity, with other concepts following. Besides philosophic objections (mostly based on Kantianism), also some alleged elementary failures of the theory were included; however, as some commented, those failures were due to the authors' misunderstanding of relativity. For example, Hans Reichenbach wrote a report in the entertainment section of a newspaper, describing the book as "a magnificent collection of naive mistakes" and as "unintended droll literature". Albert von Brunn interpreted the book as a pamphlet "of such deplorable impotence as occurring elsewhere only in politics" and "a fallback into the 16th and 17th centuries" and concluded “it can only be hoped that German science will not again be embarrassed by such sad scribblings”. Jacob Epstein quoted


id: nalin-de-silva-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalin_de_Silva-0.md
category: reference
title: Nalin de Silva
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalin_de_Silva
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:13.355471+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nalin-de-silva-20260505-0
summary:
Thakurartha Devadithya Guardiyawasam Lindamulage Nalin Kumar de Silva (Sinhala: නලින් ද සිල්වා; 20 October 1944 – 1 May 2024) was a Sri Lankan philosopher, polymath and a political analyst. He was the former Sri Lankan ambassador in Myanmar. He was a professor in the department of mathematics, a member of University Grant Commission and the dean of the faculty of science at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. De Silva openly stated that the so-called 'objective scientific method' was a lie. In June 2011 he stated that information regarding the presence of arsenic in water claiming that the cause of Rajarata chronic kidney disease had been given to him by the god Natha. The Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, an organisation in which De Silva claimed lifelong membership, has said that they consider it "extremely unfortunate that the Dean of a Science Faculty should make it his publicly stated aim to run down science and bring it into disrepute." However the presence of arsenic was verified in water and vegetation, and the source was found to be agrochemical fertilizers. == Early life and education == Nalin de Silva was born on 20 October 1944 in Kovilagodella, Panadura,


id: nalin-de-silva-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalin_de_Silva-1.md
category: reference
title: Nalin de Silva
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalin_de_Silva
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:13.355471+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nalin-de-silva-20260505-0
summary:
The merit (pina) in this regard should go to the "samyak drshtika devivaru" who first told that Arsenic is present in Rajarata drinking water and later revealed to us that Arsenic which is not found naturally in Sri Lanka has found its way to the wells and the wewas in Rajarata through Agrochemicals. It's simply like this. We can see professors. Professors cannot see Arsenic. We cannot see gods. Gods can see Arsenic. I like this because there is certain symmetry in it... I know very well that the so-called objective scientific method is a lie. Paranagama too has stood by De Silva and defended their methods. She said that they had first been told of the arsenic by the wife of "a university lecturer who had developed her mental faculties to communicate with a higher being", but then used scientific methods to deduce it. The Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science released a statement in July 2011 questioning the validity of the findings and the process and individuals involved in the study. Their statement laid the blame for the scandal firmly on Prof Nalin De Silva, and they called for other scientists and researchers in the group


id: decline-effect-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_effect-0.md
category: reference
title: Decline effect
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_effect
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:14.435769+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: decline-effect-20260505-0
summary:
The decline effect may occur when scientific claims receive decreasing support over time. The term was first described by parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine in the 1930s to describe the disappearance of extrasensory perception (ESP) psychic experiments conducted by Rhine over time. More generally, Cronbach, in his review article "Beyond the two disciplines of scientific psychology" referred to the phenomenon as "generalizations decay." The term was once again used in a 2010 article by Jonah Lehrer published in The New Yorker. == Examples == In his article, Lehrer gives several examples where the decline effect is allegedly showing. In the first example, the development of second generation anti-psychotic drugs, reveals that the first tests had demonstrated a dramatic decrease in the subjects' psychiatric symptoms. However, after repeating tests this effect declined and in the end it was not possible to document that these drugs had any better effect than the first generation anti-psychotics. A well-known example of the decline effect can be seen in early experiments conducted by Professor Jonathan Schooler examining the effects of verbalization on non-verbal cognition. In an initial series of studies Schooler found evidence that verbal rehearsal of previously seen faces or colors markedly impaired subsequent recognition.


id: decline-effect-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_effect-1.md
category: reference
title: Decline effect
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_effect
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:14.435769+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: decline-effect-20260505-0
summary:
If the true effect size is small, but the initial study has low power (i.e., small sample size), then the null hypothesis will only be rejected if the effect estimate is far from zero, as illustrated in the figure. This means that subsequent replications, with larger sample sizes, will discover effect estimates that are closer to the true effect, which is closer to zero than the initial estimate. === Publication bias === Another reason may be the publication bias: scientists and scientific journals prefer to publish positive results of experiments and tests over null results, especially with new ideas. As a result, the journals may refuse to publish papers that do not prove that the idea works. Later, when an idea is accepted, journals may refuse to publish papers that support it. === Experimenter effect === In the debate that followed the original article, Lehrer answered some of the questions by claiming that scientific observations might be shaped by one's expectations and desires, sometimes even unconsciously, thus creating a bias towards the desired outcome. This is known as the experimenter effect. For example, in parapsychology, the "experimenter effect" is used to explain how an experimenter who does not believe in


id: decline-effect-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_effect-2.md
category: reference
title: Decline effect
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_effect
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:14.435769+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: decline-effect-20260505-0
summary:
== Criticism == One concern that some have expressed is that Lehrer's article may further fuel people's skepticism about academic science. It was long believed that Lehrer's article originally hinted that academic science is not as rigid as people would like to believe. It is especially the article's ending that has upset many scientists and led to broad criticism of the article. Lehrer ends the article by saying: "Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe." This has upset scientists in the scientific community. Many have written back to Lehrer and questioned his agenda. Some have characterized Lehrer's assertion as "absurd", while others claiming that Lehrer is trying to use publication bias as an excuse for not believing in anything. As an answer to the many comments Lehrer received upon publishing the article, Lehrer published a comment on his blog, The Frontal Cortex, where he denied that he was implicitly questioning science and scientific methods in any way. In the same blog comment, Lehrer stated that he was not questioning fundamental


id: the-engine-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Engine-0.md
category: reference
title: The Engine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Engine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:15.613141+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-engine-20260505-0
summary:
The Engine is a fictional device for writing books described in the 1726 satirical novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Eric A. Weiss suggests that it is an early reference to a device resembling what is now known as artificial intelligence. The Engine is a device that generates permutations of word sets. It is found at the Academy of Projectors in Lagado on the flying island of Laputa. It is described thus by Swift: “... Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.” He then led me to the frame, about the sides, whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superfices was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with paper pasted on them; and on


id: farewell-to-reason-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_to_Reason-0.md
category: reference
title: Farewell to Reason
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_to_Reason
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:16.753445+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: farewell-to-reason-20260505-0
summary:
Farewell to Reason is a 1987 book by the Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. The book includes some reprinted essays published in other venues and was published by Verso Books, which also published Against Method and Science in a Free Society. The primary goal of the book is to trace the historical origins of "rationalism" and argue for a version of relativism and cultural diversity. == Translations == Farewell to Reason has been translated into numerous languages: Spanish translation by José R. de Rivera: Adios a la razón, Tecnos: Madrid 1984, 300 pp. French translation by Baudouin Jurdant: Adieu à la raison, Seuil: Paris 1989, 373 pp. German translation by Jürgen Blasius: Irrwege der Vernunft, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main 1989, 471 pp. Reprinted 1990. Italian translation by Marcello D'Agostino: Addio alla ragione, Armando: Roma 1990, 320 pp. Japanese translation: Risei yo saraba, Hoseidaigakushuppankyoku: Tokyo 1992, 34+399 pp. Portuguese translation: Adeus à razão, UNESP: São Paulo 2010, 399 pp. The book was reprinted in 1988, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1999. A 2nd edition was released including a new preface by Feyerabend. == Content == Farewell to Reason begins with a lengthy chapter on relativism. He distinguishes it from absolutism,


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-0.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
Paul Karl Feyerabend (; FY-ur-ah-bent; German: [ˈfaɪɐˌʔaːbm̩t]; January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian philosopher best known for his work in the philosophy of science. He started his academic career as lecturer in the philosophy of science at the University of Bristol (1955–1958); afterward, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for three decades (1958–1989). At various points in his life, he held joint appointments at the University College London (1967–1970), the London School of Economics (1967), the FU Berlin (1968), Yale University (1969), the University of Auckland (1972, 1975), the University of Sussex (1974), and the ETH Zurich (1980–1990). He gave lectures and lecture series at the University of Minnesota (1958–1962), Stanford University (1967), the University of Kassel (1977), and the University of Trento (1992). Feyerabend's most famous work is Against Method (1975), wherein he argues that there are no universally valid methodological rules for scientific inquiry. He also wrote on topics related to the politics of science in several essays and in his book Science in a Free Society (1978). Feyerabend's later works include Wissenschaft als Kunst (Science as Art) (1984), Farewell to Reason (1987), Three Dialogues on Knowledge (1991), and


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-1.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
=== Nazi Occupation of Austria and World War II === Feyerabend's parents were both welcoming of the Anschluss. His mother was entranced by Hitler's voice and demeanor and his father was similarly impressed by Hitler's charisma and later joined the Nazi Party. Feyerabend himself was unmoved by the Anschluss or World War II, which he saw as an inconvenience that got in the way of reading and astronomy. Feyerabend was in the Hitler Youth as a part of compulsory policies and sometimes rebelled, praising the British or claiming he had to leave a meeting to attend Mass, and sometimes conformed, bringing in members who missed meetings. After the war, Feyerabend recounts that he "did not accept the aims of Nazism" and that he "hardly knew what they were." Later, he wondered why he did not see the occupation and war as moral problems. They were just "inconveniences" and his reactions—recalled with uncommon honesty—were suggested by accidental moods and circumstances rather than by a "well defined outlook". “Looking back, I notice a rather unstable combination of contrariness and a tendency to conform. A critical judgement or a feeling of unease could be silenced or turned into its opposite by an almost


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-2.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
After getting wounded in action, Feyerabend was hospitalized in and around Weimar where he spent more than a year recovering and where he witnessed the end of the war and Soviet occupation. The mayor of Apolda gave him a job in the education sector and he, then still on two crutches, worked in public entertainment including writing speeches, dialogues, and plays. Later, at the music academy in Weimar, he was granted a scholarship and food stamps and took lessons in Italian, harmony, singing, enunciation, and piano. He also joined the Cultural Association for the Democratic Reform of Germany, the only association he ever joined. As Feyerabend moved back to Vienna, he was permitted to pursue a PhD at the University of Vienna. He originally intended to study physics, astronomy, and mathematics (while continuing to practice singing) but decided to study history and sociology to understand his wartime experiences. He became dissatisfied, however, and soon transferred to physics and studied astronomy, especially observational astronomy and perturbation theory, as well as differential equations, nuclear physics, algebra, and tensor analysis. He took classes with Hans Thirring, Hans Leo Przibram, and Felix Ehrenhaft. He also had a small role in a film directed by


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-3.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
Feyerabend's primary academic appointment was at the University of California at Berkeley. While he was hired there in 1958, he spent part of his first years in the United States at the University of Minnesota, working closely with Herbert Feigl and Paul Meehl after rejecting a job offer from Cornell University. In California, he met and befriended Rudolf Carnap, whom he described as a "wonderful person, gentle, understanding, not at all as dry as would appear from some (not all) of his writings", and Alfred Tarski, among others. He also married for a third time. At Berkeley, Feyerabend mostly lectured on general philosophy and philosophy of science. During the student revolution, he also lectured on revolutionaries (Lenin, Mao, Mill, and Cohn-Bendit). He often invited students and outsiders, including Lenny Bruce and Malcolm X, to guest lecture on a variety of issues including gay rights, racism, and witchcraft. He supported the students but did not support student strikes. John Searle attempted to get Feyerabend fired from his position for hosting lectures off-campus. As Feyerabend was highly marketable in academia and personally restless, he kept accepting and leaving university appointments while holding more 'stable' positions in Berkeley and London. For instance, starting


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-4.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
Feyerabend had become more and more aware of the limitation of theories – no matter how well conceived – compared with the detailed, idiosyncratic issues encountered in the course of scientific practice. The "poverty of abstract philosophical reasoning" became one of the "feelings" that motivated him to pull together the collage of observations and ideas that he had conceived for the project with Imre Lakatos, whose first edition was published in 1975 as Against Method. Feyerabend added to it some outrageous passages and terms, including about an 'anarchistic theory of knowledge', for the sake of provocation and in memory of Imre. He mostly wanted to encourage attention to scientific practice and common sense rather than to the empty 'clarifications' of logicians, but his views were not appreciated by the intellectuals who were then directing traffic in the philosophical community, who tended to isolate him. Against Method also suggested that "approaches not tied to scientific institutions" may have value, and that scientists should work under the control of the larger public-- views not appreciated by all scientists either. Some gave him the dubious fame of 'worst enemy of science'. Moreover, Feyerabend was aware that "scientific jargon" – read literally, world for


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-5.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
==== Kraft Circle, hidden variables, and no-go proofs ==== During Feyerabend's PhD, he retrospectively describes himself as a "raving positivist." He was the head organizer of the 'Kraft circle' which discussed many issues in the foundations of physics and on the nature of basic statements, which was the topic of his dissertation. In 1948, Feyerabend wrote a short paper in response to Schrödinger's paper "On the Peculiarity of the Scientific Worldview." Here, Feyerabend argued that Schrödinger's demand that scientific theories present are Anschaulich (i.e., intuitively visualizable) is too restrictive. Using the example of the development of Bohr's atomic theory, he claims that theories that are originally unvisualizable develop new ways of making phenomena visualizable. His unpublished paper, "Philosophers and the Physicists," argues for a naturalistic understanding of philosophy where philosophy is "petrified" without physics and physics is "liable to become dogmatic" without philosophy. Feyerabend's early career is also defined by a focus on technical issues within the philosophy of quantum mechanics. Feyerabend argues that von Neumann's 'no-go' proof only shows that the Copenhagen interpretation is consistent with the fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics but it does not logically follow from them. Therefore, causal theories of quantum mechanics (like Bohmian mechanics)


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-6.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
==== Empiricism, pluralism, and incommensurability ==== Much of Feyerabend's work from the late 1950s until the late 1960s was devoted to methodological issues in science. Specifically, Feyerabend offers several criticisms of empiricism and offers his own brand of theoretical pluralism. One such criticism concerns the distinction between observational and theoretical terms. If an observational term is understood as one whose acceptance can be determined by immediate perception, then what counts as 'observational' or 'theoretical' changes throughout history as our patterns of habituation change and our ability to directly perceive entities evolve. On another definition, observation terms are those that can be known directly and with certainty whereas theoretical terms are hypothetical. Feyerabend argues that all statements are hypothetical, since the act of observation requires theories to justify its veridicality. To replace empiricism, Feyerabend advances theoretical pluralism as a methodological rule for scientific progress. On this view, proliferating new theories increases the testability of previous theories that might be well-established by observations. This is because some tests cannot be unearthed without the invention of an alternative theory. One example Feyerabend uses repeatedly is Brownian motion which was not a test of the second law of classical thermodynamics. To become a test,


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-7.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
==== Departure from Popper ==== Beginning in at least the mid-to-late 1960s, Feyerabend distanced himself from Popper both professionally and intellectually. There is a great amount of controversy about the source and nature of Feyerabend's distancing from Popper. Joseph Agassi claims that it was caused by the student revolutions at Berkeley, which somehow promoted Feyerabend's move towards epistemological anarchism defended in the 1970s. Feyerabend's friend Roy Edgley claims that Feyerabend became distanced from Popper as early as the mid-1950s, when he went to Bristol and then Berkeley and was more influenced by Thomas Kuhn and the Marxism of David Bohm. Feyerabend's first paper that explicitly repudiates Popper is his two-part paper on Niels Bohr's conception of complementarity. According to Popper, Bohr and his followers accepted complementarity as a consequence of accepting positivism. Popper was the founder of the theory of falsification, which Feyerabend was very critical of. He meant that no science is perfect, and therefore cannot be proven false. Once one repudiates positivism as a philosophical doctrine, Popper claims, one undermines the principle of complementarity. Against this, Feyerabend claims that Bohr was a pluralist who attempting to pursue a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics (the Bohr-Kramer-Slater conjecture) but abandoned


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-8.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
In Feyerabend's later work, especially in Conquest of Abundance, Feyerabend articulates a metaphysical theory in which the universe around us is 'abundant' in the sense that it allows for many realities to be accepted simultaneously. According to Feyerabend, the world, or 'Being' as he calls it, is pliable enough that it can change in accordance with the ways in which we causally engage with the world. In laboratories, for example, scientists do not simply passively observe phenomena but actively intervene to create phenomena with the help of various techniques. This makes entities like 'electrons' or 'genes' real because they can be stably used in a life that one may live. Since our choices about what lives we should live depend on our ethics and our desires, what is 'real' depends on what plays a role in a life that we think is worth living. Feyerabend calls this 'Aristotle's principle' as he believes that Aristotle held the same view. Being, therefore, is pliable enough to be manipulated and transformed to make many realities that conform to different ways of living in the world. However, not all realities are possible. Being resists our attempts to live with it in certain ways and


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-9.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
==== Expertise in a free society ==== Starting from the argument that a historical universal scientific method does not exist, Feyerabend argues that science does not deserve its privileged status in western society. Since scientific points of view do not arise from using a universal method which guarantees high quality conclusions, he thought that science has no intrinsic claim to intellectual authority over other intellectual traditions like religion or myths. Based on these arguments, Feyerabend defended the idea that science should be separated from the state in the same way that religion and state are separated in a modern secular society He envisioned a free society in which "all traditions have equal rights and equal access to the centres of power." For example, parents should be able to determine the ideological context of their children's education, instead of having limited options because of scientific standards. According to Feyerabend, science should also be subjected to democratic control: not only should the subjects that are investigated by scientists be determined by popular election, scientific assumptions and conclusions should also be supervised by committees of lay people. He thought that citizens should use their own principles when making decisions about these matters. He


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-10.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
=== In philosophy === While the immediate academic reception of Feyerabend's most read text, Against Method, was largely negative, Feyerabend is recognized today as one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th Century. Feyerabend's arguments against a universal method have become largely accepted, and are often taken for granted by many philosophers of science in the 21st century. His arguments for pluralism moved the topic into the mainstream and his use of historical case studies were influential in the development of the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) as an independent discipline. His arguments against reductionism were also influential on John Dupré, Cliff Hooker, and Alan Chalmers. He was also one of the intellectual precursors of social constructivism and science and technology studies, although he participated little in either field during his lifetime. === Outside philosophy === Feyerabend's analysis of the Galileo affair, where he claims the Church was "on the right track" for censuring Galileo on moral grounds and were empirically correct, was quoted with approval by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) in a speech in 1990. In his autobiography, Feyerabend recalls a conversation with Stephen Jay Gould, in 1991, when Gould stated that Against


id: paul-feyerabend-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend-11.md
category: reference
title: Paul Feyerabend
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:21.037257+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-feyerabend-20260505-0
summary:
=== Individual articles === Hentschel, Klaus. 1985. "On Feyerabend's Version of 'Mach's Theory of Research and its Relation to Einstein." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 16: 387–394. Zahar, Elie. 1982. "Feyerabend on Observation and Empirical Content." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33(4): 397–409. Couvalis, George. 1988. "Feyerabend and Laymon on Brownian Motion." Philosophy of Science, 415–421. Thomason, Neil. 1994. "The Power of ARCHED Hypotheses: Feyerabend's Galileo as a Closet Rationalist." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 45(1), 255–264. Preston, John. 1995. "Frictionless Philosophy: Paul Feyerabend and Relativism." History of European Ideas, 963–968. Benvenuto, Sergio. 1995. "Paul K. Feyerabend (1924-1994) - Search for Abundance", Telos, 102: 107-114. Van Fraassen, Bas. 1997. "Sola Experientia?—Feyerabend's Refutation of Classical Empiricism." Philosophy of Science, 64(S4), S385-S395. Farrell, Robert. 2000. "Will the Popperian Feyerabend Please Step Forward: Pluralistic, Popperian Themes in the Philosophy of Paul Feyerabend." International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 14(3), 257–266. Oberheim, Eric. 2005. "On the Historical Origins of the Contemporary Notion of Incommensurability: Paul Feyerabend's Assault on Conceptual Conservativism." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 36(2), 363–390. Brown, Matthew. 2009. "Models and Perspectives on Stage: Remarks on Giere's Scientific Perspectivism." Studies


id: flatline-b-o-b-song-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatline_(B.o.B_song)-0.md
category: reference
title: Flatline (B.o.B song)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatline_(B.o.B_song)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:22.165575+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: flatline-b-o-b-song-20260505-0
summary:
"Flatline" is a song by American rapper B.o.B, initially released on SoundCloud in January 2016. It is a diss track aimed at physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, whom he had gotten into an argument with on Twitter, over B.o.B's stated belief that the Earth is flat. The lyrics to the song refer to science as a cult. == Reception == Vulture music critic Nate Jones commented, "It's called 'Flatline,' which is both a reference to the horizon of the Earth and also a fitting description of B.o.B's career." Following criticism, B.o.B removed the song from his SoundCloud account, but it survives on YouTube and other sites where it was reposted. In April 2016, B.o.B included the song on a mixtape titled E.A.R.T.H. (Educational Avatar Reality Training Habitat), but the song lyrics had been rewritten as titled as pt. 2. In response to B.o.B's Twitter arguments with Neil deGrasse Tyson, the latter's nephew, an amateur rapper using the stage name Ellect, released a dis track of his own titled "Flat to Fact" which echoes several of his uncle's talking points and features Tyson himself providing spoken word interjections. == References ==


id: funding-bias-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_bias-0.md
category: reference
title: Funding bias
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_bias
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:23.325584+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: funding-bias-20260505-0
summary:
Funding bias, also known as sponsorship bias, funding outcome bias, funding publication bias, and funding effect, is a tendency of a scientific study to support the interests of the study's financial sponsor. This phenomenon is recognized sufficiently that researchers undertake studies to examine bias in past published studies. Funding bias has been associated, in particular, with research into chemical toxicity, tobacco, and pharmaceutical drugs. It is an instance of experimenter's bias. == Causes == === Human nature === The psychology text Influence: Science and Practice describes the act of reciprocity as a trait in which a person feels obliged to return favors. This trait is embodied in all human cultures. Human nature may influence even the most ethical researchers to be affected by their sponsors, although they may genuinely deny it. === Misconduct === Scientific malpractice involving shoddy research or data manipulation does occur in rare instances. Often, however, the quality of manufacturers' studies are at least as good as studies that were not funded by a special interest. Therefore, bias usually occurs for other reasons. === Predetermined conclusion === Research results can be selected or discarded to support a predetermined conclusion. The tobacco industry, for example, would publish their


id: bill-gaede-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gaede-0.md
category: reference
title: Bill Gaede
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gaede
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:24.628009+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bill-gaede-20260505-0
summary:
Guillermo "Bill" Gaede (born November 19, 1952) is an Argentine engineer and programmer who is best known for Cold War industrial spying on behalf of Cuba, Iran, and China conducted while he worked at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel Corporation (Intel). While at AMD, he provided the Cuban government with technical information from the semiconductor industry, which the Cubans passed on to the Soviet bloc, primarily to the Soviet Union and East Germany. In 1992, Gaede turned himself over to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which placed him in contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI began working with Gaede in a counter-espionage operation intended to penetrate Cuban intelligence using his contacts on the island. During this time, Gaede obtained work at Intel Corp. in Chandler, Arizona. Intel Security discovered the nature of his activities at AMD and terminated him, but not before Gaede filmed Intel's state-of-the-art Pentium process from home. Gaede fled with this technology to South America, where he allegedly sold the information to Chinese and Iranian representatives. Upon his return to the United States, Gaede was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted. He was convicted and sentenced to 33 months in prison in June 1996,


id: bill-gaede-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gaede-1.md
category: reference
title: Bill Gaede
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gaede
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:24.628009+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bill-gaede-20260505-0
summary:
== The Industrial Espionage Act of 1996 == During Gaede's prosecution, AMD, the FBI, the U.S. Attorney, and all affected parties complained that there were no laws to prosecute cases such as his. Shortly after Gaede's plea, the United States Congress enacted the Industrial Espionage Act of 1996, legislation that would soon be used to prosecute activities of the type Gaede was involved in. == Charges against him == National Stolen Property Act – US Code Title 18 Section 2314 Mail Fraud – US Code Title 18 Section 1341 == Accusations against José Cohen Valdés and the Cuban government == Gaede created some controversy in the Cuban exile community in July 2009 by publicly accusing Miami businessman and ex-DGI (Cuban Intelligence Directorate) Captain José (Pepe) Cohen Valdés of working under the supervision of the Cuban government while on the island. Gaede claims that the American intelligence agencies never recruited Cohen because they did not believe Cohen to be credible. Gaede further accuses Cohen of deliberately misinforming the American intelligence agencies by channeling false information through him to the CIA and of betraying both him and their comrade in arms, Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, sentenced to 25 years in prison for espionage


id: infinite-energy-magazine-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Energy_(magazine)-0.md
category: reference
title: Infinite Energy (magazine)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Energy_(magazine)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:25.762897+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: infinite-energy-magazine-20260505-0
summary:
Infinite Energy: The Magazine of New Energy Technology, more commonly referred to simply as Infinite Energy, is a bi-monthly magazine published in New Hampshire that details theories and experiments concerning alternative energy, new science and new physics. The phrase "new energy" in the subtitle is a euphemism for perpetual motion. The magazine was founded by Eugene Mallove, who was its editor-in-chief, and is owned by the non-profit New Energy Foundation. It was established in 1994 as Cold Fusion magazine and changed its name in March 1995. Topics of interest include "new hydrogen physics," also called cold fusion; vacuum energy, or zero point energy; and so-called "environmental energy" which they define as the attempt to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, for example with a perpetual motion machine Archived March 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. This is done in pursuit of the founder's commitment to "unearthing new sources of energy and new paradigms in science." The magazine has also published articles and book reviews that are critical of the Big Bang theory that describes the origin of the universe. The magazine had a print run of 3,000, and is available on U.S. newsstands. The issues ranged in size from 48


id: interrogating-ethnography-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrogating_Ethnography-0.md
category: reference
title: Interrogating Ethnography
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrogating_Ethnography
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:26.875616+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: interrogating-ethnography-20260505-0
summary:
Interrogating Ethnography: Why Evidence Matters is a 2017 book by Steven Lubet of Northwestern University Law School, critiquing methods used in the discipline of ethnography. Writing in Contexts, Syid Ali of Long Island University called it "an essential critique of the most public-facing product sociology has to offer." Interrogating Ethnography, which criticizes ethnographers for the practice of changing the name of the area they study, is part of the Replication crisis. But it is largely a critique of ethnography methodology when it relies on the narratives of interviewees with no attempt to verify assertions of fact. Lubet began the project of writing this book after reading and publishing a notable critique of the use of evidence Alice Goffman's controversial 2014 book On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, That critique led him to read and attempt to verify "more than 50 ethnographic monographs and an equivalent number of articles. Focusing on sociologists’ studies of American cities... (and checking) facts that could be documented — or not... by consulting experts and pulling public records." According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the book "has touched off a debate about what ethnographers might learn from legal scholars, and vice versa.


id: luddite-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-0.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:28.028262+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids. Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials. The Luddite movement began in Nottingham, England, and spread to the North West and Yorkshire between 1811 and 1816. Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites. Over time, the term has been used to refer to those opposed to the introduction of new technologies. == Etymology == The name Luddite ( LUD-ite) occurs in the movement's writings as early as 1811. The movement utilised the eponym of Ned Ludd, an apocryphal apprentice who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779 after being criticised and instructed to change his method. The name often appears as Captain, General, or King Ludd. Different versions of the legends


id: luddite-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-1.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:28.028262+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
The Luddite movement emerged during the harsh economic climate of the Napoleonic Wars, which saw a rise in difficult working conditions in the new textile factories paired with decreasing birth rates and a rise in education standards in England and Wales. Luddites were not opposed to the use of machines per se (many were skilled operators in the textile industry); they attacked manufacturers who were trying to circumvent standard labour practices of the time. The movement began in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, on 11 March 1811 and spread rapidly throughout England over the following two years. The British economy suffered greatly in 1810 to 1812, especially in terms of high unemployment and inflation. The causes included the high cost of the wars with Napoleon, Napoleon's Continental System of economic warfare, and escalating conflict with the United States. The crisis led to widespread protest and violence, but the middle classes and upper classes strongly supported the government, which used the army to suppress all working-class unrest, especially the Luddite movement. The Luddites met at night on the moors surrounding industrial towns to practise military-like drills and manoeuvres. Their main areas of operation began in Nottinghamshire in November 1811, followed by the West Riding


id: luddite-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-2.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:28.028262+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
== Legacy == The Luddites (specifically the croppers, those who operated cropping machinery) are memorialised in the Yorkshire-area folk song "The Cropper Lads", which has been recorded by artists including Lou Killen and Maddy Prior. The croppers were very highly skilled and highly paid before the introduction of cropping machinery, and thus had more to lose and more reason to rebel against the factory owners' use of machinery. Another traditional song which celebrates the Luddites is the song "The Triumph of General Ludd", which was recorded by Chumbawamba for their 1988 album English Rebel Songs. == Modern usage == Nowadays, the term "Luddite" is often used to describe someone who either opposes or is resistant to the use of new technologies. In 1956, during a British Parliamentary debate, a Labour spokesman said that "organised workers were by no means wedded to a 'Luddite Philosophy'." By 2006, the term neo-Luddism had emerged to describe opposition to many forms of technology. According to a manifesto drawn up by the Second Luddite Congress (April 1996; Barnesville, Ohio), neo-Luddism is "a leaderless movement of passive resistance to consumerism and the increasingly bizarre and frightening technologies of the Computer Age". The term "Luddite fallacy" is


id: luddite-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-3.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:28.028262+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == Anderson, Gary M.; Tollison, Robert D. (1986). "Luddism as cartel enforcement". Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE)/Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft. 142 (4): 727–738. JSTOR 40750927. Archer, John E. (2000). "Chapter 4: Industrial Protest". Social unrest and popular protest in England, 1780–1840. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57656-7. Bailey, Brian J. (1998). The Luddite Rebellion. NYU Press. ISBN 0-8147-1335-1. Darvall, F. (1934). Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England. Oxford University Press. Dinwiddy, John (1979). "Luddism and politics in the northern counties". Social History. 4 (1): 33–63. doi:10.1080/03071027908567438. Fox, Nicols (2003). Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite History in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives. Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-860-5. Grint, Keith; Woolgar, Steve (1997). "The Luddites: Diablo ex Machina". The machine at work: technology, work, and organization. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-7456-0924-9. Haywood, Ian (2006). "Unruly People: The Spectacular Riot". Bloody Romanticism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 181–222. Horn, Jeff (2015). "Machine-Breaking and the 'Threat from Below' in Great Britain and France during the Early Industrial Revolution". Crowd actions in Britain and France from the middle ages to the modern world. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 165–178. Linebaugh, Peter (2012). Ned Ludd & Queen Mab: machine-breaking, romanticism, and the several


id: paul-marmet-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marmet-0.md
category: reference
title: Paul Marmet
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marmet
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:29.169390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-marmet-20260505-0
summary:
Paul Marmet, (20 May 1932 – 20 May 2005) was a Canadian physicist, inventor, author, and professor at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, who served as the President of the Canadian Association of Physicists. Marmet is notable for developing a novel high-resolution electron velocity selector, a scientific instrument which became widely used by scientists around the world. == Inventions == Early in his career, Marmet developed a high-resolution electron selector with his mentor Larkin Kerwin, a scientific instrument for studying ionic electronic states. Along with a mass spectrometer Marmet developed, the novel instrument had an energy resolution superior to then-available instruments and has been used widely by scientists studying electron scattering, which led to the discovery of enhanced vibrational excitation in nitrogen and of Feshbach resonances. == Research == Using the Marmet-Kerwin electron selector, Marmet and his research group discovered atomic and molecular states excited by electron impact but not by photons, such as doubly excited states that disobey spectroscopic selection rules. The group also found negative-ion resonances in which the incident electron temporarily attaches to the target atom or molecule. == Career == After receiving his physics BSc in 1956 and DSc in 1960 from Laval University and


id: brian-martin-social-scientist-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Martin_(social_scientist)-0.md
category: reference
title: Brian Martin (social scientist)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Martin_(social_scientist)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:30.299420+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brian-martin-social-scientist-20260505-0
summary:
Brian Martin (born 1947) is a social scientist in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in NSW, Australia. He was appointed a professor at the university in 2007, and in 2017 was appointed emeritus professor. His work is in the fields of peace research, scientific controversies, science and technology studies, sociology, political science, media studies, law, journalism, freedom of speech, education and corrupted institutions, as well as research on whistleblowing and dissent in the context of science. Martin was president of Whistleblowers Australia from 1996 to 1999 and remains their International Director. He has been criticized by medical professionals and public health advocates for promoting the disproven oral polio vaccine AIDS hypothesis and supporting vaccine hesitancy in the context of his work. Martin has spoken at a British Science Association Festival of Science, and testified at the Australian Federal Senate's Inquiry into Academic Freedom. The crustacean Polycheles martini was named after him. == Biography == Martin was born in the United States in 1947 and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He earned a BA in physics at Rice University in Texas in 1969, and, seeking to avoid


id: brian-martin-social-scientist-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Martin_(social_scientist)-1.md
category: reference
title: Brian Martin (social scientist)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Martin_(social_scientist)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:30.299420+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brian-martin-social-scientist-20260505-0
summary:
=== Vaccines === Martin has offered support for the discredited proposal that oral polio vaccine caused AIDS. The hypothesis first came to notice in Rolling Stone magazine by way of journalist Curtis and AIDS activist Elswood in 1992, and was later further promoted by the journalist/writer Hooper and Martin, with Hooper crediting Martin for giving the OPV-AIDS link hypothesis "further publicity and credibility". Martin disputes the claim that he has been a supporter of the hypothesis, instead saying that he has "never argued in favour of the OPV theory", but has instead stated "that it was and remains worthy of consideration yet in many ways has been unfairly dismissed". A 2016 article in The Australian described Martin's 2010 paper as claiming "that medical researchers had colluded to silence the theory that the AIDS virus was caused by contaminated polio vaccines in 1950s Africa." Immunologist and research scientist Greg Woods refuted Martin's posit on the Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease stating Martin's 2014 paper in The Conversation on the theory behind the cancer "misrepresents the state of the science". In 2014, Martin published a paper characterising criticism of Andrew Wakefield's discredited claims about vaccines and autism as "suppression of vaccination dissent".


id: miracles-insane-clown-posse-song-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_(Insane_Clown_Posse_song)-0.md
category: reference
title: Miracles (Insane Clown Posse song)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_(Insane_Clown_Posse_song)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:08:31.403442+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: miracles-insane-clown-posse-song-20260505-0
summary:
"Miracles" is a song written by the American hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse and record producer Mike E. Clark. It was released as a single from the duo's 2009 album Bang! Pow! Boom!. A music video was produced for the 2010 reissue of the album, dubbed the "Nuclear Edition". The song's lyrics focus on things experienced in everyday life, displaying an appreciation for them, and perceiving them as miraculous and outside of the laws of physics. The song sparked a number of Internet memes, and was parodied on Saturday Night Live and by Lonely Island in the song "Incredible Thoughts". == Music and lyrics == Inspiration for the song's lyrics came via the Internet generation and group members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope raising children. In response to both modern jadedness and their children experiencing wonders of the world for the first time, the group wanted to write a song about natural phenomena humans experience in life which often go unacknowledged. The closing lyrics encourage listeners to take time to look at the world and "appreciate the things that life has to offer". According to Violent J, "What's a shame is how people walk around blind to it


