# kb

id: quantum-mind-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind-0.md
category: reference
title: Quantum mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:03.281485+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-mind-20260505-0
summary:
The quantum mind or quantum consciousness is a group of hypotheses proposing that local physical laws and interactions from classical mechanics or connections between neurons alone cannot explain consciousness. These hypotheses posit instead that quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as entanglement and superposition that cause nonlocalized quantum effects, interacting in smaller features of the brain than cells, may play an important part in the brain's function and could explain critical aspects of consciousness. These scientific hypotheses are as yet unvalidated, and they can overlap with quantum mysticism. == History == Eugene Wigner developed the idea that quantum mechanics has something to do with the workings of the mind. He proposed that the wave function collapses due to its interaction with consciousness. Freeman Dyson argued that "mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every electron". Other contemporary physicists and philosophers considered these arguments unconvincing. Victor Stenger characterized quantum consciousness as a "myth" having "no scientific basis" that "should take its place along with gods, unicorns and dragons". David Chalmers argues against quantum consciousness. He instead discusses how quantum mechanics may relate to dualistic consciousness. Chalmers is skeptical that any new physics can resolve the hard


id: quantum-mind-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind-1.md
category: reference
title: Quantum mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:03.281485+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-mind-20260505-0
summary:
Theoretical physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff collaborated to produce the theory known as "orchestrated objective reduction" (Orch-OR). Penrose and Hameroff initially developed their ideas separately and later collaborated to produce Orch-OR in the early 1990s. They reviewed and updated their theory in 2013. Penrose's argument stemmed from Gödel's incompleteness theorems. In his first book on consciousness, The Emperor's New Mind (1989), he argued that while a formal system cannot prove its own consistency, Gödel's unprovable results are provable by human mathematicians. Penrose took this to mean that human mathematicians are not formal proof systems and not running a computable algorithm. According to Bringsjord and Xiao, this line of reasoning is based on fallacious equivocation on the meaning of computation. In the same book, Penrose wrote: "One might speculate, however, that somewhere deep in the brain, cells are to be found of single quantum sensitivity. If this proves to be the case, then quantum mechanics will be significantly involved in brain activity." Penrose determined that wave function collapse was the only possible physical basis for a non-computable process. Dissatisfied with its randomness, he proposed a new form of wave function collapse that occurs in isolation and called it objective


id: quantum-mind-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind-2.md
category: reference
title: Quantum mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:03.281485+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-mind-20260505-0
summary:
A lot of what the brain does you could do on a computer. I'm not saying that all the brain's action is completely different from what you do on a computer. I am claiming that the actions of consciousness are something different. I'm not saying that consciousness is beyond physics, either—although I'm saying that it's beyond the physics we know now.... My claim is that there has to be something in physics that we don't yet understand, which is very important, and which is of a noncomputational character. It's not specific to our brains; it's out there, in the physical world. But it usually plays a totally insignificant role. It would have to be in the bridge between quantum and classical levels of behavior—that is, where quantum measurement comes in. === Umezawa, Vitiello, Freeman === Hiroomi Umezawa and collaborators proposed a quantum field theory of memory storage. Giuseppe Vitiello and Walter Freeman proposed a dialog model of the mind. This dialog takes place between the classical and the quantum parts of the brain. Their quantum field theory models of brain dynamics are fundamentally different from the Penrose–Hameroff theory. ==== Quantum brain dynamics ==== As described by Harald Atmanspacher, "Since quantum


id: quantum-mind-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind-3.md
category: reference
title: Quantum mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:03.281485+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-mind-20260505-0
summary:
=== Catecholaminergic neuron electron transport (CNET) === CNET is a hypothesized neural signaling mechanism in catecholaminergic neurons that would use quantum mechanical electron transport. The hypothesis is based in part on the observation by many independent researchers that electron tunneling occurs in ferritin, an iron storage protein that is prevalent in those neurons, at room temperature and ambient conditions. The hypothesized function of this mechanism is to assist in action selection, but the mechanism itself would be capable of integrating millions of cognitive and sensory neural signals using a physical mechanism associated with strong electron-electron interactions. Each tunneling event would involve a collapse of an electron wave function, but the collapse would be incidental to the physical effect created by strong electron-electron interactions. CNET predicted a number of physical properties of these neurons that have been subsequently observed experimentally, such as electron tunneling in substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) tissue and the presence of disordered arrays of ferritin in SNc tissue. The hypothesis also predicted that disordered ferritin arrays like those found in SNc tissue should be capable of supporting long-range electron transport and providing a switching or routing function, both of which have also been subsequently observed. Another prediction


id: quantum-mind-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind-4.md
category: reference
title: Quantum mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:03.281485+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-mind-20260505-0
summary:
=== Conceptual problems === The idea that a quantum effect is necessary for consciousness to function is still in the realm of philosophy. Penrose proposes that it is necessary, but other theories of consciousness do not indicate that it is needed. For example, Daniel Dennett proposed a theory called multiple drafts model, which doesn't indicate that quantum effects are needed, in his 1991 book Consciousness Explained. A philosophical argument on either side is not a scientific proof, although philosophical analysis can indicate key differences in the types of models and show what type of experimental differences might be observed. But since there is no clear consensus among philosophers, there is no conceptual support that a quantum mind theory is needed. A possible conceptual approach is to use quantum mechanics as an analogy to understand a different field of study like consciousness, without expecting that the laws of quantum physics will apply. An example of this approach is the idea of Schrödinger's cat. Erwin Schrödinger described how one could, in principle, create entanglement of a large-scale system by making it dependent on an elementary particle in a superposition. He proposed a scenario with a cat in a locked steel chamber, wherein


id: quantum-mind-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind-5.md
category: reference
title: Quantum mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:03.281485+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-mind-20260505-0
summary:
The problem with trying to use quantum mechanics in the action of the brain is that if it were a matter of quantum nerve signals, these nerve signals would disturb the rest of the material in the brain, to the extent that the quantum coherence would get lost very quickly. You couldn't even attempt to build a quantum computer out of ordinary nerve signals, because they're just too big and in an environment that's too disorganized. Ordinary nerve signals have to be treated classically. But if you go down to the level of the microtubules, then there's an extremely good chance that you can get quantum-level activity inside them. For my picture, I need this quantum-level activity in the microtubules; the activity has to be a large-scale thing that goes not just from one microtubule to the next but from one nerve cell to the next, across large areas of the brain. We need some kind of coherent activity of a quantum nature which is weakly coupled to the computational activity that Hameroff argues is taking place along the microtubules. There are various avenues of attack. One is directly on the physics, on quantum theory, and there are certain experiments


id: karl-h-pribram-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram-0.md
category: reference
title: Karl H. Pribram
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:04.515998+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: karl-h-pribram-20260505-0
summary:
Karl Harry Pribram ([ˈpr̝̊iːbram]) (February 25, 1919 – January 19, 2015) was an American-Austrian researcher in the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, neuropsychology, holonomic brain theory, and holographic consciousness. He was a professor at Georgetown University and an emeritus professor at Stanford University at the time of his death. Before moving to Georgetown, he was the James P. and Anna King Distinguished Professor at Radford University. He was best known for his work on the holonomic brain theory. == Major Contributions == === Cognitive revolution in psychology === Plans and the Structure of Behavior (1960), co-written with George Armitage Miller and Eugene Galanter, is widely credited as a seminal work in the development of the field of cognitive psychology. This work fueled the cognitive revolution, which established cognitive psychology as the dominant trend in psychology, replacing behaviorism. === Emotional processes and the limbic system === In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pribram became "recognized for pioneering research defining the boundaries of the limbic system." Through more than 50 surgical experiments, Pribram's laboratory was able to establish that the limbic system, governing emotions, also interacted with the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex, governing personality, decision making, and social


id: karl-h-pribram-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram-1.md
category: reference
title: Karl H. Pribram
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:04.515998+00:00
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parent: karl-h-pribram-20260505-0
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=== Private practice and Yerkes === In the 1940s, Pribram became one of the first 300 board-certified neurosurgeons in the world after receiving his MD from University of Chicago at the age of 22. During his education and residency, he studied under or collaborated with such luminaries as Anton Carlson, Ralph Gerard, Percival Bailey, and Warren McCullock. At Chicago Memorial Hospital Pribram was the first resident under Paul Bucy, the pioneer in the study of the temporal lobe, which later influenced Pribram's discoveries in that field. Bucy arranged for Pribram to complete his residency with Eric Oldberg, the last of Harvey Cushing's residents who received individual training by Cushing. Throughout his life, Pribram would engage in pioneering work on the definition of the limbic system, the relationship of the frontal cortex to the limbic system, the sensory-specific association cortex of the parietal and temporal lobes, and the classical motor cortex of the human brain. During his first ten years of residency and as a practicing brain surgeon in Memphis, TN, and Jacksonville, FL, Pribram became concerned about the then-accepted practice of lobotomy and set out to discover the true function of the frontal lobes, which was unknown at that time.


id: karl-h-pribram-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram-2.md
category: reference
title: Karl H. Pribram
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:04.515998+00:00
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parent: karl-h-pribram-20260505-0
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=== Stanford University (1959-1989) === After his tenure at Yale, Pribram moved to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. For the next 30 years he taught neurophysiology and physiological psychology at Stanford with joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry (Medical School Faculty) and of Psychology (Arts and Sciences Faculty). During this time, Pribram pioneered the field of neuropsychology, leading groundbreaking research into the interrelations of the brain, behavior, and cognition. At Stanford, a part-time secretary, Barbara Honegger, filed a complaint alleging that Pribram had "denied [her] a job rank she was entitled to" while further alleging that Pribram had "struck her in the head." Pribram was placed on temporary probation by Stanford, while Honegger received a parting out-of-court settlement from the school. While a professor at Stanford, with joint appointments in the departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, Pribram was honored with a Lifetime Grant from the US Office of Naval Research as well as a Lifetime Research Career Award from the National Institutes of Health. Upon becoming emeritus at Stanford University, Pribram accepted the position of the James P. and Anna King Distinguished Professor at Radford University and, in 1989, was appointed Eminent


id: karl-h-pribram-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram-3.md
category: reference
title: Karl H. Pribram
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:04.515998+00:00
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parent: karl-h-pribram-20260505-0
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== Selected books == Hamburg, D. A., Pribram, K. H., and Stunkard, A. J. (Eds.) (1970) Perception and Its Disorders. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. Hyden, H., Lorenz, K., Magoun, H.W., Penfield, W., and Pribram, K.H. (Eds) (1969) On the Biology of Learning. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. King, J. S., and Pribram, K.H., (Eds.) (1995) Scale in Conscious Experience: Is the Brain Too Important to be Left to Specialists to Study?, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. ISBN 0-8058-2178-3 Miller, G. A., Galanter, E., and Pribram, K. H. (1960) Plans and the Structure of Behavior. New York: Henry Holt, 1960. (Russian trans; also in Japanese, German, Spanish, Italian.) ISBN 0-03-010075-5 Isaacson, R. L., and Pribram, K. H. (Eds.) (1975) The Hippocampus, Volumes I and II. New York: Plenum. ISBN 0-306-37535-4 Isaacson, R. L., and Pribram, K. H. (Eds.) (1986) The Hippocampus, Volumes III and IV. New York: Plenum. Pribram, K. H., and Broadbent, D. (Eds.) (1970) Biology of Memory. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-564350-0 Pribram, K. H., and Gill, M. M. (1976) Freud's `Project' Re-Assessed: Preface to Contemporary Cognitive Theory and Neuropsychology. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02569-2 Pribram, K.H., and King, J.S. (Eds.) (1996) Learning as


id: david-bohm-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm-0.md
category: reference
title: David Bohm
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:05.696760+00:00
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parent: david-bohm-20260505-0
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David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American physicist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century and who contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind. Among his many contributions to physics is his causal and deterministic interpretation of quantum theory known as De Broglie–Bohm theory. Bohm advanced the view that quantum physics meant that the old Cartesian model of reality—that there are two kinds of substance, the mental and the physical, that somehow interact—was too limited. To complement it, he developed a mathematical and physical theory of "implicate" and "explicate" order. He also believed that the brain, at the cellular level, works according to the mathematics of some quantum effects, and postulated that thought is distributed and non-localised just as quantum entities are. Bohm's main concern was with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which according to Bohm is never static or complete. Bohm warned of the dangers of rampant reason and technology, advocating instead the need for genuine supportive dialogue, which he claimed could bridge and unify conflicting and


id: david-bohm-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm-1.md
category: reference
title: David Bohm
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:05.696760+00:00
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parent: david-bohm-20260505-0
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During his early period, Bohm made a number of significant contributions to physics, particularly quantum mechanics and relativity theory. As a postgraduate at Berkeley, he developed a theory of plasmas, discovering the electron phenomenon known as Bohm diffusion. His first book, Quantum Theory, published in 1951, was well received by Einstein, among others. But Bohm became dissatisfied with the orthodox interpretation of quantum theory he wrote about in that book. Starting from the realization that the WKB approximation of quantum mechanics leads to deterministic equations and convinced that a mere approximation could not turn a probabilistic theory into a deterministic theory, he doubted the inevitability of the conventional approach to quantum mechanics. Bohm's aim was not to set out a deterministic, mechanical viewpoint but to show that it was possible to attribute properties to an underlying reality, in contrast to the conventional approach. He began to develop his own interpretation (the De Broglie–Bohm theory, also called the pilot wave theory), the predictions of which agreed perfectly with the non-deterministic quantum theory. He initially called his approach a hidden variable theory, but he later called it ontological theory, reflecting his view that a stochastic process underlying the phenomena described by his


id: david-bohm-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm-2.md
category: reference
title: David Bohm
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:05.696760+00:00
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=== Consciousness and thought === In addition to his scientific work, Bohm was deeply interested in exploring the nature of consciousness, with particular attention to the role of thought as it relates to attention, motivation, and conflict in the individual and in society. Those concerns were a natural extension of his earlier interest in Marxist ideology and Hegelian philosophy. His views were brought into sharper focus through extensive interactions with the philosopher, speaker, and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti, beginning in 1961. Their collaboration lasted a quarter of a century, and their recorded dialogues were published in several volumes. Bohm's prolonged involvement with the philosophy of Krishnamurti was regarded somewhat skeptically by some of his scientific peers. An examination in 2017 of the relationship between the two men presents it in a more positive light and shows that Bohm's work in the psychological field was complementary to and compatible with his contributions to theoretical physics. The mature expression of Bohm's views in the psychological field was presented in a seminar conducted in 1990 at the Oak Grove School, founded by Krishnamurti in Ojai, California. It was one of a series of seminars held by Bohm at Oak Grove School, and it was


id: david-bohm-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm-3.md
category: reference
title: David Bohm
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:05.696760+00:00
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== Later life == Bohm continued his work in quantum physics after his retirement, in 1987. His final work, the posthumously published The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory (1993), resulted from a decades-long collaboration with Basil Hiley. He also spoke to audiences across Europe and North America on the importance of dialogue as a form of sociotherapy, a concept he borrowed from London psychiatrist and practitioner of Group Analysis Patrick de Maré, and he had a series of meetings with the Dalai Lama. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990. Near the end of his life, Bohm began to experience a recurrence of the depression that he had suffered earlier in life. He was admitted to the Maudsley Hospital in South London on 10 May 1991. His condition worsened and it was decided that the only treatment that might help him was electroconvulsive therapy. Bohm's wife consulted psychiatrist David Shainberg, Bohm's longtime friend and collaborator, who agreed that electroconvulsive treatments were probably his only option. Bohm showed improvement from the treatments and was released on 29 August, but his depression returned and was treated with medication. On the day he died, Bohm said: "You


id: david-bohm-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm-4.md
category: reference
title: David Bohm
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:05.696760+00:00
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The David Bohm Society The Bohm Krishnamurti Project: Exploring the Legacy of the David Bohm and Jiddu Krishnamurti Relationship David Bohm's ideas about Dialogue the David_Bohm_Hub. Includes compilations of David Bohm's life and work in form of texts, audio, video, and pictures Lifework of David Bohm: River of Truth at the Wayback Machine (archived 25 January 2021): Article by Will Keepin (PDF-version at the Wayback Machine (archived 22 February 2016)) Interview with David Bohm provided and conducted by F. David Peat along with John Briggs, first issued in Omni magazine, January 1987 Archive of papers at Birkbeck College relating to David Bohm and David Bohm at the National Archives David Bohm at the Mathematics Genealogy Project 1979 Audio Interview with David Bohm by Martin Sherwin at Voices of the Manhattan Project The Bohm Documentary by David Peat and Paul Howard (in production) The Best David Bohm Interview about "The Nature of Things" by David Suzuki 26 May 1979 Oral History interview transcript with David Bohm on 8 May 1981, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives – interview conducted by Lillian Hoddeson in Edgware, London, England Oral History interview transcript with David Bohm on 6 June 1986, American


id: david-chalmers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers-0.md
category: reference
title: David Chalmers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:06.849858+00:00
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parent: david-chalmers-20260505-0
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David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist, specializing in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University (NYU), as well as co-director of NYU's Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness (along with Ned Block). In 2006, he was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2013, he was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Chalmers is best known for formulating the hard problem of consciousness, and for popularizing the philosophical zombie thought experiment. Chalmers and David Bourget co-founded PhilPapers; a database of journal articles for philosophers. == Early life and education == David Chalmers was born in Sydney, New South Wales, and subsequently grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, where he attended Unley High School. As a child, he experienced synesthesia. He began coding and playing computer games at the age of 10 on a PDP-10 at a medical center. He also performed exceptionally in mathematics, and secured a bronze medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad. When Chalmers was 13, he read Douglas Hofstadter's 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach, which


id: david-chalmers-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers-1.md
category: reference
title: David Chalmers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:06.849858+00:00
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parent: david-chalmers-20260505-0
summary:
Chalmers is best known for formulating what he calls the "hard problem of consciousness," in both his 1995 paper "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" and his 1996 book The Conscious Mind. He makes a distinction between "easy" problems of consciousness, such as explaining object discrimination or verbal reports, and the single hard problem, which could be stated "why does the feeling which accompanies awareness of sensory information exist at all?" The essential difference between the (cognitive) easy problems and the (phenomenal) hard problem is that the former are at least theoretically answerable via the dominant strategy in the philosophy of mind: physicalism. Chalmers argues for an "explanatory gap" from the objective to the subjective, and criticizes physicalist explanations of mental experience, making him a dualist. Chalmers characterizes his view as "naturalistic dualism": naturalistic because he believes mental states supervene "naturally" on physical systems (such as brains); dualist because he believes mental states are ontologically distinct from and not reducible to physical systems. He has also characterized his view by more traditional formulations such as property dualism. In support of this, Chalmers is famous for his commitment to the logical (though, not natural) possibility of philosophical zombies. These zombies


id: david-chalmers-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers-2.md
category: reference
title: David Chalmers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:06.849858+00:00
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parent: david-chalmers-20260505-0
summary:
==== Two-dimensional semantics ==== Chalmers disagrees with Kripke, and direct reference theorists in general. He thinks that there are two kinds of intension of a natural kind term, a stance called two-dimensionalism. For example, the statement "Water is H2O" expresses two distinct propositions, often referred to as a primary intension and a secondary intension, which together form its meaning. The primary intension of a word or sentence is its sense, i.e., is the idea or method by which we find its referent. The primary intension of "water" might be a description, such as "the substance with water-like properties". The entity identified by this intension could vary in different hypothetical worlds. In the twin Earth thought experiment, for example, inhabitants might use "water" to mean their equivalent of water, even if its chemical composition is not H2O. Thus, for that world, "water" does not refer to H2O. The secondary intension of "water" is whatever "water" refers to in this world. When considered according to its secondary intension, water means H2O in every world. Through this concept, Chalmers provides a way to explain how reference is determined by distinguishing between epistemic possibilities (primary intension) and metaphysical necessities (secondary intension), ensuring that the


id: the-emperor-s-new-mind-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind-0.md
category: reference
title: The Emperor's New Mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:08.018764+00:00
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parent: the-emperor-s-new-mind-20260505-0
summary:
The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics is a 1989 book by the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose that posits a quantum mind theory. Penrose argues that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine, which includes a digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness. The collapse of the quantum wavefunction is seen as playing an important role in brain function. Most of the book is spent reviewing, for the scientifically-minded lay-reader, a plethora of interrelated subjects such as Newtonian physics, special and general relativity, the philosophy and limitations of mathematics, quantum physics, cosmology, and the nature of time. Penrose intermittently describes how each of these bears on his developing theme: that consciousness is not "algorithmic". Only the later portions of the book address the thesis directly. == Overview == Penrose states that his ideas on the nature of consciousness are speculative, and his thesis is considered erroneous by some experts in the fields of philosophy, computer science, and robotics. The Emperor's New Mind attacks the claims of artificial intelligence using the physics of computing: Penrose notes


id: endophysics-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endophysics-0.md
category: reference
title: Endophysics
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endophysics
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:09.182403+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: endophysics-20260505-0
summary:
The term endophysics (lit. “physics from within”) was coined by the American physicist David Finkelstein in a letter to the German biochemist Otto E. Rössler, who originally came up with the concept. It refers to the study of how observations are affected and limited by the observer being within the universe. This is in contrast with "exophysics," which assumes a system observed from the “outside”. == See also == Physics Internal measurement (This notion is very similar to endophysics.) == References == R. J. Boskovich, De spacio et tempore, ut a nobis cognoscuntur, partial English translation in: J. M. Child (Ed.), A Theory of Natural Philosophy, Open Court (1922) and MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1966, pp. 203–205. T. Toffoli, The role of the observer in uniform systems, in: G. J. Klir (Ed.), Applied General Systems Research, Recent Developments and Trends, Plenum Press, New York, London, 1978, pp. 395–400. K. Svozil, Connections between deviations from Lorentz transformation and relativistic energy-momentum relation, Europhysics Letters 2 (1986) 83–85. O. E. Rössler, Endophysics, in: J. L. Casti, A. Karlquist (Eds.), Real Brains, Artificial Minds, North-Holland, New York, 1987, p. 25. O. E. Rössler, Endophysics. Die Welt des inneren Beobachters, Merwe Verlag, Berlin, 1992, with


id: epistemological-letters-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_Letters-0.md
category: reference
title: Epistemological Letters
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_Letters
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:10.373743+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: epistemological-letters-20260505-0
summary:
Epistemological Letters (French: Lettres Épistémologiques) was a hand-typed, mimeographed "underground" newsletter about quantum physics that was distributed to a private mailing list, described by the physicist and Nobel laureate John Clauser as a "quantum subculture", between 1973 and 1984. Distributed by a Swiss foundation, the newsletter was created because mainstream academic journals were reluctant to publish articles about the philosophy of quantum mechanics, especially anything that implied support for ideas such as action at a distance. Thirty-six or thirty-seven issues of Epistemological Letters appeared, each between four and eighty-nine pages long. Several well-known scientists published their work there, including the physicist John Bell, the originator of Bell's theorem. According to John Clauser, much of the early work on Bell's theorem was published only in Epistemological Letters. == Interpretations of quantum physics == According to the Irish physicist Andrew Whitaker, a powerful group of physicists centred on Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg made clear that "there was no place in physics – no jobs in physics! – for anybody who dared to question the Copenhagen interpretation" (Bohr's interpretation) of quantum theory. John Clauser writes that any inquiry into the "wonders and peculiarities" of quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement that


id: federico-faggin-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin-0.md
category: reference
title: Federico Faggin
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:11.564117+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: federico-faggin-20260505-0
summary:
Federico Faggin (Italian pronunciation: [fedeˈriːko fadˈdʒin], Venetian: [faˈdʒiŋ]; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian-American physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. Faggin also created, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, the self-aligned MOS (metal–oxide–semiconductor) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS semiconductor memory chips, CCD image sensors, and the microprocessor. After the 4004, he led development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early Intel microprocessors. He was co-founder (with Ralph Ungermann) and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors. He was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies, and then Synaptics. In 2010, he received the 2009 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor the United States confers for achievements related to technological progress. In 2011, Faggin founded the Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation to support the scientific study of consciousness at US universities and


id: federico-faggin-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin-1.md
category: reference
title: Federico Faggin
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:11.564117+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: federico-faggin-20260505-0
summary:
Federico Faggin joined Intel from Fairchild in 1970 as the project leader and designer of the MCS-4 family of microprocessors, which included the 4004, the world's first single-chip microprocessor. Fairchild was not taking advantage of the SGT and Faggin wanted to use his new technology to design advanced chips. The 4004 (1971) was made possible by the advanced capabilities of the silicon gate technology (SGT) being enhanced through the novel random logic chip design methodology that Faggin created at Intel. It was this new methodology, together with his several design innovations, that allowed him to fit the microprocessor in one small chip. A single-chip microprocessor – an idea that was expected to occur many years in the future – became possible in 1971 by using SGT with two additional innovations: (1) "buried contacts" that doubled the circuit density, and (2) the use of bootstrap loads with 2-phase clocks—previously considered impossible with SGT— that improved the speed 5 times, while reducing the chip area by half compared with metal-gate MOS. The design methodology created by Faggin was utilized for the implementation of all Intel's early microprocessors and later also for Zilog's Z80. The Intel 4004 – a 4-bit CPU (central processing


id: federico-faggin-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin-2.md
category: reference
title: Federico Faggin
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:11.564117+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: federico-faggin-20260505-0
summary:
=== Zilog === The Zilog Z80 was the first microprocessor created by Zilog, the first company entirely dedicated to microprocessors. It was started by Federico Faggin and Ralph Ungermann in November 1974. Faggin was Zilog's president and CEO until the end of 1980 and he conceived and designed the Z80 CPU and its family of programmable peripheral components. He also co-designed the CPU whose project leader was Masatoshi Shima. The Z80-CPU was a major improvement over the 8080, yet it retained software compatibility with it. Much faster and with more than twice as many registers and instructions of the 8080, it was part of a family of components that included several intelligent peripherals (the Z80-PIO, a programmable parallel input-output controller; the Z80-CTC, a programmable counter-timer; the Z80-SIO, programmable serial communications interface controller, and the Z80-DMA, programmable direct memory access controller). This chip family allowed the design of powerful and low-cost microcomputers with performance comparable to minicomputers. The Z80-CPU had a substantially better bus structure and interrupt structure than the 8080 and could interface directly with dynamic RAM, since it included an internal memory-refresh controller. The Z80 was used in many of early personal computers, as well as in video game


id: federico-faggin-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin-3.md
category: reference
title: Federico Faggin
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:11.564117+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: federico-faggin-20260505-0
summary:
=== On the MOS silicon-gate technology (SGT) for IC and the Fairchild 3708 (the first application of SGT) === Faggin, F., Klein, T., and Vadasz, L.: Insulated Gate Field Effect Transistor Integrated Circuits with Silicon Gates. The Silicon Gate Technology with self-aligned gates was presented by its developer Federico Faggin at the IEEE International Electron Device Meeting on 23 October 1968, in Washington D.C. This new technology empowered the design of dynamic RAM memories, non-volatile memories, CCD sensors and the microprocessor. Federico Faggin and Thomas Klein.: "A Faster Generation of MOS Devices with Low Thresholds is Riding the Crest of the New Wave, Silicon-Gate IC's". The article published in Electronics (29 September 1969) introduces the Fairchild 3708, the world's first commercial integrated circuit using Silicon Gate Technology, designed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild in 1968. F. Faggin, T. Klein: Silicon-Gate Technology. "Solid State Electronics", 1970, Vol. 13, pp. 1125–1144 === On the Intel 4004 microprocessor === F. Faggin and M. E. Hoff: "Standard Parts and Custom Design Merge in a Four-chip Processor Kit". Electronics, 24 April 1972 F. Faggin, et al.: "The MCS-4 An LSI Microcomputer System". IEEE 1972 Region Six Conference. Faggin, Federico; Capocaccia, F. "A New Integrated MOS


id: stuart-hameroff-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hameroff-0.md
category: reference
title: Stuart Hameroff
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hameroff
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:12.732043+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: stuart-hameroff-20260505-0
summary:
Stuart Hameroff (born July 16, 1947) is an American anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his studies of consciousness and his controversial contention that consciousness originates from quantum states in neural microtubules. He is the lead organizer of the Science of Consciousness conference. == Career == Hameroff received his BS degree from the University of Pittsburgh and his MD degree from Hahnemann University Hospital, where he studied before it became part of the Drexel University College of Medicine. He took an internship at the Tucson Medical Center in 1973. From 1975 onwards, he has spent the whole of his career at the University of Arizona, becoming professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Psychology and director for the Center for Consciousness Studies, both in 1999, and finally Emeritus professor for Anesthesiology and Psychology in 2003. == Theory == At the very beginning of Hameroff's career, while he was at Hahnemann, cancer-related research work piqued his interest in the part played by microtubules in cell division, and led him to speculate that they were controlled by some form of computing. It also suggested to him that part of the solution of the problem of consciousness might lie


id: holomovement-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holomovement-0.md
category: reference
title: Holomovement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holomovement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:13.993666+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: holomovement-20260505-0
summary:
Holomovement is a theoretical concept proposed by physicist David Bohm to describe a dynamic and unbroken totality that underlies all of reality. It forms the foundation of Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics and his metaphysical model, particularly as articulated in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980). The holomovement integrates two key ideas: undivided wholeness and constant process. It suggests that everything in the universe is interconnected and in continual motion, with all forms and structures being temporary abstractions from this deeper, flowing unity. Critics have described holomovement as a type of metaphysical mysticism. == Origins and background == Louis de Broglie introduced a formalism for quantum mechanics at the 1927 Solvay Congress which explained quantum effects in terms of underlying processes such as a hypothesized pilot wave. This was met with strong criticism, particularly by Wolfgang Pauli, which caused de Broglie to abandon this suggestion. In 1952, Bohm revived the notion of a pilot wave guiding elementary particles in a way that withstood Pauli's criticism. Bohm and Basil Hiley criticized a solely epistemological model which only accounts for what can be known about physical processes; developing this pilot-wave theory into an ontological interpretation. Bohm felt the extended version


id: holonomic-brain-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Holonomic brain theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:15.207716+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: holonomic-brain-theory-20260505-0
summary:
Holonomic brain theory is a branch of neuroscience investigating the idea that consciousness is formed by quantum effects in or between brain cells. Holonomic refers to representations in a Hilbert phase space defined by both spectral and space-time coordinates. Holonomic brain theory is opposed by traditional neuroscience, which investigates the brain's behavior by looking at patterns of neurons and the surrounding chemistry. This specific theory of quantum consciousness was developed by neuroscientist Karl Pribram initially in collaboration with physicist David Bohm building on the initial theories of holograms originally formulated by Dennis Gabor. It describes human cognition by modeling the brain as a holographic storage network. Pribram suggests these processes involve electric oscillations in the brain's fine-fibered dendritic webs, which are different from the more commonly known action potentials involving axons and synapses. These oscillations are waves and create wave interference patterns in which memory is encoded naturally, and the wave function may be analyzed by a Fourier transform. Gabor, Pribram and others noted the similarities between these brain processes and the storage of information in a hologram, which can also be analyzed with a Fourier transform. In a hologram, any part of the hologram with sufficient size contains the


id: holonomic-brain-theory-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory-1.md
category: reference
title: Holonomic brain theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:15.207716+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: holonomic-brain-theory-20260505-0
summary:
A main characteristic of a hologram is that every part of the stored information is distributed over the entire hologram. Both processes of storage and retrieval are carried out in a way described by Fourier transformation equations. As long as a part of the hologram is large enough to contain the interference pattern, that part can recreate the entirety of the stored image, but the image may have unwanted changes, called noise. An analogy to this is the broadcasting region of a radio antenna. In each smaller individual location within the entire area it is possible to access every channel, similar to how the entirety of the information of a hologram is contained within a part. Another analogy of a hologram is the way sunlight illuminates objects in the visual field of an observer. It doesn't matter how narrow the beam of sunlight is. The beam always contains all the information of the object, and when conjugated by a lens of a camera or the eyeball, produces the same full three-dimensional image. The Fourier transform formula converts spatial forms to spatial wave frequencies and vice versa, as all objects are in essence vibratory structures. Different types of lenses, acting similarly


id: holonomic-brain-theory-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory-2.md
category: reference
title: Holonomic brain theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:15.207716+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: holonomic-brain-theory-20260505-0
summary:
=== Deep and surface structure of memory === Pribram suggests that there are two layers of cortical processing: a surface structure of separated and localized neural circuits and a deep structure of the dendritic arborization that binds the surface structure together. The deep structure contains distributed memory, while the surface structure acts as the retrieval mechanism. Binding occurs through the temporal synchronization of the oscillating polarizations in the synaptodendritic web. It had been thought that binding only occurred when there was no phase lead or lag present, but a study by Saul and Humphrey found that cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus do in fact produce these. Here phase lead and lag act to enhance sensory discrimination, acting as a frame to capture important features. These filters are also similar to the lenses necessary for holographic functioning. Pribram notes that holographic memories show large capacities, parallel processing and content addressability for rapid recognition, associative storage for perceptual completion and for associative recall. In systems endowed with memory storage, these interactions therefore lead to progressively more self-determination. == Recent studies == While Pribram originally developed the holonomic brain theory as an analogy for certain brain processes, several papers (including some more


id: brian-josephson-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson-0.md
category: reference
title: Brian Josephson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:16.307860+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brian-josephson-20260505-0
summary:
Brian David Josephson (born 4 January 1940) is a British theoretical physicist and emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever for his discovery of the Josephson effect, made in 1962 when he was a Ph.D. student at Cambridge. Josephson has spent his academic career as a member of the Theory of Condensed Matter Group in Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. He has been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, since 1962, and served as Professor of Physics from 1974 until 2007. In the early 1970s, Josephson took up Transcendental Meditation and turned his attention to issues outside the boundaries of mainstream science. He set up the Mind–Matter Unification Project at Cavendish to explore the idea of intelligence in nature, the relationship between quantum mechanics and consciousness, and the synthesis of science and Eastern mysticism, broadly known as quantum mysticism. He has expressed support for topics such as parapsychology, water memory and cold fusion, which has made him a focus of criticism from fellow scientists. == Education == Brian David Josephson was born on 4 January 1940 in Cardiff, Wales, to Jewish parents, Abraham Josephson and Mimi Weisbard. He


id: brian-josephson-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson-1.md
category: reference
title: Brian Josephson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:16.307860+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brian-josephson-20260505-0
summary:
Josephson was 22-years-old when he did the work on quantum tunnelling that earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973. He discovered that a supercurrent could tunnel through a thin barrier, predicting, according to physicist Andrew Whitaker, that "at a junction of two superconductors, a current will flow even if there is no drop in voltage; that when there is a voltage drop, the current should oscillate at a frequency related to the drop in voltage; and that there is a dependence on any magnetic field." This became known as the Josephson effect and the junction as a Josephson junction. Josephson's calculations were published in Physics Letters (chosen by Pippard because it was a new journal) in a paper titled "Possible new effects in superconductive tunnelling," received on 8 June 1962 and published on 1 July. They were confirmed experimentally by Philip Anderson and John Rowell of Bell Labs in Princeton; this appeared in their paper, "Probable Observation of the Josephson Superconducting Tunneling Effect," submitted to Physical Review Letters in January 1963. Before Anderson and Rowell confirmed the calculations, the American physicist John Bardeen, who had shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics (and who shared it again in


id: brian-josephson-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson-2.md
category: reference
title: Brian Josephson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:16.307860+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brian-josephson-20260505-0
summary:
Josephson became involved in the mid-1970s with a group of physicists associated with the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, who were investigating paranormal claims. They had organized themselves loosely into the Fundamental Fysiks Group, and had effectively become the Stanford Research Institute's (SRI) "house theorists," according to historian of science David Kaiser. Core members in the group were Elizabeth Rauscher, George Weissmann, John Clauser, Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert, Fred Alan Wolf, Fritjof Capra, Henry Stapp, Philippe Eberhard and Gary Zukav. There was significant government interest at the time in quantum mechanics – the American government was financing research at SRI into telepathy – and physicists able to understand it found themselves in demand. The Fundamental Fysiks Group used ideas from quantum physics, particularly Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement, to explore issues such as action at a distance, clairvoyance, precognition, remote viewing and psychokinesis. In 1976, Josephson travelled to California at the invitation of one of the Fundamental Fysiks Group members, Jack Sarfatti, who introduced him to others including laser physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, and quantum physicist Henry Stapp. The San Francisco Chronicle covered Josephson's visit. Josephson co-organised a symposium on consciousness at


id: brian-josephson-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson-3.md
category: reference
title: Brian Josephson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:16.307860+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brian-josephson-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == Brian Josephson's home page, University of Cambridge. Brian Josephson, academia.edu. "bdj50: Conference in Cambridge to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of Brian Josephson’s Seminal Work", Department of Physics, University of Cambridge. Anderson, Philip. "How Josephson Discovered His Effect", Physics Today, November 1970. Anderson's account of Josephson's discovery; he taught the graduate course in solid-state/many-body theory in which Josephson was a student. Barone, A. and Paterno, G. Physics and Applications of the Josephson Effect, Wiley, 1982. Bertlmann, R. A. and Zeilinger, A. (eds.), Quantum (Un)speakables: From Bell to Quantum Information, Springer, 2002. Buckel, Werner and Kleiner, Reinhold. Superconductivity: Fundamentals and Applications, VCH, 1991. Jibu, Mari and Yasue, Kunio. Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness: An Introduction, John Benjamins Publishing, 1995. Josephson, Brian; Rubik, Beverly A.; Fontana, David; Lorimer, David. "Defining consciousness", Nature, 358(618), 20 August 1992. Rosen, Joe. "Josephson, Brian David," Encyclopedia of Physics, Infobase Publishing, 2009, pp. 165–166. Stapp, Henry. "Quantum Approaches to Consciousness," in Philip David Zelazo, Morris Moscovitch and Evan Thompson (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, 2007. Stenger, Victor J. The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology, Prometheus Books, 1995. == External links == Brian Josephson on Nobelprize.org including the


id: ervin-l-szl-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ervin_László-0.md
category: reference
title: Ervin László
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ervin_László
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:17.472647+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ervin-l-szl-20260505-0
summary:
Ervin László (Hungarian: [ˈɛrvin ˈlaːsloː]; born 12 June 1932) is an American philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, originally a classical pianist. He is an advocate of the theory of quantum consciousness. == Early life, family and education == László was born in Budapest, Hungary. His father was a shoe manufacturer, and his mother played the piano. László started playing the piano when he was five years old. His first piano concert was with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra when he was nine years old. After World War II, László relocated to the US. == Career == László is a visiting faculty member at the Graduate Institute Bethany. He has published about 75 books and over 400 papers, and is editor of World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution. László participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2006. In 2010, he was elected an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In Hungary, the minister of environment appointed Laszlo as one of the leaders of the ministry's campaign concerning global warming. == Awards and honors == In 2002, László received an honorary doctorate from the University of Pécs. == Personal life == László married Carita Jägerhorn af


id: many-minds-interpretation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation-0.md
category: reference
title: Many-minds interpretation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:18.682284+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: many-minds-interpretation-20260505-0
summary:
The many-minds interpretation of quantum mechanics extends the many-worlds interpretation by proposing that the distinction between worlds should be made at the level of the mind of an individual observer. The concept was first introduced in 1970 by H. Dieter Zeh as a variant of the Hugh Everett interpretation in connection with quantum decoherence, and later (in 1981) explicitly called a many or multi-consciousness interpretation. The name many-minds interpretation was first used by David Albert and Barry Loewer in 1988. == History == === Interpretations of quantum mechanics === The various interpretations of quantum mechanics typically involve explaining the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, or to create a physical picture of the theory. While the mathematical structure has a strong foundation, there is still much debate about the physical and philosophical interpretation of the theory. These interpretations aim to tackle various concepts such as: Evolution of the state of a quantum system (given by the wavefunction), typically through the use of the Schrödinger equation. This concept is almost universally accepted, and is rarely put to debate. The measurement problem, which relates to what is called wavefunction collapse – the collapse of a quantum state into a definite measurement (i.e. a


id: many-minds-interpretation-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation-1.md
category: reference
title: Many-minds interpretation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:18.682284+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: many-minds-interpretation-20260505-0
summary:
Consider an experiment that measures the polarization of two photons. When the photon is created, it has an indeterminate polarization. If a stream of these photons is passed through a polarization filter, 50% of the light is passed through. This corresponds to each photon having a 50% chance of aligning with the filter and thus passing, or being misaligned (by 90 degrees relative to the polarization filter) and being absorbed. Quantum mechanically, this means the photon is in a superposition of states where it is either passed or absorbed. Now, consider the inclusion of another photon and polarization detector. Now, the photons are created in such a way that they are entangled. That is, when one photon takes on a polarization state, the other photon will always behave as if it has the same polarization. For simplicity, take the second filter to either be perfectly aligned with the first, or to be perfectly misaligned (90 degree difference in angle, such that it is absorbed). If the detectors are aligned, both photons are passed (i.e. they are said to agree). If they are misaligned, only the first passes and the second is absorbed (now they disagree). Thus, the entanglement causes perfect


id: many-minds-interpretation-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation-2.md
category: reference
title: Many-minds interpretation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:18.682284+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: many-minds-interpretation-20260505-0
summary:
== Objections == Nothing within quantum theory itself requires each possibility within a wave function to complement a mental state. As all physical states (i.e. brain states) are quantum states, their associated mental states should be also. Nonetheless, it is not what one experiences within physical reality. Albert and Loewer argue that the mind must be intrinsically different than the physical reality as described by quantum theory. Thereby, they reject type-identity physicalism in favour of a non-reductive stance. However, Lockwood saves materialism through the notion of supervenience of the mental on the physical. Nonetheless, the many-minds interpretation does not solve the mindless hulks problem as a problem of supervenience. Mental states do not supervene on brain states as a given brain state is compatible with different configurations of mental states. Another serious objection is that workers in no collapse interpretations have produced no more than elementary models based on the definite existence of specific measuring devices. They have assumed, for example, that the Hilbert space of the universe splits naturally into a tensor product structure compatible with the measurement under consideration. They have also assumed, even when describing the behaviour of macroscopic objects, that it is appropriate to employ models


id: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction-0.md
category: reference
title: Orchestrated objective reduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:19.889818+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-0
summary:
Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR) is a controversial theory postulating that consciousness originates at the quantum level inside neurons (rather than being a product of neural connections). The mechanism is held to be a quantum process called objective reduction that is orchestrated by cellular structures called microtubules. It is proposed that the theory may answer the hard problem of consciousness and provide a mechanism for free will. The hypothesis was put forward in the 1990s by physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff; it combines molecular biology, neuroscience, pharmacology, philosophy, quantum information theory, and quantum gravity. While some other theories assert that consciousness emerges as the complexity of the computations performed by cerebral neurons increases, Orch OR posits that consciousness is based on non-computable quantum processing performed by qubits formed collectively on cellular microtubules, a process significantly amplified in the neurons. The qubits are based on oscillating dipoles forming superposed resonance rings in helical pathways throughout lattices of microtubules. The oscillations are either electric, due to charge separation from London forces, or magnetic, due to electron spin—and possibly also due to nuclear spins (that can remain isolated for longer periods) that occur in gigahertz, megahertz, and kilohertz frequency ranges. Orchestration


id: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction-1.md
category: reference
title: Orchestrated objective reduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:19.889818+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-0
summary:
== Orch OR == Penrose outlined a predecessor to Orch OR in The Emperor's New Mind, coming to the problem from a mathematical viewpoint and in particular Gödel's theorem, but it lacked a detailed proposal for how quantum processes could be implemented in the brain. Stuart Hameroff separately worked in cancer research and anesthesia, which gave him an interest in brain processes. Hameroff read Penrose's book and suggested to him that microtubules within neurons were suitable candidate sites for quantum processing, and ultimately for consciousness. Throughout the 1990s, the two collaborated on the Orch OR theory, which Penrose published in Shadows of the Mind (1994). Hameroff's contribution to the theory derived from his study of the neural cytoskeleton, and particularly on microtubules. As neuroscience has progressed, the role of the cytoskeleton and microtubules has assumed greater importance. In addition to providing structural support, microtubule functions include axoplasmic transport and control of the cell's movement, growth, and shape. Orch OR combines the Penrose–Lucas argument with Hameroff's hypothesis on quantum processing in microtubules. It proposes that when condensates in the brain undergo an objective wave function reduction, their collapse connects noncomputational decision-making to experiences embedded in spacetime's fundamental geometry. The theory further


id: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction-2.md
category: reference
title: Orchestrated objective reduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:19.889818+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-0
summary:
=== Microtubule quantum vibration theory of anesthetic action === In an experiment, Gregory D. Scholes and Aarat Kalra of Princeton University used lasers to excite molecules within tubulins, causing a prolonged excitation to diffuse through microtubules farther than expected, which did not occur when repeated under anesthesia. However, diffusion results have to be interpreted carefully, since even classical diffusion can be very complex due to the wide range of length scales in the fluid-filled extracellular space. At high concentrations (~5 MAC), the anesthetic gas halothane causes reversible depolymerization of microtubules. This cannot be the mechanism of anesthetic action, however, because human anesthesia is performed at 1 MAC. (Neither Penrose or Hameroff claim that depolymerization is the mechanism of action for Orch OR.) At ~1 MAC halothane, reported minor changes in tubulin protein expression (~1.3-fold) in primary cortical neurons after exposure to halothane and isoflurane are not evidence that tubulin directly interacts with general anesthetics, but rather shows that the proteins controlling tubulin production are possible anesthetic targets. Further proteomic study reports 0.5 mM [14C]halothane binding to tubulin monomers alongside three dozens of other proteins. In addition, modulation of microtubule stability has been reported during anthracene general anesthesia of tadpoles. The


id: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction-3.md
category: reference
title: Orchestrated objective reduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:19.889818+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: orchestrated-objective-reduction-20260505-0
summary:
While some of the studies mentioned above purport to show superradiance and an influence of anesthetics on decreasing excitation diffusion through microtubules, those studies were performed under artificial conditions that failed to include proteins associated with microtubules like ferritin, which quenches microtubule superradiance. Evidence published prior to those studies establishes that ferritin interacts with microtubules in vivo and is essential for microtubule stability and function. For instance, those studies overlooked that: Studies of biophotons in the human body fail to find any evidence of ultraviolet (UV) biophotons. In contrast, at least one of the studies cited above that is relied on as evidence of microtubule superradiance in support of Orch-OR relies on earlier studies of UV biophotons measured in single-celled organisms like E. coli and respiratory deficient yeast as the basis for its contention that such biophotons are present in cells. That study also used UV-vis equipment with a light source that can generate 1020 photons per second, which is not representative of neurons' environment. Ferritin in the human body absorbs UV from external sources at least in the skin and in the cornea, where the levels of UV photons are much higher than measured biophoton levels of UV even


id: roger-penrose-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose-0.md
category: reference
title: Roger Penrose
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:21.027224+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: roger-penrose-20260505-0
summary:
Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, and philosopher of science. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and University College London. He shared the 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics with Stephen Hawking for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems, and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity". He proposed the Penrose triangle and corresponded with M. C. Escher, influencing his Waterfall and Ascending and Descending. Penrose's eponymous aperiodic tiling presaged the discovery of quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman. Penrose won the Royal Society Science Books Prize for The Emperor's New Mind (1989), which outlines his views on physics and consciousness. He followed it with The Road to Reality (2004), billed as "A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe". == Early life and education == Born in Colchester, Essex, Roger Penrose is a son of Margaret (née Leathes), a physician, and Lionel Penrose, a psychiatrist and geneticist. His paternal grandparents were J. Doyle Penrose, an Irish-born painter,


id: roger-penrose-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose-1.md
category: reference
title: Roger Penrose
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:21.027224+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: roger-penrose-20260505-0
summary:
It was in the local context of gravitational collapse that the contribution of Penrose was most decisive, starting with his 1969 cosmic censorship conjecture, to the effect that any ensuing singularities would be confined within a well-behaved event horizon surrounding a hidden space-time region for which Wheeler coined the term black hole, leaving a visible exterior region with strong but finite curvature, from which some of the gravitational energy may be extractable by what is known as the Penrose process, while accretion of surrounding matter may release further energy that can account for astrophysical phenomena such as quasars. Following up his "weak cosmic censorship hypothesis", Penrose went on, in 1979, to formulate a stronger version called the "strong censorship hypothesis". Together with the Belinski–Khalatnikov–Lifshitz conjecture and issues of nonlinear stability, settling the censorship conjectures is one of the most important outstanding problems in general relativity. Also from 1979 dates Penrose's influential Weyl curvature hypothesis on the initial conditions of the observable part of the universe and the origin of the second law of thermodynamics. Penrose and James Terrell independently realised that objects travelling near the speed of light will appear to undergo a peculiar skewing or rotation. This effect has


id: roger-penrose-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose-2.md
category: reference
title: Roger Penrose
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:21.027224+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: roger-penrose-20260505-0
summary:
Penrose has written books on the connection between fundamental physics and human (or animal) consciousness. In The Emperor's New Mind (1989), he argues that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Penrose proposes the characteristics this new physics may have and specifies the requirements for a bridge between classical and quantum mechanics (what he calls correct quantum gravity). Penrose uses a variant of Turing's halting theorem to demonstrate that a system can be deterministic without being algorithmic. (For example, imagine a system with only two states, ON and OFF. If the system's state is ON when a given Turing machine halts and OFF when the Turing machine does not halt, then the system's state is completely determined by the machine; nevertheless, there is no algorithmic way to determine whether the Turing machine stops.) Penrose believes that such deterministic yet non-algorithmic processes may come into play in the quantum mechanical wave function reduction, and may be harnessed by the brain. He argues that computers today are unable to have intelligence because they are algorithmically deterministic systems. He argues against the viewpoint that the rational processes of the mind are completely algorithmic and can thus be duplicated


id: roger-penrose-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose-3.md
category: reference
title: Roger Penrose
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:21.027224+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: roger-penrose-20260505-0
summary:
Penrose has been awarded many prizes for his contributions to science. In 1971 he was awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics by the American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1972. In 1975 Hawking and Penrose were jointly awarded the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1985 he was awarded the Royal Society Royal Medal. Along with Hawking, he was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize in Physics by the Wolf Foundation (Israel) in 1988. In 1989 Penrose was awarded the Dirac Medal and Prize of the British Institute of Physics. He was also made an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics (HonFInstP). In 1990 Penrose was awarded the Albert Einstein Medal for outstanding work related to the work of Albert Einstein by the Albert Einstein Society (Switzerland). In 1991, he was awarded the Naylor Prize of the London Mathematical Society. Penrose was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree (DSc) from the University of New Brunswick (Canada) in 1992, and an honorary degree from the University of Surrey in 1993. From 1992 to 1995 he served as President of the International Society on General


id: roger-penrose-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose-4.md
category: reference
title: Roger Penrose
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:21.027224+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: roger-penrose-20260505-0
summary:
== Notes == == References == == Further reading == Barss, Patchen (2024). The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-1-5416-0366-0. == External links == Awake in the Universe – Penrose debates how creativity, the most elusive of faculties, has helped us unlock the country of the mind and the mysteries of the cosmos with Bonnie Greer. Works by or about Roger Penrose at the Internet Archive Dangerous Knowledge on YouTube – Penrose was one of the principal interviewees in a BBC documentary about the mathematics of infinity directed by David Malone Penrose's new theory "Aeons Before the Big Bang?": Original 2005 lecture: "Before the Big Bang? A new perspective on the Weyl curvature hypothesis" Archived 7 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine (Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, 11 November 2005). Original publication: "Before the Big Bang: an outrageous new perspective and its implications for particle physics". Proceedings of EPAC 2006. Edinburgh. 2759–2762 (cf. also Hill, C.D. & Nurowski, P. (2007) "On Penrose's 'Before the Big Bang' ideas". Ithaca) Revised 2009 lecture: "Aeons Before the Big Bang?" (Georgia Institute of Technology, Center for Relativistic Astrophysics) BBC interview on the new


id: paavo-pylkk-nen-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paavo_Pylkkänen-0.md
category: reference
title: Paavo Pylkkänen
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paavo_Pylkkänen
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:22.201024+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paavo-pylkk-nen-20260505-0
summary:
Paavo Pylkkänen (born 1959) is a Finnish philosopher of mind. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Skövde and a university lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki. He is known for his work on mind-body studies, building on David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics, in particular Bohm's view of the cosmos as an enfolding and unfolding whole including mind and matter. == Work == Pylkkänen's areas of specialization are the mind-body problem, the basis of cognitive science, philosophy of physics, the philosophy of David Bohm and the foundations of quantum theory. Since 1996 he has been employed at the University of Skövde in Skövde, Sweden, where he initiated a consciousness studies program combining philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. He is currently a temporary university lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, at University of Helsinki, where he has regularly worked since 2008. Pylkkänen has worked and published together with theoretical physicist Basil Hiley, a close co-worker of David Bohm over three decades. Hiley and Pylkkänen together addressed the question of the relation between mind and matter by the hypothesis of an active information within the conceptual framework


id: quantum-cognition-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition-0.md
category: reference
title: Quantum cognition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:23.396116+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-cognition-20260505-0
summary:
Quantum cognition uses the mathematical formalism of quantum probability theory to model psychology phenomena when classical probability theory fails. The field focuses on modeling phenomena in cognitive science that have resisted traditional techniques or where traditional models seem to have reached a barrier (e.g., human memory), and modeling preferences in decision theory that seem paradoxical from a traditional rational point of view (e.g., preference reversals). Since the use of a quantum-theoretic framework is for modeling purposes, the identification of quantum structures in cognitive phenomena does not presuppose the existence of microscopic quantum processes in the human brain. Quantum cognition can be applied to model cognitive phenomena such as information processing by the human brain, language, decision making, human memory, concepts and conceptual reasoning, human judgment, and perception. == Challenges for classical probability theory == Classical probability theory is a rational approach to inference which does not easily explain some observations of human inference in psychology. Some cases where quantum probability theory has advantages include the conjunction fallacy, the disjunction fallacy, the failures of the sure-thing principle, and question-order bias in judgement. === Conjunction fallacy === If participants in a psychology experiment are told about "Linda", described as looking like a


id: quantum-cognition-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition-1.md
category: reference
title: Quantum cognition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:23.396116+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quantum-cognition-20260505-0
summary:
=== Human probability judgments === Quantum probability provides a new way to explain human probability judgment errors including the conjunction and disjunction errors. A conjunction error occurs when a person judges the probability of a likely event L and an unlikely event U to be greater than the unlikely event U; a disjunction error occurs when a person judges the probability of a likely event L to be greater than the probability of the likely event L or an unlikely event U. Quantum probability theory is a generalization of Bayesian probability theory because it is based on a set of von Neumann axioms that relax some of the classic Kolmogorov axioms. The quantum model introduces a new fundamental concept to cognition—the compatibility versus incompatibility of questions and the effect this can have on the sequential order of judgments. Quantum probability provides a simple account of conjunction and disjunction errors as well as many other findings such as order effects on probability judgments. The liar paradox - The contextual influence of a human subject on the truth behavior of a cognitive entity is explicitly exhibited by the so-called liar paradox, that is, the truth value of a sentence like "this sentence


id: the-road-to-reality-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Reality-0.md
category: reference
title: The Road to Reality
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Reality
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:24.538944+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-road-to-reality-20260505-0
summary:
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe is a popular science book on modern physics by the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, published in 2004. It covers the basics of the Standard Model of particle physics, discussing general relativity and quantum mechanics, and discusses the possible unification of these two theories. == Overview == The book discusses the physical world. Many fields that 19th century scientists believed were separate, such as electricity and magnetism, are aspects of more fundamental properties. Some texts, both popular and university level, introduce these topics as separate concepts, and then reveal their combination much later. The Road to Reality reverses this process, first expounding the underlying mathematics of space–time, then showing how electromagnetism and other phenomena fall out fully formed. The book is just over 1100 pages, of which the first 383 are dedicated to mathematics—Penrose's goal is to acquaint inquisitive readers with the mathematical tools needed to understand the remainder of the book in depth. Physics enters the discussion on page 383 with the topic of spacetime. From there it moves on to fields in spacetime, deriving the classical electrical and magnetic forces from first principles; that is,


id: prem-saran-satsangi-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_Saran_Satsangi-0.md
category: reference
title: Prem Saran Satsangi
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_Saran_Satsangi
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:25.712556+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: prem-saran-satsangi-20260505-0
summary:
Prem Saran Satsangi (born 9 March 1937) is the current sant satguru of Radha Soami Sect, Dayalbagh or Radhasoami Satsang Dayalbagh who succeeded Param Guru Lal Sahab, seventh Sant Satguru in 2003. He is also the founder and first president of the System Society of India, a professional body of system scientists. He holds the emeritus chair from the East of the Integrated East-West Forum at The Science of Consciousness Conferences since 2012. He is the chairman of Advisory Committee on Education (ACE), Dayalbagh Educational Institute (deemed to be university). == Birth == He was born on the campus of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi on the day of Indian festival of Holi on 9 March 1937, to Krishna Kumar, a professor of botany at Agriculture College, Banaras Hindu University and Bhakt Saheli. == Education and early career == He studied electrical engineering at the Banaras Hindu University, now Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, and graduated in 1957. He was initiated into Radhasoami faith on 13 February 1958. In 1960 he accepted a scholarship at Michigan State University, where he received his M.S. in electrical engineering in 1961. The USAID extended his fellowship for PhD, but Satsangi declined the offer


id: shadows-of-the-mind-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind-0.md
category: reference
title: Shadows of the Mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:26.935830+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: shadows-of-the-mind-20260505-0
summary:
Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness is a 1994 book by mathematical physicist Roger Penrose that serves as a followup to his 1989 book The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics. Penrose hypothesizes that: Human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modelled by a conventional Turing machine type of digital computer. Quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness; specifically, he believes that microtubules within neurons support quantum superpositions. The objective collapse of the quantum wavefunction of the microtubules is critical for consciousness. The collapse in question is physical behaviour that is non-algorithmic and transcends the limits of computability. The human mind has abilities that no Turing machine could possess because of this mechanism of non-computable physics. == Argument == === Mathematical thought === In 1931, the mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel proved his incompleteness theorems, showing that any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. Further to that, for any consistent formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.


id: shadows-of-the-mind-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind-1.md
category: reference
title: Shadows of the Mind
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Mind
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:26.935830+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: shadows-of-the-mind-20260505-0
summary:
=== Microtubule hypothesis === Penrose and Stuart Hameroff have constructed the Orch-OR theory in which human consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules. However, in 2000, Max Tegmark calculated in an article he published in Physical Review E that the time scale of neuron firing and excitations in microtubules is slower than the decoherence time by a factor of at least 1010. Tegmark's article has been widely cited by critics of the Penrose-Hameroff hypothesis. The reception of the article is summed up by this statement in his support: "Physicists outside the fray, such as IBM's John Smolin, say the calculations confirm what they had suspected all along. 'We're not working with a brain that's near absolute zero. It's reasonably unlikely that the brain evolved quantum behavior', he says." In other words, there is a missing link between physics and neuroscience, and to date, it is too premature to claim that the Orch-OR hypothesis is right. In response to Tegmark's claims, Hagan, Tuszynski and Hameroff claimed that Tegmark did not address the Orch-OR model, but instead a model of his own construction. This involved superpositions of quanta separated by 24 nm rather than the much smaller separations stipulated


id: henry-stapp-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stapp-0.md
category: reference
title: Henry Stapp
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stapp
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:28.142922+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: henry-stapp-20260505-0
summary:
Henry Pierce Stapp (born March 23, 1928) is an American mathematical physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, and the place of free will in the orthodox quantum mechanics of John von Neumann. He is considered a member of the Fundamental Fysiks Group. == Biography == Stapp received his PhD in particle physics at the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of Nobel laureates Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain. In 1958, Stapp was invited by Wolfgang Pauli to ETH Zurich to work with him personally on basic problems in quantum mechanics. When Pauli died in December 1958, Stapp studied von Neumann's book on quantum mechanics, and on the basis of that work composed an article entitled "Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics", which was not submitted for publication; but the title became the title of his 1993 book. In 1969 Stapp was invited by Werner Heisenberg to work with him at the Max Planck Institute in Munich. In 1976 Stapp was invited by J.A. Wheeler to work with him on problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Dr. Stapp has published many papers pertaining to the


id: max-tegmark-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark-0.md
category: reference
title: Max Tegmark
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:29.273945+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: max-tegmark-20260505-0
summary:
Max Tegmark (born 5 May 1967) is a Swedish-American physicist, machine learning researcher and author. He is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-founded and leads the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit focused on reducing global catastrophic risks from advanced technologies. Originally a cosmologist, Tegmark's focus shifted toward artificial intelligence (AI). His 2017 book Life 3.0 presents scenarios for what the world might look like as AI continues to develop. Tegmark advocates for a halt on the development of artificial superintelligence. == Early life == Max Erik Tegmark was born Max Erik Shapiro in Stockholm, Sweden, on 5 May 1967, to Karin Tegmark and mathematician Harold S. Shapiro. Tegmark grew up in Bromma, Stockholm. During his studies at Blackeberg's high school, he worked as a volunteer for the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, campaigning for nuclear disarmament. While studying at the University of California at Berkeley, he adopted his mother's surname Tegmark, as there were many astronomers named Shapiro, including one of his professors. While in high school, Tegmark and a friend, Magnus Bodin, created and sold a word processor, Teddy, written in machine code for the Swedish eight-bit computer ABC 80 as a


id: max-tegmark-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark-1.md
category: reference
title: Max Tegmark
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:29.273945+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: max-tegmark-20260505-0
summary:
=== Controversy === In 2023, Tegmark was the focus of a controversy when he was alleged to have signed a letter of intent on behalf of the Future of Life Institute for a $100,000 grant—ultimately rejected—to far-right media outlet Nya Dagbladet, an outlet for which Tegmark's brother wrote, an allegation to which the Institute formally responded. Tegmark later said that the Institute "ultimately decided to reject it because of what our subsequent due diligence uncovered", that they rejected it long before the media became involved, and that the institute "finds Nazi, neo-Nazi or pro-Nazi groups or ideologies despicable and would never knowingly support them". An official statement from the Future of Life Institute further expands on this: "FLI finds groups or ideologies espousing antisemitism, white supremacy, or racism despicable and would never knowingly support any such group". == Awards and recognition == Tegmark was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2012 for, according to the citation, "his contributions to cosmology, including precision measurements from cosmic microwave background and galaxy clustering data, tests of inflation and gravitation theories, and the development of a new technology for low-frequency radio interferometry". He was awarded the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science's


id: consciousness-causes-collapse-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse-0.md
category: reference
title: Consciousness causes collapse
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:30.406153+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: consciousness-causes-collapse-20260505-0
summary:
The postulate that consciousness causes collapse is an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which consciousness is postulated to be the main mechanism behind the process of measurement in quantum mechanics. It is a historical interpretation of quantum mechanics that is largely discarded by modern physicists. The idea is attributed to Eugene Wigner who wrote about it in the 1960s, but traces of the idea appear as early as the 1930s. Wigner later rejected this interpretation in the 1970s and 1980s. This interpretation has been tied to the origin of pseudoscientific currents and New Age movements, specifically quantum mysticism. == History == === Earlier work === According to Werner Heisenberg’s recollections in Physics and Beyond, Niels Bohr is said to have rejected the necessity of a conscious observer in quantum mechanics as early as 1927. In his 1932 book Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann argued that the mathematics of quantum mechanics allows the collapse of the wave function to be placed at any position in the causal chain from the measurement device to the "subjective perception" of the human observer. However von Neumann did not explicitly relate measurement with consciousness. In 1939, Fritz London and Edmond Bauer argued


id: consciousness-causes-collapse-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse-1.md
category: reference
title: Consciousness causes collapse
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:30.406153+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: consciousness-causes-collapse-20260505-0
summary:
The only form of interactionist dualism that has seemed even remotely tenable in the contemporary picture is one that exploits certain properties of quantum mechanics. There are two ways this might go. First, some [e.g., Eccles 1986] have appealed to the existence of quantum indeterminacy, and have suggested that a nonphysical consciousness might be responsible for filling the resultant causal gaps, determining which values some physical magnitudes might take within an apparently "probabilistic" distribution... This is an audacious and interesting suggestion, but it has a number of problems... A second way in which quantum mechanics bears on the issue of causal closure lies with the fact that in some interpretations of the quantum formalism, consciousness itself plays a vital causal role, being required to bring about the so-called "collapse of the wave-function." This collapse is supposed to occur upon any act of measurement; and in one interpretation, the only way to distinguish a measurement from a nonmeasurement is via the presence of consciousness. This theory is certainly not universally accepted (for a start, it presupposes that consciousness is not itself physical, surely contrary to the views of most physicists), and I do not accept it myself, but in any case


id: historiography-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:32.266326+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The historiography of science is the study of the history and methodology of the sub-discipline of history known as the history of science, including its disciplinary aspects and practices (methods, theories, schools), and controversies. Its subject is the variety of ways that science's past has been written about. The earliest histories of science were written by scientists largely as celebrations of scientific progress. Scholars in the 19th and early 20th century frequently treated the history and philosophy of science as a single scholarly undertaking but the fields began to diverge under the influence of logical positivism, which demarcated scientific justification as the proper concern of philosophy, leaving scientific discovery to the historians. The increasing professionalization of science history (i.e. the emergence of "history of science" as an independent field) in the 20th century and the entry of sociologists into the field caused friction with scientists and "practitioner" historians (practicing or retired scientists writing about their own fields). The divide has often centered on a disagreement over whether the history of science should be an accounting of scientific progress or a critical analysis of science as a cultural activity, a split in point-of-view that has been both exacerbated and reinforced by


id: historiography-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:32.266326+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The origins of the philosophy of science as a field of inquiry distinct from epistemology extend back to Francis Bacon's (1561-1626) Novum Organum ("true directions concerning the interpretation of nature") and René Descartes' (1596-1650) Discourse on Method (full title: "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences") and then continue with the 2nd edition of Isaac Newton's (1643-1727) Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica and David Hume's (1711-1776) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding in the 18th century. 19th-century scholars, including the philosopher and mathematician (and "father of sociology") Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838-1916), frequently treated the history and philosophy of science as a single scholarly undertaking where the study of what science had been (its history) and what science ought to be (its methods and justifications) were productively intermingled. Comte and Mach were associated with the philosophical school of positivism, which also advanced ideas for the reform of history generally. "Historical" positivists argued that historians should pursue the objective truth of the past by allowing historical sources to "speak for themselves", without additional interpretation. The heavy emphasis placed by historical positivists on documentary sources led to the development


id: historiography-of-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:32.266326+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
...the result [of whig history] is that to many of us [historical figures] seem much more modern than they really were, and even when we have corrected this impression by closer study we find it difficult to keep in mind the differences between their world and ours. Whig history also easily lends itself to a view of history that is populated by heroes on the side of progress (or some other cherished modern value) while their confused or misguided opponents are portrayed, at best, as a "dummy that acts as a better foil to the grand whig virtues". In place of a view of history as following some sort of inevitable or structural pattern, Butterfield urged historians to pay attention to the accidental and contingent nature of historical events and "to evoke a certain sensibility towards the past, the sensibility which studies the past 'for the sake of the past', which delights in the concrete and the complex, which 'goes out to meet the past', which searches for 'unlikenesses between past and present'". === Specialization === Influenced by Butterfield, many of the professionalizing mid 20th-century historians of science saw the entire previous history of the history of science, written primarily


id: historiography-of-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science-3.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:32.266326+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Science of sociology === Just as sociologists have turned a skeptical eye on science, many scientists have returned the favor, accusing sociologists of deep ignorance about and hostility towards the field they are purporting to study, and a multi-generational intellectual laziness and complacency that has left their entire field unequipped to offer anything more than a primitive caricature of the vast intellectual landscape they have never bothered to map. == Terminology == As early as the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910-1911), the word "science" had acquired an extremely broad meaning in English: ...science may be defined as ordered knowledge of natural phenomena and of the relations between them...The beginnings of physical science are to be sought in the slow and unconscious observation by primitive races of men of natural occurrences, such as the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies... More recently, the historian of computing R. Anthony Hyman (1928-2011) has warned against inappropriate use of the word "science": One may be reasonably clear what "science" means in the 19th century and most of the 18th century. In the 17th century "science" has very different meaning. Chemistry, for example, was then inextricably mixed up with alchemy. Before the


id: historiography-of-science-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science-4.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:32.266326+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
== References == Agassi, Joseph. Towards an Historiography of Science Wesleyan University Press. 1963 Bennett, J. A. (1997). "Museums and the Establishment of the History of Science at Oxford and Cambridge". British Journal for the History of Science. 30 (104 Pt 1): 29–46. doi:10.1017/s0007087496002889. PMID 11618881. S2CID 5697866. Bowler, Peter J; Morus, Iwan Rhys (2005). Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey (1st ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-06861-9. Retrieved 2021-04-25. Buchdahl, Gerd (1965). "A Revolution in Historiography of Science". History of Science. 4: 55–69. Bibcode:1965HisSc...4...55B. doi:10.1177/007327536500400103. S2CID 142838889. Butterfield, Herbert (1965) [1931]. The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: WW Norton and Company. Cronon, William (1 Sep 2012). "Two Cheers for the Whig Interpretation of History". Perspectives on History. American Historical Association. Retrieved 2026-04-30. Dennis, Michael Aaron. "Historiography of Science: An American Perspective," in John Krige and Dominique Pestre, eds., Science in the Twentieth Century, Amsterdam: Harwood, 1997, pp. 1–26. von Engelhardt, Dietrich. Historisches Bewußtsein in der Naturwissenschaft : von der Aufklärung bis zum Positivismus, Freiburg [u.a.] : Alber, 1979. Fleck, Ludwik, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1979. Gavroglu, Kostas. O Passado das Ciências como História, Porto: Porto Editora,


id: history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:33.454256+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history that examines the development of the understanding of the natural world (science) and humans' ability to manipulate it (technology) at different points in time. This academic discipline also examines the cultural, economic, and political context and impacts of scientific practices; it likewise may study the consequences of new technologies on existing scientific fields. == Academic study of history of science == History of science is an academic discipline with an international community of specialists. Main professional organizations for this field include the History of Science Society, the British Society for the History of Science, and the European Society for the History of Science. Much of the study of the history of science has been devoted to answering questions about what science is, how it functions, and whether it exhibits large-scale patterns and trends. === History of the academic study of history of science === Histories of science were originally written by practicing and retired scientists, starting primarily with William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), as a way to communicate the virtues of science to the public. Auguste Comte proposed that there should be a specific discipline


id: history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology-1.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:33.454256+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
=== India === History of science and technology is a well-developed field in India. At least three generations of scholars can be identified. The first generation includes D.D.Kosambi, Dharmpal, Debiprasad Chattopadhyay and Rahman. The second generation mainly consists of Ashis Nandy, Deepak Kumar, Dhruv Raina, S. Irfan Habib, Shiv Visvanathan, Gyan Prakash, Stan Lourdswamy, V.V. Krishna, Itty Abraham, Richard Grove, Kavita Philip, Mira Nanda and Rob Anderson. There is an emergent third generation that includes scholars like Abha Sur and Jahnavi Phalkey. Departments and Programmes The National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies had a research group active in the 1990s which consolidated social history of science as a field of research in India. Currently there are several institutes and university departments offering HST programmes. Jawaharlal Nehru University has an Mphil-PhD program that offers specialisation in Social History of Science. It is at the History of Science and Education group of the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies (ZHCES) in the School of Social Sciences. Renowned Indian science historians Deepak Kumar and Dhruv Raina teach here. Also, *Centre for Studies in Science Policy has an Mphil-PhD program that offers specialization in Science, Technology, and Society along with various allied


id: history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology-2.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:33.454256+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
=== United States === Academic study of the history of science as an independent discipline was launched by George Sarton at Harvard with his book Introduction to the History of Science (1927) and the Isis journal (founded in 1912). Sarton exemplified the early 20th century view of the history of science as the history of great men and great ideas. He shared with many of his contemporaries a Whiggish belief in history as a record of the advances and delays in the march of progress. The History of Science was not a recognized subfield of American history in this period, and most of the work was carried out by interested scientists and physicians rather than professional historians. With the work of I. Bernard Cohen at Harvard, the history of Science became an established subdiscipline of history after 1945. Arizona State University's Center for Biology and Society offers several paths for MS or PhD students who are interested in issues surrounding the history and philosophy of the science. California Institute of Technology offers courses in the History and Philosophy of Science to fulfill its core humanities requirements. Case Western Reserve University has an undergraduate interdisciplinary program in the History and Philosophy


id: academic-family-tree-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Family_Tree-0.md
category: reference
title: Academic Family Tree
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Family_Tree
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:34.722825+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-family-tree-20260505-0
summary:
The Academic Family Tree, which began as Neurotree, is an online database for academic genealogy, containing numerous "family trees" of academic disciplines. Neurotree was established in 2005 as a family tree of neuroscientists. Later that year Academic Family Tree incorporated Neurotree and family trees of other scholarly disciplines. Unlike a conventional genealogy or family tree, in which connections among individuals are from kinship (e.g., parents to children), connections in Academic Family Tree are from mentoring relationships, usually among people working in academic settings (e.g., doctoral supervisors to students). Academic Family Tree has been used as sources of information for the history and prospects of academic fields such as psychology, meteorology, organizational communication, and neuroscience. It has been used to address infometrics, to research issues of scientific methodology, and to examine mentor characteristics that predict mentee academic success. == Functioning and scope == The founders of the initial trees, including Neurotree, populated them from published sources, such as ProQuest. Later, they set up discipline-specific family trees of Academic Family Tree to be volunteer-run; accuracy is maintained by a group of volunteer editors. Hierarchical connections between mentors ("parents") and mentees ("children") are defined as any meaningful mentoring relationship (research assistant, graduate student,


id: biographical-encyclopedia-of-astronomers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographical_Encyclopedia_of_Astronomers-0.md
category: reference
title: Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographical_Encyclopedia_of_Astronomers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:35.876094+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: biographical-encyclopedia-of-astronomers-20260505-0
summary:
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (BEA) is a two-volume biographical dictionary, first published in 2007, with a second edition released in 2014. The work covers astronomers from all regions, born anytime between antiquity and mid-1918. It includes more than 1500 biographies of both well-known and more obscure astronomers, produced by 410 contributors. The encyclopedia has been published in both a print and online format by the publisher, Springer. == Editions == Hockey, Thomas A.; Virginia Trimble; Thomas R. Williams; Katherine Bracher, eds. (2007). Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. Bibcode:2007bea..book.....H. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7. ISBN 9780387310220. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers at Google Books == References == == External links == Publisher's webpage (1st Edition) Publisher's webpage (2nd Edition)


id: studies-in-history-of-biology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_in_History_of_Biology-0.md
category: reference
title: Studies in History of Biology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_in_History_of_Biology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:37.028081+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: studies-in-history-of-biology-20260505-0
summary:
Studies in History of Biology was an annual publication edited by William Coleman and Camille Limoges and published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD, in seven volumes from 1977 to 1984. == Volumes == Vol. 1 (1977) 232 pp. ISBN 0-8018-1862-1 Ravin, Arnold R.: The gene as catalyst, the gene as organism. 1-45. PMID 11609975 Albury, William Randall: Experiment and explanation in the physiology of Bichat and Magendie. 47–131. PMID 11609978 Cowan, Ruth Schwartz: Nature and nurture: the interplay of biology and politics in the work of Francis Galton. 133–208. PMID 11609976 Holmes, Frederic L.: Conceptual history: a review of François Jacob, La Logique du Vivant - The Logic of Life. 209–218. PMID 11609977 Vol. 2 (1978) 224 pp. ISBN 0-8018-2034-0 Staum, M.S.: Medical components in Cabanis's science of man. 1-31. PMID 11610408 Ospovat, Dov: Perfect adaptation and teleological explanation: approaches to the problem of the history of life in the mid-nineteenth century. 33–56. PMID 11610411 Kottler, D.B.: Louis Pasteur and molecular dissymmetry, 1844–1857. 57–98. PMID 11610412 Todes, Daniel: V.O. Kovalevskii: the genesis, content, and reception of his paleontological work. 99–165. Provine, W. B.: The role of mathematical population geneticists in the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s.


id: conflict-thesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis-0.md
category: reference
title: Conflict thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:38.249335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: conflict-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
The conflict thesis is a historiographical approach in the history of science that originated in the 19th century with John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. It maintains that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science, and that it inevitably leads to hostility. The consensus among historians of science is that the thesis has long been discredited, which explains the rejection of the thesis by contemporary scholars. Into the 21st century, historians of science widely accept a complexity thesis. The lack of engagement with the advancements in the history of science perpetuates belief in the thesis. Global studies on scientists show that most scientists do not see religion and science in conflict and studies on the views of the general public indicate that the conflict perspective is not prevalent either. == Historical conflict thesis == Before the 19th century, no one had pitted "science" against "religion" or vice versa in writing. The relationship between religion and science became an actual formal topic of discourse in the 19th century. More specifically, it was around the mid-19th century that discussion of "science and religion" first emerged because before this time, the term science still included moral and metaphysical dimensions,


id: conflict-thesis-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis-1.md
category: reference
title: Conflict thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:38.249335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: conflict-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
[T]he story of the supposed opposition of the Church and the Popes and the ecclesiastical authorities to science in any of its branches, is founded entirely on mistaken notions. Most of it is quite imaginary. Much of it is due to the exaggeration of the significance of the Galileo incident. Only those who know nothing about the history of medicine and of science continue to harbor it. That Dr. White's book, contradicted as it is so directly by all serious histories of medicine and of science, should have been read by so many thousands in this country, and should have been taken seriously by educated men, physicians, teachers, and even professors of science who want to know the history of their own sciences, only shows how easily even supposedly educated men may be led to follow their prejudices rather than their mental faculties, and emphasizes the fact that the tradition that there is no good that can possibly come out of the Nazareth of the times before the reformation, still dominates the intellects of many educated people who think that they are far from prejudice and have minds perfectly open to conviction. In God and Nature (1986), David Lindberg and


id: conflict-thesis-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis-2.md
category: reference
title: Conflict thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:38.249335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: conflict-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
=== Academic === Historians of science today have moved away from a conflict model, which is based mainly on two historical episodes (those involving Galileo and Darwin) in favor of a "complexity" model, because religious figures took positions on both sides of each dispute and there was no overall aim by any party involved in discrediting religion. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould said: "White's and Draper's accounts of the actual interaction between science and religion in Western history do not differ greatly. Both tell a tale of bright progress continually sparked by science. And both develop and use the same myths to support their narrative, the flat-earth legend prominently among them". In a summary of the historiography of the conflict thesis, Colin A. Russell, the former President of Christians in Science, said that "Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship". In Science & Religion, Gary Ferngren proposes a complex relationship between religion and science: While some historians had always regarded the Draper-White thesis as oversimplifying


id: conflict-thesis-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis-3.md
category: reference
title: Conflict thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:38.249335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: conflict-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
In 1559, Pope Paul IV promulgated the Pauline Index which is also known as Index Librorum Prohibitorum. While it has been described by some as "the turning-point for the freedom of enquiry in the Catholic world", the effects of the Index were actually minimal and it was largely ignored. After less than a year, it was replaced by the Tridentine Index which relaxed aspects of the Pauline Index that had been criticized and had prevented its acceptance. It is inaccurate to describe the Index as being an enduring and definitive statement of Catholic censorship. It contained a list of "heretical" or "amoral" publications that were forbidden for Catholics to read or print and included not just heretics but anti-clerical authors and Protestant Christians. === Scientists and public perceptions === The conflict thesis is still held to be true in whole or in part by some scientists, including the theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who said "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works." Others, such as Steven Weinberg, grant that it is possible for science and religion to be compatible


id: conflict-thesis-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis-4.md
category: reference
title: Conflict thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:38.249335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: conflict-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
Antireligion – Opposition to religion Antitheism – Opposition to theism, and usually to religion Boundary object – Sociology of information science Boundary-work – Study of boundaries between disciplines Continuity thesis – Hypothesis regarding European intellectual history Faith and rationality – Two approaches that exist in varying degrees of conflict or compatibility Fideism – Epistemological theory that faith is independent of reason Flat Earth – Archaic conception of Earth's shape Non-overlapping magisteria – Concept created by Stephen Jay Gould Relationship between religion and science Religious intolerance – Intolerance of another's religious beliefs or practices Trading zones (metaphor) – Metaphor applied to collaborations in science == References == == Further reading == Barbour, Ian G. When Science Meets Religion. HarperSanFrancisco, 2000. Brooke, John H., Margaret Osler, and Jitse M. van der Meer, (editors). "Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions," Osiris, 2nd ser., vol. 16 (2001), ISBN 0-226-07565-6 Mahner, M., Bunge, M. Is religious education compatible with science education?. Sci Educ 5, 101–123 (1996) Ferngren, Gary (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0 Jones, Richard H., For the Glory of God: The Role of Christianity in the Rise and Development of Modern Science. Lanham, Maryland:


id: continuity-thesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_thesis-0.md
category: reference
title: Continuity thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:39.508191+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: continuity-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
In the history of ideas, the continuity thesis is the hypothesis that there was no radical discontinuity between the intellectual development of the Middle Ages and the developments in the Renaissance and early modern period. Thus the idea of an intellectual or scientific revolution following the Renaissance is, according to the continuity thesis, a myth. Some continuity theorists point to earlier intellectual revolutions occurring in the Middle Ages, usually referring to the European Renaissance of the 12th century as a sign of continuity. The continuity thesis has been seen by Paul Freedman and Gabrielle M. Spiegel as characteristic of Medieval studies in North America in the twentieth century. Despite the many points that have been brought up by proponents of the continuity thesis, however, a majority of scholars still support the traditional view of the Scientific Revolution occurring in the 16th and 17th centuries. == Duhem == The idea of a continuity, rather than contrast between medieval and modern thought, begins with Pierre Duhem, the French physicist and philosopher of science. It is set out in his ten-volume work on the history of science, Le système du monde: histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic. Unlike many former historians


id: continuity-thesis-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_thesis-1.md
category: reference
title: Continuity thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:39.508191+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: continuity-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
There was a sudden dawning of a new outlook on the world after 1000 years of darkness. Ancient learning was rediscovered. New ideas about intellectual inquiry and freedom replaced reliance on authority. Scientific investigation replaced the sterile disputes of the schools. He claims that the Renaissance was in fact a period when thought declined significantly and brought to an end a period of advance in the Late Middle Ages and that the twelfth century was the "real, true, and unqualified renaissance". For example, the rediscovery of ancient knowledge, which the later Italian humanists claimed for themselves, was actually accomplished in the 12th century. Franklin cites many examples of scientific advances in the medieval period that predate or anticipate later 'discoveries'. For example, the first advances in geometrical optics and mechanics were in the 12th century. The first steps in understanding motion, and continuous variation in general, occurred in the 14th century with the work of the scientists of the Merton School, at Oxford in the 1330s and 1340s. (Franklin notes that there is no phrase in ancient Greek or Latin equivalent to "kilometres per hour"). Nicole Oresme, who wrote on theology and money, devoted much of his effort to science


id: continuity-thesis-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_thesis-2.md
category: reference
title: Continuity thesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_thesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:39.508191+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: continuity-thesis-20260505-0
summary:
== Hatfield == Gary Hatfield, in his "Was the Scientific Revolution Really a Revolution of Science?", argues that while the "Scientific Revolution" of the 17th century did have several individual "revolutions", he does not consider the period to be a "scientific" revolution. Some of his reasons include science still being tied to metaphysics at the time, experimental physics not being separated from natural philosophy until the end of the 18th century, and comparable individual "revolutions" in different sciences continued occurring before and after the 17th century, such as the optical revolution of Faraday and Maxwell. == Bala == Another contrary view has been recently proposed by Arun Bala in his dialogical history of the birth of modern science. Bala proposes that the changes involved in the Scientific Revolution — the mathematical realist turn, the mechanical philosophy, the atomism, the central role assigned to the Sun in Copernican heliocentrism — have to be seen as rooted in multicultural influences on Europe. He sees specific influences in Alhazen's physical optical theory, Chinese mechanical technologies leading to the perception of the world as a machine, the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, which carried implicitly a new mode of mathematical atomic thinking, and the heliocentrism rooted


id: darwin-industry-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Industry-0.md
category: reference
title: Darwin Industry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Industry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:40.736551+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: darwin-industry-20260505-0
summary:
The Darwin Industry refers to historical scholarship about, and the large community of historians of science working on, Charles Darwin's life, work, and influence. The term "has a slightly derogatory connotation, as if the scale of the research has gotten out of control with people cranking out studies on perhaps less and less important aspects of Darwin's work"; but it was originally a self-designation of the scholars who began re-evaluating Darwin and studying his manuscripts and correspondence in the second half of the 20th century. == Darwin's manuscripts and correspondence == One of the most significant projects of the Darwin Industry has been the systematic publication of all of Darwin's unpublished writings. Two volumes of the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin were published in 1887 along with The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, edited by Francis Darwin; two volumes of More Letters of Charles Darwin were published in 1902. Francis Darwin edited 1909 editions of Darwin's notebooks related to the inception of his theory. Darwin's granddaughter Nora Barlow pieced together the 1930 Diary of the Beagle from Darwin's unpublished notebooks. A flood of Darwiniana was published in the mid-twentieth century, especially by Darwin's descendants, leading up to the 1959 Darwin


id: dictionary-of-scientific-biography-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_Scientific_Biography-0.md
category: reference
title: Dictionary of Scientific Biography
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_Scientific_Biography
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:41.896452+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dictionary-of-scientific-biography-20260505-0
summary:
The Dictionary of Scientific Biography is a scholarly reference work that was published from 1970 through 1980 by publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, with main editor the science historian Charles Gillispie, from Princeton University. It consisted of sixteen volumes. It is supplemented by the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2007). Both these publications are included in a later electronic book, called the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. == Dictionary of Scientific Biography == The Dictionary of Scientific Biography is a scholarly English-language reference work consisting of biographies of scientists from antiquity to modern times but excluding scientists who were alive when the Dictionary was first published. It includes scientists who worked in the areas of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and earth sciences. The work is notable for being one of the most substantial reference works in the field of history of science, containing extensive biographies on hundreds of figures. It gives information about both the personal biography and in considerable detail about the scientific contributions. Engineers, physicians, social scientists and philosophers only appeared "when their work was intrinsically related to the sciences of nature or to mathematics." Though the Dictionary has worldwide coverage, the editors write that it focuses most on


id: economics-of-scientific-knowledge-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_scientific_knowledge-0.md
category: reference
title: Economics of scientific knowledge
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_scientific_knowledge
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:43.116598+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: economics-of-scientific-knowledge-20260505-0
summary:
The economics of scientific knowledge is an approach to understanding science which is predicated on the need to understand scientific knowledge creation and dissemination in economic terms. The approach has been developed as a contrast to the sociology of scientific knowledge, which places scientists in their social context and examines their behavior using social theory. The economics of scientific knowledge typically involves thinking of scientists as having economic interests with these being thought of as utility maximisation and science as being a market process. Modelling strategies might use any of a variety of approaches including the neoclassical, game theoretic, behavioural (bounded rationality) information theoretic and transaction costs. Boumans and Davis (2010) mention Dasgupta and David (1994) as being an interesting early example of work in this area. == See also == Economics of science == References ==


id: albert-einstein-archives-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein_Archives-0.md
category: reference
title: Albert Einstein Archives
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein_Archives
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:44.281773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: albert-einstein-archives-20260505-0
summary:
Albert Einstein Archives refers to an archive on the Givat Ram (Edmond J. Safra) campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Jerusalem housing the personal papers of 20th century physicist Albert Einstein. == Overview == In his will, Albert Einstein left the Hebrew University his personal papers and the copyright to them. The Albert Einstein Archives contain some 55,000 items. In March 2012, the university announced that it had digitized the archive and was planning to make it more accessible online. The archive initially released 2,000 documents. Within the collection are his personal notes, love letters to various women, including the woman who would become his second wife, Elsa. Also to be included in the online collection is a letter to the Arabic newspaper Falastin, proposing a "Secret Council" composed of Arabs and Jews to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict. == History == Albert Einstein visited Palestine in 1923 for 12 days, giving the first lecture at the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—two years before the university opened in 1925. Menachem Ussishkin, the president of the Zionist Executive, invited Einstein to settle in Jerusalem, but this was the only visit that Einstein actually made to Jerusalem.


id: einstein-papers-project-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Papers_Project-0.md
category: reference
title: Einstein Papers Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Papers_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:45.446220+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: einstein-papers-project-20260505-0
summary:
The Einstein Papers Project (EPP) produces the historical edition of the writings and correspondence of Albert Einstein. The EPP collects, transcribes, translates, annotates, and publishes materials from Einstein's literary estate and a multitude of other repositories, which hold Einstein-related historical sources. The staff of the project is an international collaborative group of scholars, editors, researchers, and administrators working on the ongoing authoritative edition The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (CPAE). == Significance == According to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "The Albert Einstein Archives is an extraordinary cultural asset of universal importance for humanity and of national importance for Israel and the Jewish people. Representing the intellectual and personal record of a creative genius whose thinking profoundly changed our perception of the universe, it is of inestimable value. Einstein did not wish that any physical monument or memorial be erected in his name. The preservation of his papers, which most authentically reflect his ideas and person, affords a far more fitting means of maintaining his legacy." == Foundation == The EPP was established by Princeton University Press (PUP) in 1977 at the Institute for Advanced Study. The founding editor of the project was professor of physics John Stachel. In 1984,


id: einstein-papers-project-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Papers_Project-1.md
category: reference
title: Einstein Papers Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Papers_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:45.446220+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: einstein-papers-project-20260505-0
summary:
== Volumes == The Early Years: 1879-1902 is the first volume in the series. The Swiss Years: 1900-1914 and The Berlin Years: 1914-1930 followed through volume 17 in two parallel and extensively cross-referenced branches: Writings: published and previously unpublished articles, lecture notes, research notes, accounts of his lectures, speeches, interviews, book reviews, etc. Correspondence: letters, travel diaries, calendars, documents about Einstein by third parties, etc. == The early years: 1879–1902 == === Volume 1 - Collected Papers 1879-1902 === Includes many previously unpublished documents, e.g. class notes for Heinrich Friedrich Weber's lectures on thermodynamics and electromagnetism during Einstein's second year at ETH Zurich, etc. The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 1, The Early Years: 1879-1902. Editors: John Stachel et al. ISBN 0-691-08407-6, 1987. == The Swiss years: 1900–1914 == === Volume 2 - Writings 1900-1909 === Includes Einstein's first (1900) published paper after his graduation from ETH Zurich, the Annus Mirabilis Papers, text of his invited lecture after his first academic appointment to the University of Zurich, etc. The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 2, The Swiss Years: Writings, 1900-1909. Editors: John Stachel et al. ISBN 0-691-08526-9, 1989. === Volume 3 - Writings 1909-1911 === Includes Einstein's report


id: einstein-papers-project-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Papers_Project-2.md
category: reference
title: Einstein Papers Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Papers_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:45.446220+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: einstein-papers-project-20260505-0
summary:
John Stachel: First editor, volumes 1, 2 Martin J. Klein: Editor, volumes 3, 4, 5, 6 Robert Schulmann: Editor, volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; associate editor, volumes 1, 2 A. J. Kox: Editor, volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 15, 16; associate editor, volumes 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 Tilman Sauer: Editor, volumes 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16; contributing editor, volume 4 Jürgen Renn: Editor, volumes 3, 4; assistant editor, volumes 1, 2 Michel Janssen: Editor, volumes 7, 8 Christoph Lehner: Editor, volume 7 Virginia Iris Holmes: Editor, volumes 10, 12 Osik Moses: Editor, volumes 11, 14; associate editor, volumes 12, 13 Dennis Lehmkuhl: Editor, volumes 15, 16; associate editor, volumes 13, 14 Issachar Unna, associate editor, volumes 13, 14, 15 József Illy: Editor, volumes 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16; contributing editor, volumes 4, 6 Daniel J. Kennefick: Editor, volumes 9, 16; associate editor, volumes 7, 10, 12, 13, 15 Current editors of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein are: Diana Kormos-Buchwald: director and general editor, Robert M. Abbey Professor of History at Caltech. A historian of modern physical science. Ze'ev Rosenkranz: senior editor and assistant director, past curator


id: experimental-system-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_system-0.md
category: reference
title: Experimental system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:46.582343+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: experimental-system-20260505-0
summary:
In scientific research, an experimental system is the physical, technical and procedural basis for an experiment or series of experiments. Historian of science Hans-Jörg Rheinberger defines an experimental system as: "A basic unit of experimental activity combining local, technical, instrumental, institutional, social, and epistemic aspects." Scientists (particularly laboratory biologists) and historians and philosophers of biology have pointed to the development and spread of successful experimental systems, such as those based on popular model organism or scientific apparatus, as key elements in the history of science, particularly since the early 20th century. The choice of an appropriate experimental system is often seen as critical for a scientist's long-term success, as experimental systems can be very productive for some kinds of questions and less productive for others, acquiring a sort of momentum that takes research in unpredicted directions. A successful experimental system must be stable and reproducible enough for scientists to make sense of the system's behavior, but variable and unpredictable enough that it can produce useful results. In many cases, a well-understood experimental system can be "black-boxed" as a standard technique, which can then be a component of other experimental systems. Rheinberger divides experimental systems into two parts: the part under


id: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission-0.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:47.872458+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
summary:
In the history of gunpowder there are a range of theories about the transmission of the knowledge of gunpowder and guns from Imperial China to the rest of the world following the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties. The earliest bronze guns found in China date back to the 13th century, with archaeological and textual evidence for previous nascent gunpowder technology developed beforehand. Scholars note the scarcity of records for firearms in the Middle East prior to the mid-14th century, and in Russia before the late 14th century, yet cannons already appeared in Europe by the early 14th century. This has led to theories that gunpowder or the gun was independently invented in Europe. Less accepted theories include gunpowder as being independently invented in the Middle East or South Asia. == Theories of non-Chinese invention == The earliest gunpowder recipe and gunpowder weapons date to China's Song dynasty and the oldest extant guns appear in the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. However, historian Tonio Andrade notes that there is a surprising scarcity of reliable evidence of firearms in Iran or Central Asia prior to the late 14th century. He argues that, in the Middle East, no guns are mentioned prior to


id: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission-1.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:47.872458+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
summary:
Some European, especially German researchers of firearms history, believed that a German monk, Berthold Schwarz, is the inventor of gunpowder. However, there are different theories regarding various data concerning Berthold inventing gunpowder, including his last name, his nationality, his religion, the year, and location of the invention. The earliest German document mentioning him says that he was a Greek engaged in alchemy, rather than a monk. Later, there were theories saying that he was from Denmark, Prague, Cologne, Freiburg, Braunschweig, and Metz. In religious denomination, he was said by some to be a member of Franciscan faction of Christianity, and by others to be of the Dominique faction. No one can say for sure. When it comes to the year of his inventing gunpowder, there are a variety of claims, including 1,250, 1,313, 1,348, 1,354, 1,372, 1,380, and 1,393, with a difference as great as 143 years. The dating of Schwartz' invention of gunpowder, given by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher as 1354, is also later than even the first usage of cannons in Europe. The chronological problem did not go unnoticed and in 1732, Hermann Boerhaave shifted the invention of gunpowder to Roger Bacon while Schwartz was relegated to the


id: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission-2.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:47.872458+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
summary:
There is an independent invention theory supporting an Islamic origin of the gun, citing the Mamluk deployment of hand cannons in 1260 and a passage by Ibn Khaldun on the Marinid Siege of Sijilmassa in 1274: "[The Sultan] installed siege engines ... and gunpowder engines ..., which project small balls of iron. These balls are ejected from a chamber ... placed in front of a kindling fire of gunpowder; this happens by a strange property which attributes all actions to the power of the Creator." The passage, dated to 1382, and its interpretation has been rejected as anachronistic by most historians, who urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, as they did for an earlier incendiary, naphtha. Needham believes Ibn Khaldun was speaking of fire lances or proto-guns rather than hand cannon. Historian Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, based on his analysis of 14th-century Arabic manuscripts which he argues to be copies of earlier texts, claims that hand cannons were used at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. However Hassan's claims have been refuted by other historians such as David Ayalon, Iqtidar Alam Khan,


id: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission-3.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:47.872458+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
summary:
There is no clear proof that gunpowder and rockets were known in any other country earlier than in China. J. Dubois (1765-1848) maintained that rockets were invented in India as early as 300 BCE, on the grounds that the ancient Sanskrit classic, the Rāmāyaṇa, spoke of vāṇa or bāṇa, which was at one time thought to mean 'rocket'. W. Egerton regarded the agnyastra of the Vedic Hymns as a type of rocket. Further examination of the Rāmayaṇa shows, however, that the term vāṇa or bāṇa simply means an arrow shot from a bow'. In 1880, Gustav Oppert claimed that the oldest documents describing gunpowder were the Sanskrit texts Sukraniti and Nitiprakasika. The Sukraniti contains descriptions of firearms and a formula for agni-curna (fire-powder) or 'suvarcilavana' (well-shining salt) very similar to that mentioned the Wujing Zongyao: 5 parts saltpetre, 1 part sulphur, and 1 part charcoal. The two firearms mentioned in the Sukraniti are a musket and a cart-drawn gun. There are no definite dates for these works despite claims of their antiquity. Oppert uses archaeological evidence from the ancient temple carvings in India, where soldiers are depicted carrying or in some cases firing the firearms, as proof of ancient use


id: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission-4.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:47.872458+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
summary:
The Chinese texts are usually fairly precisely dated, whilst Indian works are often not. This difficulty must not be allowed to impair the interest or value of Indian works, but they must also be examined from the point of view of their scientific and technical contents with due care and with a suitably critical attitude. I feel that Oppert's treatment does not satisfy this requirement. J.R. Partington rejected Oppert's claims in his A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder. Partington believes that the sataghni mentioned in Sanskrit text was an iron-mace rather than a cannon while Joseph Needham is of the opinion that its translation as cannon cannot be sustained. The word for cannon, nalika, does not appear in any Sanskrit dictionary, and the source of Sukraniti is the mythical Sukracharya. There is also no classical Sanskrit word for saltpetre while shoraka in late Sanskrit is derived from Persian. Rajendralal Mitra raised doubts about the age of another work by Usanas, Nitisara of Sukracharya, noting that it contains descriptions of firearms as they were a hundred years ago. In Partington's opinion the work is legendary. In 1902, P.C. Ray raised doubts about the authenticity of textual evidence supporting ancient Hindu


id: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission-5.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:47.872458+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
summary:
Although the spread of gunpowder is directly related to the rise of the Mongols and the Pax Mongolica, it is unclear whether the Mongols themselves contributed to the spread. Some historians have claimed the Mongols used gunpowder weapons, essentially bombs hurled by catapults, in the Middle East and perhaps Eastern Europe; unfortunately there is no definite documentary or archaeological evidence to confirm it. Considering the Mongols rarely met a weapon they did not like, we can be certain that if they found a way to transport it safely it would have been incorporated into their arsenal outside China. Nonetheless, it remains speculation... However... the Mongols used it in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan. === Independent invention theory === Opponents of the transmission theory criticize the vagueness of Chinese records on the specific usage of gunpowder in weaponry, the existence of gunpowder or possibly lack thereof in incendiary weapons as described by Chinese documents, the weakness of Chinese firearms, the non-existent route of diffusion or evidence of guns between Europe and China before 1326, and emphasize the independent evolution of superior guns in Europe. However, this line of thought is problematic for a


id: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission-6.md
category: reference
title: Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_gunpowder_and_gun_transmission
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:47.872458+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: historiography-of-gunpowder-and-gun-transmission-20260505-0
summary:
== Bibliography == Ágoston, Gábor (2005), Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-60391-1 Andrade, Tonio (2016), The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13597-7. Arnold, Thomas (2001), The Renaissance at War, Cassell & Co, ISBN 978-0-304-35270-8 Bachrach, David Stewart (July 2008). "Review of Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological History". Technology and Culture. 49 (3). Aldershot: Ashgate: 785–786. doi:10.1353/tech.0.0051. S2CID 111173101. Buchanan, Brenda J. (2006), Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological History, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-7546-5259-5 Chase, Kenneth (2003), Firearms: A Global History to 1700, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-82274-9. Cressy, David (2013), Saltpeter: The Mother of Gunpowder, Oxford University Press Kalyanaraman, A. (1903). The Saga Of The Indo-aryans. Kelly, Jack (2004), Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, & Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World, Basic Books, ISBN 978-0-465-03718-6. Khan, Iqtidar Alam (1996). "Coming of Gunpowder to the Islamic World and North India: Spotlight on the Role of the Mongols". Journal of Asian History. 30: 41–45. Khan, Iqtidar Alam (2004), Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India, Oxford University Press Khan, Iqtidar Alam (2008),


id: the-history-and-present-state-of-electricity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_and_Present_State_of_Electricity-0.md
category: reference
title: The History and Present State of Electricity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_and_Present_State_of_Electricity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:49.083823+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-history-and-present-state-of-electricity-20260505-0
summary:
The History and Present State of Electricity (1767), by eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley, is a survey of the study of electricity up until 1766, as well as a description of experiments by Priestley himself. == Background == Priestley became interested in electricity while he was teaching at Warrington Academy. Friends introduced him to the major British experimenters in the field: John Canton, William Watson, and Benjamin Franklin. These men encouraged Priestley to perform the experiments he was writing about in his history; they believed that he could better describe the experiments if he had performed them himself. In the process of replicating others' experiments, however, Priestley became intrigued by the still unanswered questions regarding electricity and was prompted to design and undertake his own experiments. Priestley possessed an electrical machine designed by Edward Nairne. With his brother Timothy he designed and constructed his own machines (see Timothy Priestley#Scientific apparatus). == Contents == The first half of the 700-page book is a history of the study of electricity. It is parted into ten periods, starting with early experiments "prior to those of Mr. Hawkesbee", finishing with variable experiments and discoveries made after Franklin's own experiments. The book takes Franklin's work


id: paradigm-shift-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift-0.md
category: reference
title: Paradigm shift
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:51.433044+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paradigm-shift-20260505-0
summary:
A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Even though Kuhn restricted the use of the term to the natural sciences, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events. Kuhn presented his notion of a paradigm shift in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn contrasts paradigm shifts, which characterize a Scientific Revolution, to the activity of normal science, which he describes as scientific work done within a prevailing framework or paradigm. Paradigm shifts arise when the dominant paradigm under which normal science operates is rendered incompatible with new phenomena, facilitating the adoption of a new theory or paradigm. As one commentator summarizes: Kuhn acknowledges having used the term "paradigm" in two different meanings. In the first one, "paradigm" designates what the members of a certain scientific community have in common, that is to say, the whole of techniques, patents and values


id: paradigm-shift-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift-1.md
category: reference
title: Paradigm shift
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:51.433044+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paradigm-shift-20260505-0
summary:
=== Paradigm shifts and progress === A common misinterpretation of paradigms is the belief that the discovery of paradigm shifts and the dynamic nature of science (with its many opportunities for subjective judgments by scientists) are a case for relativism: the view that all kinds of belief systems are equal. Kuhn vehemently denies this interpretation and states that when a scientific paradigm is replaced by a new one, albeit through a complex social process, the new one is always better, not just different. === Incommensurability === These claims of relativism are, however, tied to another claim that Kuhn does at least somewhat endorse: that the language and theories of different paradigms cannot be translated into one another or rationally evaluated against one another—that they are incommensurable. This gave rise to much talk of different peoples and cultures having radically different worldviews or conceptual schemes—so different that whether or not one was better, they could not be understood by one another. Donald Davidson famously argued against this idea of conceptual relativism, claiming that the notion that any languages or theories could be incommensurable with one another was itself incoherent. If this is correct, Kuhn's claims must be taken in a weaker


id: paradigm-shift-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift-2.md
category: reference
title: Paradigm shift
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:51.433044+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paradigm-shift-20260505-0
summary:
The movement known as the cognitive revolution moved away from behaviourist approaches to psychology and the acceptance of cognition as central to studying human behavior. Anthropologist Franz Boas published The Mind of Primitive Man, which integrated his theories concerning the history and development of cultures and established a program that would dominate American anthropology in the following years. His research, along with that of his other colleagues, combatted and debunked the claims being made by scholars at the time, given scientific racism and eugenics were dominant in many universities and institutions that were dedicated to studying humans and society. Eventually anthropology would apply a holistic approach, utilizing four subcategories to study humans: archaeology, cultural, evolutionary, and linguistic anthropology. At the turn of the 20th century, sociologists, along with other social scientists developed and adopted methodological antipositivism, which sought to uphold a subjective perspective when studying human activities pertaining to culture, society, and behavior. This was in stark contrast to positivism, which took its influence from the methodologies utilized within the natural sciences. First proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879, the laryngeal theory in Indo-European linguistics postulated the existence of "laryngeal" consonants in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), a theory that


id: paradigm-shift-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift-3.md
category: reference
title: Paradigm shift
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:51.433044+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paradigm-shift-20260505-0
summary:
== Criticism == In a 2015 retrospective on Kuhn, the philosopher Martin Cohen describes the notion of the paradigm shift as a kind of intellectual virus – spreading from hard science to social science and on to the arts and even everyday political rhetoric today. Cohen claims that Kuhn had only a very hazy idea of what it might mean and, in line with the Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, accuses Kuhn of retreating from the more radical implications of his theory, which are that scientific facts are never really more than opinions whose popularity is transitory and far from conclusive. Cohen says scientific knowledge is less certain than it is usually portrayed, and that science and knowledge generally is not the 'very sensible and reassuringly solid sort of affair' that Kuhn describes, in which progress involves periodic paradigm shifts in which much of the old certainties are abandoned in order to open up new approaches to understanding that scientists would never have considered valid before. He argues that information cascades can distort rational, scientific debate. He has focused on health issues, including the example of highly mediatised 'pandemic' alarms, and why they have turned out eventually to be


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Philosophy of science (also theory of science) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose and meaning of science as a human endeavour. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of scientific practice, and overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, logic, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and the concept of truth. Philosophy of science is both a theoretical and empirical discipline, relying on philosophical theorising as well as meta-studies of scientific practice. Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than the philosophy of science. Many of the central problems concerned with the philosophy of science lack contemporary consensus, including whether science can infer truth about unobservable entities and whether inductive reasoning can be justified as yielding definite scientific knowledge. Philosophers of science also consider philosophical problems within particular sciences (such as biology, physics and social sciences such as economics and psychology). Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to reach conclusions about philosophy itself. While


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
A closely related question is what counts as a good scientific explanation. In addition to providing predictions about future events, society often takes scientific theories to provide explanations for events that occur regularly or have already occurred. Philosophers have investigated the criteria by which a scientific theory can be said to have successfully explained a phenomenon, as well as what it means to say a scientific theory has explanatory power. One early and influential account of scientific explanation is the deductive-nomological model. It says that a successful scientific explanation must deduce the occurrence of the phenomena in question from a scientific law. This view has been subjected to substantial criticism, resulting in several widely acknowledged counterexamples to the theory. It is especially challenging to characterize what is meant by an explanation when the thing to be explained cannot be deduced from any law because it is a matter of chance, or otherwise cannot be perfectly predicted from what is known. Wesley Salmon developed a model in which a good scientific explanation must be statistically relevant to the outcome to be explained. Others have argued that the key to a good explanation is unifying disparate phenomena or providing a causal mechanism.


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Should science aim to determine ultimate truth, or are there questions that science cannot answer? Scientific realists claim that science aims at truth and that one ought to regard scientific theories as true, approximately true, or likely true. Conversely, scientific anti-realists argue that science does not aim (or at least does not succeed) at truth, especially truth about unobservables like electrons or other universes. Instrumentalists argue that scientific theories should only be evaluated on whether they are useful. In their view, whether theories are true or not is beside the point, because the purpose of science is to make predictions and enable effective technology. Realists often point to the success of recent scientific theories as evidence for the truth (or near truth) of current theories. Antirealists point to either the many false theories in the history of science, epistemic morals, the success of false modeling assumptions, or widely termed postmodern criticisms of objectivity as evidence against scientific realism. Antirealists attempt to explain the success of scientific theories without reference to truth. Some antirealists claim that scientific theories aim at being accurate only about observable objects and argue that their success is primarily judged by that criterion. ==== Real patterns ====


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-3.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Instrumentalism became popular among physicists around the turn of the 20th century, after which logical positivism defined the field for several decades. Logical positivism accepts only testable statements as meaningful, rejects metaphysical interpretations, and embraces verificationism (a set of theories of knowledge that combines logicism, empiricism, and linguistics to ground philosophy on a basis consistent with examples from the empirical sciences). Seeking to overhaul all of philosophy and convert it to a new scientific philosophy, the Berlin Circle and the Vienna Circle propounded logical positivism in the late 1920s. Interpreting Ludwig Wittgenstein's early philosophy of language, logical positivists identified a verifiability principle or criterion of cognitive meaningfulness. From Bertrand Russell's logicism they sought reduction of mathematics to logic. They also embraced Russell's logical atomism, Ernst Mach's phenomenalism—whereby the mind knows only actual or potential sensory experience, which is the content of all sciences, whether physics or psychology—and Percy Bridgman's operationalism. Thereby, only the verifiable was scientific and cognitively meaningful, whereas the unverifiable was unscientific, cognitively meaningless "pseudostatements"—metaphysical, emotive, or such—not worthy of further review by philosophers, who were newly tasked to organize knowledge rather than develop new knowledge. Logical positivism is commonly portrayed as taking the extreme position that scientific


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-4.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
That there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers."The basis for rationality is acceptance of an external objective reality." "Objective reality is clearly an essential thing if we are to develop a meaningful perspective of the world. Nevertheless its very existence is assumed." "Our belief that objective reality exist is an assumption that it arises from a real world outside of ourselves. As infants we made this assumption unconsciously. People are happy to make this assumption that adds meaning to our sensations and feelings, than live with solipsism." "Without this assumption, there would be only the thoughts and images in our own mind (which would be the only existing mind) and there would be no need of science, or anything else." That this objective reality is governed by natural laws; "Science, at least today, assumes that the universe obeys knowable principles that don't depend on time or place, nor on subjective parameters such as what we think, know or how we behave." Hugh Gauch argues that science presupposes that "the physical world is orderly and comprehensible." That reality can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation.Stanley Sobottka said: "The assumption of external reality is necessary for


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-5.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994) argued that no description of scientific method could possibly be broad enough to include all the approaches and methods used by scientists, and that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science. He argued that "the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes". Feyerabend said that science started as a liberating movement, but that over time it had become increasingly dogmatic and rigid and had some oppressive features, and thus had become increasingly an ideology. Because of this, he said it was impossible to come up with an unambiguous way to distinguish science from religion, magic, or mythology. He saw the exclusive dominance of science as a means of directing society as authoritarian and ungrounded. Promulgation of this epistemological anarchism earned Feyerabend the title of "the worst enemy of science" from his detractors. === Sociology of scientific knowledge methodology === According to Kuhn, science is an inherently communal activity which can only be done as part of a community. For him, the fundamental difference between science and other disciplines is the way in which the communities function. Others, especially Feyerabend and some post-modernist thinkers, have argued that there is


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-6.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Other topics == === Reductionism === Analysis involves breaking an observation or theory down into simpler concepts in order to understand it. Reductionism can refer to one of several philosophical positions related to this approach. One type of reductionism suggests that phenomena are amenable to scientific explanation at lower levels of analysis and inquiry. Perhaps a historical event might be explained in sociological and psychological terms, which in turn might be described in terms of human physiology, which in turn might be described in terms of chemistry and physics. Daniel Dennett distinguishes legitimate reductionism from what he calls greedy reductionism, which denies real complexities and leaps too quickly to sweeping generalizations. === Social accountability === A broad issue affecting the neutrality of science concerns the areas which science chooses to explore—that is, what part of the world and of humankind are studied by science. Philip Kitcher in his Science, Truth, and Democracy argues that scientific studies that attempt to show one segment of the population as being less intelligent, less successful, or emotionally backward compared to others have a political feedback effect which further excludes such groups from access to science. Thus such studies undermine the broad consensus required


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-7.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Philosophy of biology deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have long been interested in biology (e.g., Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz and even Kant), philosophy of biology only emerged as an independent field of philosophy in the 1960s and 1970s. Philosophers of science began to pay increasing attention to developments in biology, from the rise of the modern synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s to the discovery of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in 1953 to more recent advances in genetic engineering. Other key ideas such as the reduction of all life processes to biochemical reactions as well as the incorporation of psychology into a broader neuroscience are also addressed. Research in current philosophy of biology includes investigation of the foundations of evolutionary theory (such as Peter Godfrey-Smith's work), and the role of viruses as persistent symbionts in host genomes. As a consequence, the evolution of genetic content order is seen as the result of competent genome editors in contrast to former narratives in which error replication events (mutations) dominated. === Philosophy of medicine === Beyond medical ethics and bioethics, the philosophy of medicine is a branch


id: philosophy-of-science-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science-8.md
category: reference
title: Philosophy of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:52.646108+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philosophy-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The philosophy of social science is the study of the logic and method of the social sciences, such as sociology and cultural anthropology. Philosophers of social science are concerned with the differences and similarities between the social and the natural sciences, causal relationships between social phenomena, the possible existence of social laws, and the ontological significance of structure and agency. The French philosopher, Auguste Comte (1798–1857), established the epistemological perspective of positivism in The Course in Positivist Philosophy, a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. The first three volumes of the Course dealt chiefly with the natural sciences already in existence (geoscience, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology), whereas the latter two emphasised the inevitable coming of social science: "sociologie". For Comte, the natural sciences had to necessarily arrive first, before humanity could adequately channel its efforts into the most challenging and complex "Queen science" of human society itself. Comte offers an evolutionary system proposing that society undergoes three phases in its quest for the truth according to a general 'law of three stages'. These are (1) the theological, (2) the metaphysical, and (3) the positive. Comte's positivism established the initial philosophical foundations for formal sociology and social research. Durkheim,


id: planck-s-principle-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle-0.md
category: reference
title: Planck's principle
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:53.842625+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: planck-s-principle-20260505-0
summary:
In sociology of scientific knowledge, Planck's principle is the view that scientific change does not occur because individual scientists change their mind, but rather that successive generations of scientists have different views. It is named after the physicist Max Planck, who stated a version of it in his autobiography. == Formulation == This was formulated by Max Planck: A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it ...An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth. Often the more concise "Science progresses one funeral at a time" is used which was originated by Paul A. Samuelson. == Adoption == Planck's quote has been used by Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and others to argue scientific revolutions are non-rational, rather than spread through "mere force of truth


id: plate-tectonics-revolution-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_Tectonics_Revolution-0.md
category: reference
title: Plate Tectonics Revolution
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_Tectonics_Revolution
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:54.979772+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: plate-tectonics-revolution-20260505-0
summary:
The Plate Tectonics Revolution was the scientific and cultural change which developed from the acceptance of the plate tectonics theory. The event was a paradigm shift and scientific revolution. By 1967 most scientists in geology accepted the theory of plate tectonics. The root of this was Alfred Wegener's 1912 publication of his theory of continental drift, which was a controversy in the field through the 1950s. At that point scientists introduced new evidence in a new way, replacing the idea of continental drift with instead a theory of plate tectonics. The acceptance of this theory brought scientific and cultural change which commentators called the "Plate Tectonics Revolution". == Response == In 1975 a paper said that "plate tectonics" gained general acceptance in its field in 1968 and called that acceptance a revolution. One scientist said that the Plate Tectonics Revolution brought excitement among scientists in the field in the 1960s. Publications in generations after the event reflected on how the Plate Tectonics Revolution was an early example of data science. One commentator claimed that the plate tectonics theory became popular and established a revolution in culture even before scientists could confirm some of the claims for which evidence was lacking.


id: precursorism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precursorism-0.md
category: reference
title: Precursorism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precursorism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:57.307364+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: precursorism-20260505-0
summary:
Precursorism (called in its more extreme forms precursoritis or precursitis) is historiographical bias in which a historian seeks direct precursors of present-day institutions or ideas in earlier historical periods, where none may clearly exist. Precursorist historical narratives are anachronistic: cherry picking data and often failing to account for the perspectives of people in the contemporary past. Precursorism is considered to be a form of Whig history, and is a special problem among historians of science. It is now commonly assumed that historians of science should study past scientific "ideas in their own right, avoiding anachronism and precursoritis." == Examples of precursorism == The French historian of medieval science, Pierre Duhem, exemplifies several of the characteristics of the quest for precursors of modern scientific ideas. Duhem was trained as a physicist, rather than as a historian; he was French and many of the precursors he identified were French or studied at the University of Paris; he was a devout Catholic and many of the precursors of the theologically troubling Italian, Galileo, were members of religious orders. Most striking among them was the French bishop and scholastic philosopher, Nicole Oresme. The concept has been applied to those who would find precursors of


id: science-wars-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars-0.md
category: reference
title: Science wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:58.466683+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-wars-20260505-0
summary:
In the philosophy of science, the science wars were a series of scholarly and public discussions in the 1990s over the social place of science in making authoritative claims about the world. Encyclopedia.com, citing the Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, describes the science wars as the "complex of discussions about the way the sciences are related to or incarnated in culture, history, and practice. [...] [which] came to be called a 'war' in the mid 1990s because of a strong polarization over questions of legitimacy and authority. One side [...] is concerned with defending the authority of science as rooted in objective evidence and rational procedures. The other side argues that it is legitimate and fruitful to study the sciences as institutions and social-technical networks whose development is influenced by linguistics, economics, politics, and other factors surrounding formally rational procedures and isolated established facts." The science wars took place principally in the United States in the 1990s in the academic and mainstream press. Scientific realists (such as Norman Levitt, Paul R. Gross, Jean Bricmont and Alan Sokal) accused many writers, whom they described as 'postmodernist', of having effectively rejected scientific objectivity, the scientific method, empiricism, and scientific knowledge. Though much


id: science-wars-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars-1.md
category: reference
title: Science wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:58.466683+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-wars-20260505-0
summary:
A number of different philosophical and historical schools, often grouped together as "postmodernism", began reinterpreting scientific achievements of the past through the lens of the practitioners, often positing the influence of politics and economics in the development of scientific theories in addition to scientific observations. Rather than being presented as working entirely from positivistic observations, many scientists of the past were scrutinized for their connection to issues of gender, sexual orientation, race, and class. Some more radical philosophers, such as Paul Feyerabend, argued that scientific theories were themselves incoherent and that other forms of knowledge production (such as those used in religion) served the material and spiritual needs of their practitioners with equal validity as did scientific explanations. Imre Lakatos advanced a midway view between the "postmodernist" and "realist" camps. For Lakatos, scientific knowledge is progressive; however, it progresses not by a strict linear path where every new element builds upon and incorporates every other, but by an approach where a "core" of a "research program" is established by auxiliary theories which can themselves be falsified or replaced without compromising the core. Social conditions and attitudes affect how strongly one attempts to resist falsification for the core of a program,


id: science-wars-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars-2.md
category: reference
title: Science wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:58.466683+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-wars-20260505-0
summary:
=== Continued conflict === In the first few years after the 'Science Wars' edition of Social Text, the seriousness and volume of discussion increased significantly, much of it focused on reconciling the 'warring' camps of postmodernists and scientists. One significant event was the 'Science and Its Critics' conference in early 1997; it brought together scientists and scholars who study science and featured Alan Sokal and Steve Fuller as keynote speakers. The conference generated the final wave of substantial press coverage (in both news media and scientific journals), though by no means resolved the fundamental issues of social construction and objectivity in science. Other attempts have been made to reconcile the two camps. Mike Nauenberg, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, organized a small conference in May 1997 that was attended by scientists and sociologists of science alike, among them Alan Sokal, N. David Mermin and Harry Collins. In the same year, Collins organized the Southampton Peace Workshop, which again brought together a broad range of scientists and sociologists. The Peace Workshop gave rise to the idea of a book that intended to map out some of the arguments between the disputing parties. The One Culture?: A Conversation


id: sensory-history-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_history-0.md
category: reference
title: Sensory history
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_history
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:59.829274+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sensory-history-20260505-0
summary:
Sensory history is an area of academic study which examines the role conceptions of our senses have played in the past. It developed partly as a reaction to the lack of serious attention given to sensory experience in traditional history books, which often treat sensory experience as a writing technique rather than a serious avenue of enquiry. Works of sensory history try to convey a deeper understanding of the past through an emphasis on physical experiences. One of the most significant proponents of sensory history is the American historian Mark M. Smith. Anthropological approaches to sensory studies have had a notable influence on sensory history and there has been significant discussion and overlap between the two disciplines. The transient nature of sensory experience makes sensory history a difficult topic to study and write about. This challenge is reflected in debate within the field, such as what methods of presentation are appropriate for works of sensory history. == History == Karl Marx drew attention to the possibility of sensory history in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in which he stated that "the forming of the five senses is a labour of the entire history of the world down to


id: sensory-history-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_history-1.md
category: reference
title: Sensory history
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_history
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:59.829274+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sensory-history-20260505-0
summary:
== Debate == The method of presentation of sensory history has been a significant topic of debate in the field of sensory history. Historians such as Peter Charles Hoffer place priority upon the communication of their work to their audience. This can involve more creative methods of presentation, such as living museums or interactive exhibitions, in order for the audience to more deeply experience and understand the past. Other historians, such as Mark M. Smith, disagree with this method of presentation, as priority is placed upon the historicity of the senses. Smith contends that how people sense now is fundamentally different from how people sensed in the past, based on factors such as location and context. He argues that presentations of sensory history such as living museums undermine the integrity of sensory history, as they suggest that a person is able to experience the past in the same way that those who lived the experience did, regardless of their fundamentally different contexts and places unnecessary importance on the 'consumption' of the past. However, more recent work by William Tullett has argued that using our senses in the present to engage with sensory reconstructions of the past can be a useful


id: sensory-history-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_history-2.md
category: reference
title: Sensory history
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_history
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:27:59.829274+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sensory-history-20260505-0
summary:
=== Sight === Sight has historically been considered one of the 'higher' senses as it is linked to reading and use of the mind. It has also been associated with the higher classes of society whose jobs do not involve manual labour, as opposed to the lower classes who have even been referred to as simply "hands". This is also reflected in the use of the term 'Dark Ages' and the 'Enlightenment' to describe the period of history in which minimal progress was made as opposed to the period when the foundations of modern thought were built. Due to this supposed supremacy, particularly within the sensory hierarchy of the west, there is no dearth of visual analysis in the practice of traditional history writing. Visual sources such as photographs and paintings are frequently utilised as important sources in historical works. In his essay, When Seeing Makes Scents, Mark M. Smith argues that these visual sources can be mined for information about the other four senses in order to gain a more complete understanding of past sensory experiences. == Significant works == In the ‘boom’ of sensory history during the late 20th and early 21st century, many significant works have been


id: sociology-and-the-history-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_and_the_history_of_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Sociology and the history of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_and_the_history_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:01.068321+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sociology-and-the-history-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Throughout the 20th and 21st century, sociological inquiry has sought to analyze large-scale socialized patterns and trends in the development of science, as well as ask and answer questions about how science "works" both in a philosophical and practical sense. In particular, sociologists concerned with the history of science ask how societies construct narritives around scienticity, and how methodologies and paradigms throughout scientific history not only change, but change in context to culture, authority, political economy, and more sociologically strident means of analysis. == Science as a social enterprise == In the last few centuries, science as a social enterprise has grown rapidly. The few individuals who could conduct natural research in antiquity were either wealthy individuals themselves, had wealthy sponsors, or had the backing of a religious group. Today, scientific research has tremendous government support and also ongoing support from the private sector. Available methods of communication have improved tremendously over time. Instead of waiting months or years for a hand-copied letter to arrive, today scientific communication can be practically instantaneous. Earlier, most natural philosophers worked in relative isolation, due to the difficulty and slowness of communication. Still, there was a considerable amount of cross-fertilization between distant groups and


id: sociology-and-the-history-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_and_the_history_of_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Sociology and the history of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_and_the_history_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:01.068321+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sociology-and-the-history-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Political support == One of the basic requirements for a scientific community is the existence and approval of a political sponsor; in England, the Royal Society operates under the aegis of the monarchy; in the US, the National Academy of Sciences was founded by Act of the United States Congress; etc. Otherwise, when the basic elements of knowledge were being formulated, the political rulers of the respective communities could choose to arbitrarily either support or disallow the nascent scientific communities. For example, Alhazen had to feign madness to avoid execution. The polymath Shen Kuo lost political support, and could not continue his studies until he came up with discoveries that showed his worth to the political rulers. The admiral Zheng He could not continue his voyages of exploration after the emperors withdrew their support. Another famous example was the suppression of the work of Galileo, by the twentieth century, Galileo would be pardoned. == Patterns in the history of science == One of the major occupations with those interested in the history of science is whether or not it displays certain patterns or trends, usually along the question of change between one or more scientific theories. Generally speaking, there


id: sociology-and-the-history-of-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_and_the_history_of_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Sociology and the history of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_and_the_history_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:01.068321+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sociology-and-the-history-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
== The nature of scientific discovery == Individual ideas and accomplishments are among the most famous aspects of science, both internally and in larger society. Breakthrough figures like Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein are often celebrated as geniuses and heroes of science. Popularizers of science, including the news media and scientific biographers, contribute to this phenomenon. But many scientific historians emphasize the collective aspects of scientific discovery, and de-emphasize the importance of the "Eureka!" moment. A detailed look at the history of science often reveals that the minds of great thinkers were primed with the results of previous efforts, and often arrive on the scene to find a crisis of one kind or another. For example, Einstein did not consider the physics of motion and gravitation in isolation. His major accomplishments solved a problem which had come to a head in the field only in recent years—empirical data showing that the speed of light was inexplicably constant, no matter the apparent speed of the observer. (See Michelson–Morley experiment.) Without this information, it is very unlikely that Einstein would have conceived of anything like relativity. The question of who should get credit for any given discovery is often a source


id: strong-programme-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_programme-0.md
category: reference
title: Strong programme
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_programme
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:02.251929+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: strong-programme-20260505-0
summary:
The strong programme or strong sociology is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) particularly associated with David Bloor, Barry Barnes, Harry Collins, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry. The strong programme's influence on science and technology studies is credited as being unparalleled. The largely Edinburgh-based school of thought aims to illustrate how the existence of a scientific community, bound together by allegiance to a shared paradigm, is a prerequisite for normal scientific activity. The strong programme is a reaction against "weak" sociologies of science, which restricted the application of sociology to "failed" or "false" theories, such as phrenology. Failed theories would be explained by citing the researchers' biases, such as covert political or economic interests. Sociology would be only marginally relevant to successful theories, which succeeded because they had revealed a fact of nature. The strong programme proposed that both "true" and "false" scientific theories should be treated the same way. Both are caused by social factors or conditions, such as cultural context and self-interest. All human knowledge, as something that exists in the human cognition, must contain some social components in its formation process. == Characteristics == As formulated by David Bloor, the strong programme has


id: science-studies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_studies-0.md
category: reference
title: Science studies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_studies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:03.462360+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-studies-20260505-0
summary:
Science studies is an interdisciplinary research area that seeks to situate scientific expertise in broad social, historical, and philosophical contexts. It uses various methods to analyze the production, representation and reception of scientific knowledge and its epistemic and semiotic role. Similarly to cultural studies, science studies are defined by the subject of their research and encompass a large range of different theoretical and methodological perspectives and practices. The interdisciplinary approach may include and borrow methods from the humanities, natural and formal sciences, from scientometrics to ethnomethodology or cognitive science. Science studies have a certain importance for evaluation and science policy. Overlapping with the field of science, technology and society, practitioners study the relationship between science and technology, and the interaction of expert and lay knowledge in the public realm. == Scope == The field started with a tendency toward navel-gazing: it was extremely self-conscious in its genesis and applications. From early concerns with scientific discourse, practitioners soon started to deal with the relation of scientific expertise to politics and lay people. Practical examples include bioethics, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), pollution, global warming, biomedical sciences, physical sciences, natural hazard predictions, the (alleged) impact of the Chernobyl disaster in the UK, generation


id: science-studies-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_studies-1.md
category: reference
title: Science studies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_studies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:03.462360+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-studies-20260505-0
summary:
Until now there has been no science that describes the means for making discoveries and inventions, and the generality of people, as well as many people of learning, believe that there never will be. This is an error. Someday a science of making discoveries and inventions will exist and will render services. It will arise not all at once; first only its general outline will appear, which subsequent researchers will correct and elaborate, and which still later researchers will apply to individual branches of knowledge. It is striking that, while early 20th-century sociologist proponents of a discipline to study science and its practitioners wrote in general theoretical terms, Prus had already half a century earlier described, with many specific examples, the scope and methods of such a discipline. Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) increased interest both in the history of science and in science's philosophical underpinnings. Kuhn posited that the history of science was less a linear succession of discoveries than a succession of paradigms within the philosophy of science. Paradigms are broader, socio-intellectual constructs that determine which types of truth claims are permissible. Science studies seeks to identify key dichotomies – such as those between science and


id: science-studies-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_studies-2.md
category: reference
title: Science studies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_studies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:03.462360+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-studies-20260505-0
summary:
Donovan et al. (2012) used social studies of volcanology to investigate the generation of knowledge and expert advice on various active volcanoes. It contains a survey of volcanologists carried out during 2008 and 2009 and interviews with scientists in the UK, Montserrat, Italy and Iceland during fieldwork seasons. Donovan et al. (2012) asked the experts about the felt purpose of volcanology and what they considered the most important eruptions in historical time. The survey tries to identify eruptions that had an influence on volcanology as a science and to assess the role of scientists in policymaking. A main focus was on the impact of the Montserrat eruption 1997. The eruption, a classical example of the black swan theory directly killed (only) 19 persons. However the outbreak had major impacts on the local society and destroyed important infrastructure, as the island's airport. About 7,000 people, or two-thirds of the population, left Montserrat; 4,000 to the United Kingdom. The Montserrat case put immense pressure on volcanologists, as their expertise suddenly became the primary driver of various public policy approaches. The science studies approach provided valuable insights in that situation. There were various miscommunications among scientists. Matching scientific uncertainty (typical of volcanic unrest)


id: virtual-laboratory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Laboratory-0.md
category: reference
title: Virtual Laboratory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Laboratory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:04.685759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: virtual-laboratory-20260505-0
summary:
The online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life. The term experimentalization describes the interaction between the life sciences, the arts, architecture, media and technology within the experimental paradigm, ca. 1830 to 1930. The Virtual Laboratory is a platform that not only presents work on this topic but also acts as a research environment for new studies. == History == In 1977, the first version of the Virtual Laboratory was presented, titled Virtual Laboratory of Physiology. At this time, the main focus lay on the development of technological preconditions of physiological research in the 19th century. Therefore, a database with relevant texts and images was created. In 1998, the concept still used today was created after a series of modifications, followed by the publication of a cd-ROM in 1999. At this time, the focus had been expanded from physiology to the life sciences in general, as well as the arts and literature. As the project had been extended from a sole database to a platform for historiographical research, it was presented at


id: abbot-payson-usher-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbot_Payson_Usher_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Abbot Payson Usher Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbot_Payson_Usher_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:06.152222+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: abbot-payson-usher-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Abbot Payson Usher Memorial Prize, established in 1961 and named for Dr Abbott Payson Usher, is an award given annually by Society for the History of Technology for the best scholarly work on the history of technology published during the preceding three years under the auspices of the Society. Recipients include some of the most highly regarded historians of technology, including such pioneering figures as Robert S. Woodbury, Silvio Bedini, Robert Multhauf, Eugene S. Ferguson, Cyril Stanley Smith and others. The prize also indicates shifts in the field's emphasis over more than five decades from early technical studies of individual machines; the subsequent prominence of science, systems, and industrial research in the work of Thomas P. Hughes, George Wise, Bruce Seely and others; the rise of politics, gender and colonialism; and the recent shift to cultural histories of technology by Edward Jones-Imhotep and others. Pamela O. Long's Usher-prize-winning "Openness of Knowledge" was one basis for her awards as Guggenheim Fellow and MacArthur Fellow. == Past recipients == Source: Abbot Payson Usher Memorial Prize


id: abbot-payson-usher-prize-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbot_Payson_Usher_Prize-1.md
category: reference
title: Abbot Payson Usher Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbot_Payson_Usher_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:06.152222+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: abbot-payson-usher-prize-20260505-0
summary:
2024: Faisal Husain, “To Dam or Not to Dam: The Social Construction of an Ottoman Hydraulic Project, 1701-1702,” Technology and Culture 64:2 (2023): 456–484. 2023: Leor Halevi, "What Hath Allah Wrought? The Global Invention of Prescriptive Machines for the Islamic Consumer, 1975–2010", Technology and Culture 62:3 (2021): 741–779 2022: Robert MacDougall, "Sympathetic Physics: The Keely Motor and The Laws of Thermodynamics in Nineteenth Century Culture", Technology and Culture 60:2 (2019): 438–46 2021: Robyn d’Avignon, "Spirited Geobodies: Producing Subterranean Property in Nineteenth-Century Bambuk, West Africa", Technology and Culture 61:2 Supplement (2020), S20-S48 2020: Daniel Williford, "Seismic Politics: Risk and Reconstruction after the 1960 Earthquake in Agadir, Morocco", Technology and Culture 58:4 (October 2017): 982–1016 2019: Eden Medina, "Forensic Identification in the Aftermath of Human Rights Crimes in Chile: A Decentered Computer History", Technology and Culture 59:4 (Supplement, 2018): S100–S133 2018: Whitney Laemmli, "A Case in Pointe: Romance and Regimentation at the New York City Ballet", Technology and Culture 56 (January 2015): 1–27 2017: Edward Jones-Imhotep, "Malleability and Machines: Glenn Gould and the Technological Self", Technology and Culture 57 (April 2016): 287–321 2016: Edward J. Gillin, "Prophets of Progress: authority in the scientific projections and religious realisations of the Great Eastern steamship",


id: abbot-payson-usher-prize-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbot_Payson_Usher_Prize-2.md
category: reference
title: Abbot Payson Usher Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbot_Payson_Usher_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:06.152222+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: abbot-payson-usher-prize-20260505-0
summary:
Bedini, "The Compartmented Cylindrical Clepsydra", Technology and Culture 3 (1962): 115-41 JSTOR 3101437 1961: Robert S. Woodbury, "The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts", Technology and Culture 1 (1960): 235-53 JSTOR 3101392 == See also == List of history awards == References == == External links == The Abbot Payson Usher Prize - List of Winners


id: genevieve-miller-lifetime-achievement-award-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genevieve_Miller_Lifetime_Achievement_Award-0.md
category: reference
title: Genevieve Miller Lifetime Achievement Award
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genevieve_Miller_Lifetime_Achievement_Award
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:07.339428+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genevieve-miller-lifetime-achievement-award-20260505-0
summary:
The Genevieve Miller Lifetime Achievement Award, formerly known as the American Association for the History of Medicines's Lifetime Award, established in 1988, is presented annually to a retired member of the American Association for the History of Medicine who has demonstrated significant contributions to history of medicine. It was renamed in honour of Genevieve Miller in 2014. == Recipients == == References ==


id: george-sarton-medal-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sarton_Medal-0.md
category: reference
title: George Sarton Medal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sarton_Medal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:08.535061+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: george-sarton-medal-20260505-0
summary:
The George Sarton Medal is the most prestigious award given by the History of Science Society. It has been awarded annually since 1955. It is awarded to a historian of science from the international community who became distinguished for "a lifetime of scholarly achievement" in the field. The medal was designed by Bern Dibner and is named after George Sarton, the founder of the journal Isis and one of the founders of modern history of science. The Sarton Medalists are: 1955 – George Sarton 1956 – Charles Singer and Dorothea Waley Singer 1957 – Lynn Thorndike 1958 – John Farquhar Fulton 1959 – Richard Shryock 1960 – Owsei Temkin 1961 – Alexandre Koyré 1962 – E. J. Dijksterhuis 1963 – Vassili Zoubov 1964 – not awarded 1965 – J. R. Partington 1966 – Anneliese Maier 1967 – not awarded 1968 – Joseph Needham 1969 – Kurt Vogel 1970 – Walter Pagel 1971 – Willy Hartner 1972 – Kiyosi Yabuuti 1973 – Henry Guerlac 1974 – I. Bernard Cohen 1975 – René Taton 1976 – Bern Dibner 1977 – Derek T. Whiteside 1978 – Adolph Pavlovich Yushkevich 1979 – Maria Luisa Righini-Bonelli 1980 – Marshall Clagett 1981 – A. Rupert Hall


id: hirst-prize-and-lectureship-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirst_Prize_and_Lectureship-0.md
category: reference
title: Hirst Prize and Lectureship
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirst_Prize_and_Lectureship
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:09.711005+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hirst-prize-and-lectureship-20260505-0
summary:
The Hirst Prize and Lectureship is a biennial prize, jointly awarded by the London Mathematical Society (LMS) and the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM). The prize recognises original and innovative contributions to the history of mathematics by an individual winner or by joint winners. The prize was first awarded in 2015 (solely by the LMS) as part of the LMS's 150th anniversary celebrations. The prize is named in honour of Thomas Archer Hirst, who was from 1872 to 1874 the fifth President of the LMS. Any mathematician or historian of mathematics is eligible for the prize — except for previous winners of the De Morgan Medal, LMS's Pólya Prize, Fröhlich Prize, Naylor Prize and Lectureship, Senior Whitehead Prize, Senior Anne Bennett Prize, or the Christopher Zeeman Medal. In the year for awarding the prize, the members of the Hirst Prize Committee, the members of the LMS and BSHM Councils are also ineligible. The administration of the Hirst Prize alternates between the LMS and the BSHM offices, but the LMS alone organises the Hirst Lectureship. The lecture normally takes place in the year following the award of the Hirst Prize, and the venue for the lecture is chosen


id: hist-award-for-outstanding-achievement-in-the-history-of-chemistry-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIST_Award_for_Outstanding_Achievement_in_the_History_of_Chemistry-0.md
category: reference
title: HIST Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIST_Award_for_Outstanding_Achievement_in_the_History_of_Chemistry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:10.864389+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hist-award-for-outstanding-achievement-in-the-history-of-chemistry-20260505-0
summary:
The HIST Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry (2013–present) is given by the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award was originally known as the Dexter Award (1956–2001) and then briefly as the Sidney M. Edelstein Award (2002–2009), both given by the ACS. The Dexter Award was originally established by Sidney Milton Edelstein, a founder of the Dexter Chemical Corporation, to recognize an "outstanding career of contributions to the history of chemistry". As the Dexter Award, it was sponsored by the Dexter Corporation except for its final two years, when it was sponsored by the Mildred and Sidney Edelstein Foundation. The award was briefly known as the Sidney M. Edelstein Award from 2002 to 2009, but was still given by the ACS. As such, the Sidney M. Edelstein Award should be distinguished from the Sidney Edelstein Prize (1968–present), which has been given continuously since 1968 by the Society for the History of Technology to recognize "an outstanding scholarly book in the history of technology." == Recipients == === HIST Award (2013–present) === 2024 James L. Marshall and Virginia R. Marshall 2023 Geoffrey Rayner-Canham and Marelene Rayner-Canham 2022 Marco Beretta 2021


id: leonardo-da-vinci-medal-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci_Medal-0.md
category: reference
title: Leonardo da Vinci Medal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci_Medal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:11.995311+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: leonardo-da-vinci-medal-20260505-0
summary:
The Leonardo da Vinci Medal is the highest award of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), and was first given in 1962. In general this award is granted annually to scholars who have contributed outstandingly to the history of technology through research, teaching, publication or other activities. The prize consists of a certificate and a medal. The medal is a circular bronze medallion designed by the Hungarian expressionist sculptor András Beck. The face depicts the head of Leonardo da Vinci based on one of his self-portraits and the reverse depicts "the basic sources of energy (water, wind, and fire)," in the sculptor's words. == List of recipients == == References == == External links == The Leonardo da Vinci Medal – Society for the History of Technology


id: charles-a-lindbergh-chair-in-aerospace-history-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Lindbergh_Chair_in_Aerospace_History-0.md
category: reference
title: Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Lindbergh_Chair_in_Aerospace_History
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:13.200482+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: charles-a-lindbergh-chair-in-aerospace-history-20260505-0
summary:
The Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History, also known as the Lindbergh Chair, is a one-year senior fellowship hosted by the U.S. National Air and Space Museum (NASM), to assist a scholar in the research and composition of a book about aerospace history. Named for the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, the position is competitive: one experienced scholar is selected each year from multiple applicants worldwide. Up to $100,000 is granted to the winner. The Lindbergh Chair is one of four research fellowships administered by NASM within the Smithsonian Institution: the others are the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Fellowship, the A. Verville Fellowship, and the Postdoctoral Earth and Planetary Sciences Fellowship. Announced in 1977 at the 50th anniversary of Lindbergh's famous solo flight, 1978 was the first year that the Lindbergh Chair was occupied—British aviation historian Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith was selected as the first recipient. Each Lindbergh Chair application is judged relative to the suitability of its proposal, the scholarly record of the applicant, the availability of relevant museum staff advisors knowledgeable on the proposed topic, whether the NASM can provide the specific resources, and the applicability of the proposal to NASM's work-in-progress series. The winner is expected to reside


id: margaret-w-rossiter-history-of-women-in-science-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_W._Rossiter_History_of_Women_in_Science_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_W._Rossiter_History_of_Women_in_Science_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:14.378453+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: margaret-w-rossiter-history-of-women-in-science-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize is awarded by the History of Science Society for an outstanding book (in odd-numbered years) or article (in even-numbered years) on the history of women in science, published at most four years before the year of the award. It was previously called the Women's Prize, but in 2004 the History of Science Society Council voted unanimously at its annual meeting to rename it the Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize. == Recipients == == See also == List of general science and technology awards List of history awards List of science and technology awards for women Women in chemistry Women in science == References ==


id: kenneth-o-may-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_O._May_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Kenneth O. May Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_O._May_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:15.517128+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kenneth-o-may-prize-20260505-0
summary:
Kenneth O. May Prize and Medal in history of mathematics is an award of the International Commission on the History of Mathematics (ICHM) "for the encouragement and promotion of the history of mathematics internationally". It was established in 1989 and is named in honor of Kenneth O. May, the founder of ICHM. Since then, the award is given every four years, at the ICHM congress. == Kenneth O. May Prize winners == Source: (1989-2005) A Brief History of the Kenneth O. May Prize 2025: Jan Hogendijk and David E. Rowe 2021: Sonja Brentjes and Christine Proust 2017: Eberhard Knobloch and Roshdi Rashed 2013: Menso Folkerts and Jens Høyrup 2009: Ivor Grattan-Guinness and Radha Charan Gupta 2005: Henk J. M. Bos 2001: Ubiratàn D'Ambrosio and Lam Lay Yong 1997: René Taton 1993: Christoph Scriba and Hans Wussing 1989: Dirk Struik and Adolph P. Yushkevich == See also == List of history awards List of mathematics awards == References == A Brief History of the Kenneth O. May Prize in the History of Mathematics BLC Newsletter August 2009


id: nathan-reingold-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Reingold_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Nathan Reingold Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Reingold_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:16.708201+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nathan-reingold-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Nathan Reingold Prize (formerly Ida & Henry Schuman Prize) is given every year to a graduate student for having written an original essay in the history of science. It is awarded by the History of Science Society. == References ==


id: paul-bunge-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bunge_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Paul Bunge Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bunge_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:19.035070+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-bunge-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Paul Bunge Prize is an international award for seminal and lasting contributions to the history of scientific instruments. Endowed in 1993 by the late Hans R. Jenemann (1920–1996), glass chemist at Schott AG in Mainz, and collector and historian of antique chemical balances. The name of the prize commemorates the leading German maker of precision balances in the nineteenth century Paul Bunge (1839–1888). The Prize is given by the Hans R. Jenemann Foundation and jointly administered by the German Chemical Society and the Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie. == Bunge Prize Laureates == == Literature == Charlotte Bigg & Christoph Meinel (eds.), Paul Bunge Prize: History of Scientific Instruments, 1993-2023 (Frankfurt/Main: GDCh & DBG, 2023), 96 pp. == References == == External links == Foundation Flyer (in German) Jenemann Archive Project


id: pfizer-award-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer_Award-0.md
category: reference
title: Pfizer Award
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer_Award
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:20.251142+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pfizer-award-20260505-0
summary:
The Pfizer Award is awarded annually by the History of Science Society "in recognition of an outstanding book dealing with the history of science" that was "published in English during a period of three calendar years immediately preceding the year of competition."


id: pfizer-award-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer_Award-1.md
category: reference
title: Pfizer Award
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer_Award
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:20.251142+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pfizer-award-20260505-0
summary:
== Recipients == 1959 Marie Boas Hall, Robert Boyle and Seventeenth-Century Chemistry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1958). 1960 Marshall Clagett, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959). 1961 Cyril Stanley Smith, A History of Metallography: The Development of Ideas on the Structure of Metal before 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). 1962 Henry Guerlac, Lavoisier, The Crucial Year: The Background and Origin of His First Experiments on Combustion in 1772 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1961) 1963 Lynn Townsend White Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962). 1964 Robert E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in Eighteenth-Century England (London: Oxford University Press, 1963). 1965 Charles Donald O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964). 1966 L. Pearce Williams, Michael Faraday: A Biography (New York: Basic Books, 1965). 1967 Howard B. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966). 1968 Edward Rosen, Kepler's Somnium (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967). 1969 Margaret T. May, Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (Ithaca. N.Y.: Cornell University


id: pfizer-award-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer_Award-2.md
category: reference
title: Pfizer Award
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer_Award
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:20.251142+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pfizer-award-20260505-0
summary:
2022 Tara Nummedal, Anna Zieglerin and the Lion’s Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany 2023 Robyn d'Avignon, Ritual Geology. Gold and Subterranean Knowledge in Savanna West Africa 2024 Projit Mukharji, Brown Skins, White Coats: Race Science in India, 1920–66 == References ==


id: richard-w-leopold-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_W._Leopold_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Richard W. Leopold Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_W._Leopold_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:21.493650+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: richard-w-leopold-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Richard W. Leopold Prize is awarded biennially by the Organization of American Historians (OAH). Professor Richard W. Leopold (1912–2006) was President of the OAH in 1976–1977. A three-member committee, chosen by the President of the OAH, chooses the best history book on U.S. federal government agencies, U.S. foreign policies, U.S. military affairs, or biographies of government officials. Only non-academic historians are eligible for the Prize, preferably historians employed by federal government agencies. The winning author receives $1,500. In 1990, the prize went to two books. In 2002, the prize went to two books, one of which had two authors. In these years, the authors split the prize money. In the listing below, the author links lead to the latest available biographical data. Unfortunately, few government employees have sites comparable to those sites in academia. The institutional affiliation listed is that at the time the awards was given, and the links are to those institutions. In both cases, “Wikipedia” sites, where available, were given preference. == Recipients == == See also == List of history awards == References == == External links == OAH


id: roy-g-neville-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_G._Neville_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Roy G. Neville Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_G._Neville_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:22.662449+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: roy-g-neville-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Roy G. Neville Prize in Bibliography or Biography is a biennial award given by the Science History Institute (formerly the Chemical Heritage Foundation) to recognize a biographical work in the field of chemistry or molecular science. The Roy G. Neville Prize was established in 2006 and named to honor scientist and book collector Roy G. Neville. Neville founded Engineering and Technical Consultants, Redwood City, California, in 1973. He also assembled one of the world's largest collections of rare books in the field of science and technology. The Neville collection, including over 6,000 titles from the late 15th century to the early 20th century, was acquired by the Chemical Heritage Foundation (now the Science History Institute) in 2004. == Recipients == The following people have received the Neville Award: 2019 Helge Kragh, for Julius Thomsen: A Life in Chemistry and Beyond 2017 John C. Powers, for Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts 2016 Melvyn Usselman, for Pure Intelligence: The Life of William Hyde Wollaston 2013 Mary Jo Nye, for Michael Polanyi and His Generation: Origins of the Social Construction of Science 2011 Michael Hunter, for Boyle: Between God and Science 2009 William Hodson Brock, for


id: sidney-edelstein-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Edelstein_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Sidney Edelstein Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Edelstein_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:23.897365+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sidney-edelstein-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Sidney Edelstein Prize, previously known as the Dexter Prize, is an award presented by the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) to the author of an outstanding scholarly book in the field of the history of technology. The book must have been published during the preceding three years. The award was established in 1968 through the generosity of Sidney Edelstein, a historian of dyes and the founder of the Dexter Chemical Corporation. It was renamed the Sidney Edelstein Prize to honor his commitment to scholarship in the history of technology and is currently donated by his family. The prize consists of a plaque and a monetary award, which is currently $3,500. == History and design == The award was originally known as the Dexter Prize and was funded by the Dexter Chemical Corporation of New York City. When established, the prize carried a cash award of $1,000. It is awarded annually to outstanding books and monographs in the history of technology. The design of the award plaque was created by the silver sculptor Edward Widstrom. The imagery on the plaque is derived from the Plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti (1548), which is considered the first basic printed book on


id: suzanne-j-levinson-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_J._Levinson_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Suzanne J. Levinson Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_J._Levinson_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:25.028498+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: suzanne-j-levinson-prize-20260505-0
summary:
The Suzanne J. Levinson Prize is a prize of the History of Science Society, awarded biennially and established in 2006. The prize is given to the author of "a book in the history of the life sciences and natural history," published in the previous four years. The following authors have won the Levinson Prize: 2006 Prize – Sandra Herbert, Charles Darwin: Geologist ISBN 978-0-8014-4348-0 2008 Prize – Hannah Landecker, Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies ISBN 978-0-674-02328-4 2010 Prize – Gregory Radick, The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate about Animal Language ISBN 978-0-226-70224-7. 2012 Prize – Martin Rudwick, Worlds before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform ISBN 978-0-226-73128-5 2014 Prize – Daniela Bleichmar, Visible Empire.Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment ISBN 978-0-226-05853-5 2016 Prize – Nick Hopwood, Haeckel’s Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud ISBN 978-0-226-04694-5 2018 Prize – Evelleen Richards, Darwin and the Making of Sexual Selection ISBN 978-0-226-43690-6 2020 Prize – Erika Lorraine Milam, Creatures of Cain: The Hunt for Human Nature in Cold War America ISBN 978-0-691-18188-2 2022 Prize – Jenny Bangham, Blood Relations: Transfusion and the Making of Human Genetics ISBN 978-0226740034 2024 Prize - Ruth Rogaski, Knowing Manchuria: Environments,


id: verville-fellowship-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verville_Fellowship-0.md
category: reference
title: Verville Fellowship
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verville_Fellowship
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:26.234438+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: verville-fellowship-20260505-0
summary:
The A. Verville Fellowship is an American senior scholarship established in the name of aviation pioneer Alfred V. Verville at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. The Verville Fellowship is a competitive nine- to twelve-month in-residence fellowship for researching the history of aviation. The fellowship includes a $50,000 stipend with limited additional funds for travel and miscellaneous expenses. The program guidelines encourage candidates to pursue research and writing programs that appeal to an audience with broad interests while maintaining a professional tone. Outstanding manuscripts resulting from this program may be offered to the Smithsonian Institution Press for publication. == Fellowship selections == 2023-2024 - Sean Seyer - The Specter of Monopoly: The Conspiracy Theory that Shaped American Aviation, 1917-1949 2021-2022 - Alan Meyer - researching the lack of African American pilots in the industry 2016-2017 - Takashi Nishiyama 2015-2016 - Steven E. Harris - Wings of the Motherland: Soviet and Russian Cultures of Aviation from Khrushchev to Putin 2014-2015 - Alexander C.T. Geppert 2012-2013 - Richard Paul - NASA's role in the civil rights movement 2011-2012 - Anke Ortlepp - Jim Crow Terminals: The Desegregation of Airports in the American South 2010-2011 - Monique Laney - Transnational Migration


id: watson-helen-miles-and-audrey-davis-prize-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson,_Helen,_Miles,_and_Audrey_Davis_Prize-0.md
category: reference
title: Watson, Helen, Miles, and Audrey Davis Prize
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson,_Helen,_Miles,_and_Audrey_Davis_Prize
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:27.372096+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: watson-helen-miles-and-audrey-davis-prize-20260505-0
summary:
This prize should not be confused with the Watson Davis Award from the Association for Information Science and Technology. The Watson, Helen, Miles, and Audrey Davis Prize (formerly the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize) is awarded annually by the History of Science Society for a book published, during the past three years, on the history of science for a wide public. The book should "introduce an entire field, a chronological period, a national tradition, or the work of a noteworthy individual." The book can be written by multiple authors or editors and is required to be written in English and suitable for an audience including undergraduates and readers without specialized, technical knowledge. The author (or collective author) receives 1,000 U.S. dollars and a certificate. The prize, established in 1985, is named in honor of Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis who were science popularizers in the USA. == Winners == 1986 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself (New York: Random House, 1983). 1987 Thomas L. Hankins, Science in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 1988 John Heilbron, The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman


id: william-h-welch-medal-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Welch_Medal-0.md
category: reference
title: William H. Welch Medal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Welch_Medal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:28.556479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: william-h-welch-medal-20260505-0
summary:
The William H. Welch Medal is an annual award given by the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) to the author or co-authors of an outstanding book in medical history. According to the current rules, the award is not for editorial work. The book must be published during the five years preceding the award, which is presented at the AAHM's annual meeting. Any author who is awarded the William H. Welch is ineligible for subsequent awards of the medal — this rule of ineligibility was instituted in 1973, after Erwin Ackerknecht received the medal in 1953 and in 1972. The medal is named in honor of William H. Welch, M.D., a pathologist, bacteriologist, and first dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The inaugural medal was awarded in 1950 to Henry E. Sigerist. He grew up in Paris and Zurich and in 1932 moved to the United States as the successor to William H. Welch as director of the Johns Hopkins University Institute of the History of Medicine. == Past recipients == The medal has been awarded every year since 1971. Before 1971, there were some years in which the medal was not awarded.


id: william-h-welch-medal-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Welch_Medal-1.md
category: reference
title: William H. Welch Medal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Welch_Medal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:28.556479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: william-h-welch-medal-20260505-0
summary:
2023 — Yan Liu, Healing with Poisons: Potent Medicines in Medieval China (University of Washington Press, 2021) ISBN 0295748990 2022 — Jaipreet Virdi, Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History (University of Chicago Press, 2020) ISBN 0226824063 2021 — Benjamin Breen, The Age of Intoxication: Origins of the Global Drug Trade (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019); Breen, Benjamin (20 December 2019). 2019 pbk edition. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-9662-4. 10-digit ISBN 0812224981 2020 — Nicole Barnes, Intimate Communities: Wartime Healthcare and the Birth of Modern China, 1937–1945 (University of California Press, 2018) ASIN B07JMTSRNW ISBN 0520300467 2019 — Pablo Gómez, The Experiential Caribbean: Creating Knowledge and Healing in the Early Modern Atlantic (University of North Carolina Press, 2017); Gómez, Pablo F. (23 February 2017). 2017 pbk edition. UNC Press Books. ISBN 9781469630878. 2018 — Cristian Berco, From Body to Community: Venereal Disease and Society in Baroque Spain (University of Toronto Press, 2016) ISBN 9781442649620 2017 — Johanna Schoen, Abortion After Roe: Abortion After Legalization (University of North Carolina Press, 2015) ISBN 1469621185 2016 — Sean Hsiang-Lin Lei, Neither Donkey Nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle Over China’s Modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2014) ISBN 022616988X 2015 — Leslie J. Reagan,


id: william-h-welch-medal-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Welch_Medal-2.md
category: reference
title: William H. Welch Medal
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Welch_Medal
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:28.556479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: william-h-welch-medal-20260505-0
summary:
1968 — Saul Benison, Tom Rivers: Reflections on a Life in Medicine and Science (M.I.T. Press, 1967) OCLC 01085060 1967 — Howard B. Adelman, Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology (Cornell University Press, 1966) ISBN 080140004X 1966 — Whitfield J. Bell Jr., John Morgan: Continental Doctor (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965); Whitfield j. Bell, Jr (11 November 2016). 2016 pbk edition. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-1-5128-0031-9. 1965 — No award 1964 — No award 1963 — Saul Jarcho, "for scholarly contributions" 1962 — Genevieve Miller, The Adoption of Inoculation for Smallpox in England and France (University of Kentucky Press, 1960) 1961 — George Rosen, "for contributions to the social history of medicine" 1960 — Richard H. Shryock, "for scholarly contributions" 1959 — No award 1958 — Charles F. Mullett (1901–1994), The Bubonic Plague and England: An Essay in the History of Preventive Medicine (University of Kentucky Press, 1956) LCCN 56-6994 1957 — No award 1956 — Lyman Henry Butterfield (editor), Letters of Benjamin Rush (Princeton University Press, 1951) LCCN 51-11569; Butterfield, Lyman Henry (6 August 2019). 2019 pbk edition. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-62735-9. 1955 — No award 1954 — Jerome Pierce Webster and Martha Teach Gnudi, The


id: earth-system-science-partnership-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_System_Science_Partnership-0.md
category: reference
title: Earth System Science Partnership
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_System_Science_Partnership
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:30.110860+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: earth-system-science-partnership-20260505-0
summary:
Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) was an international interdisciplinary partnership established to promote integrated study of the Earth system and the interactions between environmental and human processes. The partnership brought together four major global change programmes: DIVERSITAS, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP). == Purpose and scope == ESSP aimed to transcend disciplinary boundaries by integrating natural sciences and social sciences to improve understanding and prediction of global and regional environmental change, and to inform sustainable responses. Its strategy emphasised systems-level observations, interdisciplinary modelling, regional studies, and engagement with stakeholders and policy communities. == Joint projects and activities == ESSP coordinated a small set of interdisciplinary “Joint Projects” addressing societally relevant themes: carbon (through the Global Carbon Project), food systems (GECAFS), water systems (GWSP), and global environmental change and human health (GEC&HH). These projects combined existing scientific networks, regional studies (for example the Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study, MAIRS), and capacity-building activities to link local-regional research with global synthesis. == Governance and review == ESSP operated as a partnership among the sponsoring programmes with coordination provided through a scientific committee and Secretariat functions, and it was periodically reviewed


id: aerodynamics-research-institute-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerodynamics_Research_Institute-0.md
category: reference
title: Aerodynamics Research Institute
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerodynamics_Research_Institute
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:31.459964+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: aerodynamics-research-institute-20260505-0
summary:
The Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA) in Göttingen was one of the four predecessor organizations of the 1969 founded "German Research and Experimental Institute for Aerospace", which in 1997 was renamed German Aerospace Center (DLR). == History == The AVA was created in 1919 from the 1907 Göttingen by Ludwig Prandtl founded "Modellversuchsanstalt für Aerodynamik der Motorluftschiff-Studiengesellschaft". In its founding years, it was still concerned with the development of the "best" form of airship. In 1908, the first wind tunnel was built in Göttingen for tests on models for aviation. In 1915, founded in 1911 Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) and under the direction of Ludwig Prandtl the "Modellversuchsanstalt aerodynamics" was founded in 1919 as the "Aerodynamic Research Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society" (AVA) was transferred to the KWG and converted in 1925 into the "Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Flow Research linked to the Aerodynamic Research Institute". Ludwig Prandtl headed the institute until 1937, his successor became Albert Betz. In the same year a spin-off from the institute took place under the name "Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt Göttingen e. V. in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society ", in which the Reich Ministry of Aviation was involved. The remaining after the spin-off part was continued under


id: balfour-biological-laboratory-for-women-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Biological_Laboratory_for_Women-0.md
category: reference
title: Balfour Biological Laboratory for Women
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Biological_Laboratory_for_Women
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:32.655403+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: balfour-biological-laboratory-for-women-20260505-0
summary:
The Balfour Biological Laboratory for Women was a laboratory attached to the University of Cambridge from 1884 to 1914. Established to expand the laboratory capacity and provide a separate space for women's practical work, it served as an important source of academic posts and opportunities for networking and discussion for women at Cambridge until laboratories began being shared by men and women in 1914. == Background == In March 1881, the month after women students received the right to sit the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge, twenty-two natural sciences students at Newnham College, Cambridge presented a memorial to the college's governing body outlining the need for more laboratory space. Newnham, one of two women's colleges at Cambridge, had had a purpose-built laboratory on its grounds since 1879. This laboratory was mostly set up for chemistry, and more space was needed because the Natural Sciences Tripos included a two-day examination in practical laboratory techniques. All laboratory space at Cambridge was becoming oversubscribed due to the increase in students wanting to study natural sciences, but it was also thought appropriate that women, who attended lectures alongside men, should have a separate laboratory facility rather than a shared one. In


id: biafran-research-and-production-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafran_Research_and_Production-0.md
category: reference
title: Biafran Research and Production
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafran_Research_and_Production
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:33.912878+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: biafran-research-and-production-20260505-0
summary:
Biafran Research and Production or Research and Production (RAP) was a scientific and engineering research institution of the Republic of Biafra that researched and manufactured military technology for the Biafran Armed Forces during the Nigerian Civil War. RAP was founded in April 1967 by Biafran scientists at the University of Biafra (now University of Nigeria) to independently manufacture weapons and technology that were difficult for the Biafran military to acquire from abroad due to the Nigerian blockade of Biafra. Technologies produced by chemists included incendiaries, smoke signals, detonators, napalm, primers, rocket fuels, cocktails, and bombs. Engineering groups produced grenade and rocket casings, mortar shells, bullets, and armored vehicles. One of the best known weapons was Ogbunigwe, a family of highly effective explosive devices that killed thousands of Nigerian soldiers in a single blast. Scientists at RAP additionally experimented with the development of chemical and biological weapons. RAP allowed Biafra to unexpectedly fight an extended war against the Soviet and British-backed Nigerian military, while Biafra received comparatively little international military aid. The weapons and vehicles produced by RAP are on display at the National War Museum, Umuahia. == References ==


id: cattle-breeding-centre-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_Breeding_Centre-0.md
category: reference
title: Cattle Breeding Centre
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_Breeding_Centre
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:35.113535+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cattle-breeding-centre-20260505-0
summary:
The Cattle Breeding Centre was a veterinary research centre at Shinfield in the United Kingdom. == History == The site opened in February 1943 as the Reading Centre for the Artificial Insemination of Dairy Cattle. It had Shorthorn and Guernsey cattle. In January 1944 the site produced the world's first calf produced by artificial insemination, working with the Agricultural Improvement Council. Another site had been opened at Cambridge in November 1942. The site closed in 1991. === Visits === On Thursday 15 November 1979, the site was visited by President General Suharto of Indonesia; the President had come to power in a coup in 1965, and the visit was attended by protestors from Reading University Amnesty International group. On Wednesday 29 October 1980, the site was visited by the second President of Botswana, Quett Masire. === Demolition === The site was demolished by the University of Reading and sold for housing (360 houses) in 2003. == Structure == The site was east of the A327, south of the M4, around a half-mile east of the former headquarters of Berkshire County Council. A short section of the National Cycle Network 50 runs east–west past the former site. == Function == The


id: center-for-strategic-research-iran-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Strategic_Research_(Iran)-0.md
category: reference
title: Center for Strategic Research (Iran)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Strategic_Research_(Iran)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:36.240689+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: center-for-strategic-research-iran-20260505-0
summary:
Center for Strategic Research or Institute for Strategic Research (Persian: مرکز تحقیقات استراتژیک) is a leading Iranian think tank on strategy issues. It is the research arm of the Iranian state's Expediency Discernment Council. Prof. Mohammad Reza Majidi is the head of center. Before that, the head of organization was Ali Akbar Velayati who replaced former head Hassan Rouhani, the former President of Iran. It was established in 1989.It publishes Foreign Relations Quarterly, Rahbord (Strategy) in Persian and Iranian Review of Foreign Affairsin English. == Departments == The CSR has six affiliated departments: Politics and International Relations Research Department (This department publishes 3 scientific journals: Foreign Relations Quarterly, A quarterly Journal of Strategy, Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs). Infrastructure and Production Research Department (This department publishes Gozaresh Rahbordi (Strategic Report)) Economic Research Department (This department publishes Gozaresh-e Pazhouheshhay-e Eqtesadi (Economic Research Report)) Cultural Research Department (This department publishes Gozareshat-e Rahbordi (Strategic Reports)) Legal Research and Jurisprudential Studies Department (Publication: Gozaresh-e Rahbordi (Strategic Report)) Executive and Information Department == People == Presidents Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha (1989–1992) Hassan Rouhani (1992–2013) Ali Akbar Velayati (2013–2017) Researchers Saeed Hajjarian == References == == External links == Official website


id: central-research-laboratories-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Research_Laboratories-0.md
category: reference
title: Central Research Laboratories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Research_Laboratories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:37.392491+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: central-research-laboratories-20260505-0
summary:
The Central Research Laboratories, often referred to as CRL, was a British research laboratory that originally belonged to the EMI Corporation. == History == During the period of 1927–29 EMI invested in developing a research and innovation centre that arguably set the tone for many of the technological advancements that would occur over the next 80 years in the UK and was held in extremely high regard globally. After years operating in central London and across various greater London locations, a new company site was built in the 1980s in Hayes, Middlesex. Hayes was often referred to as EMI Town, due to the presence of various company businesses, including the Gramophone Company HQ, which later became known as HMV. The lab's first director was Isaac Shoenberg, a pioneer of television. In 1996 the company formally became known as CRL Ltd after a management buy-out, in which EMI retained a nominal ownership. The company's business model became that of an incubator, that effectively funded innovations and research projects and once the products became 'viable', they were established into standalone subsidiary companies, that typically continued to operate out of their HQ office. In the year 2000, the company floated under a new


id: fernhurst-research-station-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernhurst_Research_Station-0.md
category: reference
title: Fernhurst Research Station
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernhurst_Research_Station
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:38.581799+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fernhurst-research-station-20260505-0
summary:
The Fernhurst Research Station was a crop protection chemical research institute in West Sussex, mainly run by ICI, for the fruit industry. The site is to the east of the A286, around a mile south of the village of Fernhurst and a mile north of the Haslemere to Petersfield Serpent Trail. == History == Plant Protection Limited moved to the site in 1945 and opened a research institute on the estate of Sir Felix Schuster (1854–1936). The research institute was to investigate pest and disease control in horticultural crops. As well as being an administrative site, the station comprised a 60 acres (24 ha) orchard including 9 acres of plums and 26 acres of dessert apples at Hurstfold Farm. In June 1951 an international conference, with scientists from 39 countries, took place at the site on food scarcity. On 10 May 1955, the site was visited by the Duke of Edinburgh. Another international conference took place at the site in June 1956. In 1958 Plant Protection Limited became a wholly owned subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries: ICI Plant Protection Division, which had its international headquarters at the site until the 1990s; in 1986 a new international conference centre was opened


id: harvard-institute-for-international-development-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Institute_for_International_Development-0.md
category: reference
title: Harvard Institute for International Development
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Institute_for_International_Development
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:39.773620+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: harvard-institute-for-international-development-20260505-0
summary:
The Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) was a think tank dedicated to helping nations join the global economy, operating between 1974 and 2000. It was a center within Harvard University, United States. == Foundation and leadership == The Harvard Institute for International Development originated when Harvard University's Center for International Affairs (CFIA) tried to move away from a controversial role in giving advice on topics such as arms control, foreign aid and development. The CFIA preferred a more academic role of teaching and research. The Ford Foundation and other organizations involved in aid-giving still wanted Harvard to provide hands-on training for their staff. In 1962 the Development Advisory Service was established for this purpose, associated with the CFIA but independent. It was renamed the HIID in 1974. In 1980 the economist Arnold Harberger of the Harvard University was selected as head of the institute. The announcement met with protests from students and staff since Harberger had previously advised the Augusto Pinochet military regime in Chile. He withdrew and Dwight Perkins, an economist and specialist in China, took the job. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economist Jeffrey Sachs became head of the institute. == Development programs ==


id: harvard-institute-for-international-development-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Institute_for_International_Development-1.md
category: reference
title: Harvard Institute for International Development
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Institute_for_International_Development
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:39.773620+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: harvard-institute-for-international-development-20260505-0
summary:
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded a project by the HIID to help rebuild the Russian economy on the basis of western concepts of ethics, democracy and free markets. Jeffrey Sachs was said to have "packaged HIID as an AID consultant". USAID were glad to accept help from Harvard, since they lacked expertise for such a project. The HIID oversaw and guided disbursement of $300 million of US aid to Russia with little oversight by USAID. HIID advisers worked closely with representatives from Russia, notably Anatoly Chubais and his associates. Once USAID accepted help from the HIID, HIID was in a position to recommend U.S. aid policies while being a recipient of that aid. It also put the HIID in a position of power overseeing some of their competitors. The project, which ran from 1992 to 1997, was headed by economist Andrei Shleifer and lawyer Jonathan Hay. HIID received $40.4 million in return for its activities in Russia, awarded without the normal competitive bidding approach. In 1996 the US Congress asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the HIID activities in the Russian aid program after multiple complaints to the


id: institute-for-the-study-of-the-jewish-question-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Study_of_the_Jewish_Question-0.md
category: reference
title: Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Study_of_the_Jewish_Question
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:40.921593+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: institute-for-the-study-of-the-jewish-question-20260505-0
summary:
The Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question (German: Institut zum Studium der Judenfrage) was founded in 1934 and was affiliated with the Reich Ministry of Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels. In 1939 the institution was called "Anti-Semitic Action" (Antisemitische Aktion) and from 1942 "Anti-Jewish Action" (Antijüdische Aktion). The institute was founded in 1934 by Eberhard Taubert on behalf of the Reich Propaganda Ministry. Originally, the institute was to be a joint research center against Judaism, Freemasonry and liberalism, but soon the tasks were separated. From the beginning, the Propaganda Ministry tried to camouflage the institute's affiliation with the government, since negative foreign policy consequences were feared. == See also == Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life Institute for Research on the Jewish Question German Christians (movement) Eberhard Taubert Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda == References ==


id: lokomotiv-versuchsamt-grunewald-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt_Grunewald-0.md
category: reference
title: Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt Grunewald
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt_Grunewald
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:42.339486+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lokomotiv-versuchsamt-grunewald-20260505-0
summary:
The Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt Grunewald or LVA ('Grunewald Locomotive Research Office') was a facility established from 1920 to 1945 at Berlin-Grunewald in Germany that conducted trials on railway vehicles. The office used the facilities of the railway repair shop (Ausbesserungswerk) at Grunewald on the Berlin Stadtbahn southwest of Berlin's Westkreuz station. == History == After the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft was founded in 1925 the Railway Central Office (Eisenbahn-Zentralamt or EZA) that had existed since 1906 was renamed to the Reichsbahn Central Office (Reichsbahnzentralamt or RZA). Amongst other things, they carried out numerous trials on steam locomotives and created the scientific basis for the performance measurement of railway vehicles. From 1920 they were supported by the Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt Grunewald, a locomotive trials office based at the main railway workshop at Grunewald. In 1936 there were 152 employees working for this research establishment. In 1945 the work at Grunewald ended, due to the war, and was continued in East Germany at RAW Dessau as well as in Halle, and in West Germany initially at Göttingen, and later in Minden and München. The Office had instrumentation vehicles, a rolling test bed with water brakes for locomotives and test rigs for various vehicle components. == Key personalities ==


id: rocket-madsen-space-lab-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Madsen_Space_Lab-0.md
category: reference
title: Rocket Madsen Space Lab
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Madsen_Space_Lab
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:44.607952+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rocket-madsen-space-lab-20260505-0
summary:
Rocket Madsen Space Lab (often called RML Spacelab) was a laboratory established by engineer and convicted murderer Peter Madsen on 16 July 2014 in Copenhagen, after he left Copenhagen Suborbitals. Rocket Madsen Space Lab was located in the Horizontal Assembly Building (HAB) of the old B&W shipyard at Refshaleøen in Copenhagen. In this building Peter Madsen researched, developed and built rockets based on H2O2 / polyurethane hybrid engines. In preparation was Flight Alpha, which was expected to reach an altitude of 14 km. == References ==


id: ves-m-halle-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VES-M_Halle-0.md
category: reference
title: VES-M Halle
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VES-M_Halle
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:45.783569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ves-m-halle-20260505-0
summary:
The Versuchs- und Entwicklungsstelle Maschinenwirtschaft in Halle, Germany, (VES-M Halle) was a railway research and development department working for the engineering head office of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) in East Germany after the Second World War. It worked closely with the Railways Institute (Institut für Eisenbahnwesen). Amongst other things, all rolling stock intended for deployment on the DR railway network, whether built in Germany or abroad, was thoroughly tested here. Loading tests with measurement trains on the open line, starting tests on the Berlin outer ring and other task were carried out by this special division of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Even the fastest, still operational steam locomotive, the DR 18 201, which used to have the DR number 02 0201-0, was used by VES-M Halle before the merger of the DR and DB. It was designed here for high-speed trials and was made, to a large extent, by converting existing engines and components. For high speed runs an electric locomotive class, the E 18 was also used. The 'Germanisation' of diesel locomotives of Russian and Romanian origin was also carried out here. The first head of the VES-M in 1951 was the locomotive engineer, Max Baumberg. In 2008, a permanent


id: wau-ecology-institute-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wau_Ecology_Institute-0.md
category: reference
title: Wau Ecology Institute
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wau_Ecology_Institute
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:46.923205+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: wau-ecology-institute-20260505-0
summary:
The Wau Ecology Institute (WEI) was established in 1961 near the town of Wau, Papua New Guinea, in Morobe province, as a field station of the Bishop Museum. In 1973 it became an independent environmental organisation. It has laboratory space for visiting scientists, a herbarium and zoological reference collections. The Institute ceased operations around 2007 and is now run as a local coffee plantation by former employees and area gold miners. == Publications == Some publications of the WEI are: Menzies, J.I. (1975). Handbook of Common New Guinea Frogs. WEI Handbook No.1. Wau Ecology Institute: PNG. Lamb, K.P.; & Gressitt, J.L. (eds). (1976). Ecology and Conservation in Papua New Guinea. WEI Pamphlet No.2. Wau Ecology Institute: Wau, PNG. Gressitt, J.L.; & Hornabrook, R.W. (1977). Handbook of Common New Guinea Beetles. WEI Handbook No.2. Wau Ecology Institute: Wau, PNG. Simon, Martin. (1977). Guide to Biological Terms in Melanesian Pidgin. WEI Handbook No.3. Wau Ecology Institute: Wau, PNG. Beehler, Bruce McP. (1978). Upland Birds of North-eastern New Guinea. A guide to the hill and mountain birds of Morobe Province. WEI Handbook No.4. Wau Ecology Institute: Wau, PNG. Gressitt, J.L.; & Nadkarni, Nalini. (1978). Guide to Mt Kaindi. Background to montane New Guinea


id: american-eclipse-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eclipse_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: American Eclipse (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eclipse_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:48.457675+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: american-eclipse-book-20260505-0
summary:
American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World is a non-fiction book by journalist David Baron, published by Liveright in 2017, about the popular impression of the 1878 solar eclipse as observed across the United States. It won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award in 2018. == Background == Baron was inspired to write the book after viewing his first total solar eclipse in Aruba in 1998. He decided that he would publish it in 2017 in order to coincide with the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. == Synopsis == American Eclipse follows three scientists, James Craig Watson, Maria Mitchell, and Thomas Edison as they traveled to view the total solar eclipse on July 29, 1878. == Reception == Kirkus Reviews described American Eclipse as a "compelling... timely, energetic combination of social and scientific history." Graham Ambrose, writing for The Denver Post, lauded Baron's social history of a scientific topic and that Baron "successfully swerves from the dry, impenetrable prose of science writing, grasping instead at something poetic, often funny." == Publication == American Eclipse was released in hardcover in June 2017, paperback in 2018,


id: bad-science-taubes-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_(Taubes_book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Bad Science (Taubes book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_(Taubes_book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:49.594885+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bad-science-taubes-book-20260505-0
summary:
Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion is book of science history by Gary Taubes about the early years (1989–1991) of the cold fusion controversy. == Overview == This text is not a scholarly work, but a popular retelling of the events, based on interviews with over 260 people. The book presents a timeline of the events, making the case that the cold fusion field has many examples of poorly performed science. The actions of Martin Fleischmann, Stanley Pons, and Steven E. Jones, the scientists who made the dramatic first claims of fusion, are described in rich detail. The book then shows the worldwide reaction and later disrepute of the cold fusion field, with Taubes placing himself in the side of "good science". Taubes says at the end that cold fusion had only demonstrated that research can continue even if the phenomenon doesn't actually exist, as long as there is funding available. Taubes had previously written an article for Science in which he insinuates that the cold fusion work of A&M University was fraudulent. == Reception == The book received a positive review in American Journal of Physics. While observing that the book was "readable, suspenseful,


id: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking-0.md
category: reference
title: Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:50.822272+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-0
summary:
Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking is a 2011 book by American historian Michael Keevak, published by Princeton University Press. Keevak traces how East Asians, who were initially described as "white" by early European observers, came to be categorized as "yellow" people by the nineteenth century. He argues that this transformation was not based on empirical observation but rather emerged through scientific classification systems, anthropological theories, and Western political anxieties about Asia. The book has been translated into Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, and Turkish. The book won the 2013 Academia Sinica Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences. == Background == Becoming Yellow investigates a paradox in the history of Western racial thinking about East Asia. When Portuguese missionaries and traders first reached China and Japan in the 16th century via their circuitous route around Africa and through the Indian Ocean, they encountered sophisticated civilizations that surprised them with their wealth, literacy, and cultural refinement. These early European observers routinely described the Chinese and Japanese as "white people"—a term that carried not only descriptive but evaluative weight, signifying superiority and civilization. Yet by the late 18th century, this characterization had vanished entirely, replaced by the


id: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking-1.md
category: reference
title: Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:50.822272+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-0
summary:
== Reviews == In his review of the book for the Shanghai Review of Books, Luo Xin praised it book as "an excellent textbook for reflecting on racial thinking" and considered it particularly important for Chinese intellectual circles. Luo emphasized that Keevak showed how the classification of East Asians as "yellow" was not based on empirical observation but was "entirely a new invention of modern science" that emerged in the mid-eighteenth century. He noted that the book traced the disturbing trajectory of scientific racism, from Linnaeus's search for a color "suggesting sickness and unhealthiness" to describe Asians, through the medicalization of racial categories, to the eventual internalization of these Western concepts by Asian societies themselves. Luo stressed Keevak's relevance for contemporary China, where racial thinking persisted in academic and popular discourse despite being largely abandoned in Western scholarship. He argued that understanding this history was essential to recognize "how absurd and dangerous racial concepts and racial classification knowledge are." James Leibold found Keevak's book to provide "the single best history of Western racial thought as it relates to East Asia," meticulously demonstrating how the taxonomic designation "yellow" emerged arbitrarily and contingently in the nineteenth century. The book revealed that early


id: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking-2.md
category: reference
title: Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:50.822272+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-0
summary:
While praising Keevak's multilingual archival research, Fiskesjö pointed out to the book's exclusive focus on Western racial thinking and suggested future scholarship might examine East Asian racial concepts and the contemporary persistence of these constructed categories. He also recommended translation into Asian languages to help readers establish critical distance from their own supposed "yellowness.". In his review for the Taipei Times, Bradley Winterton characterized the book as Keevak's "best to date" and described it as "a tightly-focused look at a narrowly-defined topic" examining representations from the 17th to 19th centuries. Winterton emphasized the author's argument that the racial categorization process was never neutral, noting Keevak's emphasis that yellow had negative connotations in the West and served to justify European domination. Winterton observed Keevak's distinctive use of extensive scare-quotes—counting 107 instances in a single chapter—which he interpreted as the author's way of distancing himself from the racist expressions encountered in historical sources. He welcomed the work's investigation into how East Asians transitioned from being considered white to being labeled as yellow when Europeans sought to differentiate colonized peoples from themselves. Paul Spickard considered the book "smart, erudite, intriguing, quirky, delightful, and ultimately unsatisfying," finding fundamental flaws in its argumentative structure despite


id: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking-3.md
category: reference
title: Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Yellow:_A_Short_History_of_Racial_Thinking
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:50.822272+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: becoming-yellow-a-short-history-of-racial-thinking-20260505-0
summary:
== Awards == 2013 Academia Sinica Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences == Translations == The book has been translated into Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, and Turkish. === Chinese translations === ==== Traditional Chinese ==== A Traditional Chinese translation was published in Taiwan in April 2015, under the title 成為黃種人：一部東亞人由白變黃的歷史 (Chéngwéi huángzhǒng rén: Yī bù dōngyà rén yóu bái biàn huáng de lìshǐ) by Ba Qi Culture (八旗文化). The book was translated by Wu Wei-Jiang (吳緯疆). ==== Simplified Chinese ==== A Simplified Chinese translation was published in mainland China in October 2016 under the title 成为黄种人：亚洲种族思维简史 (Chéngwéi huángzhǒng rén: Yàzhōu zhǒngzú sīwéi jiǎnshǐ) by Zhejiang People's Publishing House (浙江人民出版社), in Hangzhou. The book was translated by Fang Xiaotian (方笑天). === Korean === A Korean translation was published in June 2016 under the title 황인종의 탄생: 인종적 사유의 역사 (Hwang-injong-ui tansaeng: Injongjeok sayu-ui yeoksa) by Hyeonamsa (현암사). The book was translated by Lee Hyo-seok (이효석). The translator wrote a special preface for the Korean edition, questioning whether it was time to stop using the discriminatory term "yellow." === Turkish === A Turkish translation was published in September 2024 under the title Asyalılar Nasıl Sarardı? Irksal Düşüncenin Kısa


id: bonk-the-curious-coupling-of-science-and-sex-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk:_The_Curious_Coupling_of_Science_and_Sex-0.md
category: reference
title: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonk:_The_Curious_Coupling_of_Science_and_Sex
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:52.008722+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bonk-the-curious-coupling-of-science-and-sex-20260505-0
summary:
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex is a 2008 book by American popular science writer Mary Roach. It follows the winding history of science and its exploration of human sexuality, going back as far as Aristotle and finally ending with recent discoveries about the origination and anatomy of the female orgasm. Throughout, Mary Roach provides a humorous and often very personal view—both as a participant and observer—of humans, scientists, animals, and sex machines. Of the book's numerous accounts, Roach discusses artificial insemination of sows in Denmark, the history of sex machines, and provides commentary on Alfred Kinsey's notorious attic sex experiments. Her footnotes provide additional humor: as in a sentence that includes several DSM diagnoses listed as acronyms, she adds, "And from HAFD (hyperactive acronym formation disorder)". In the book, Roach describes a session in which she and Ed, her husband, volunteer to have sex while being recorded by a groundbreaking 4D ultrasound, in the interests of science. A doctor looks on during the experiment, making suggestions, and finally telling Ed that he "may ejaculate now". In 2008, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, was a New York Times Top 10 Bestseller as well as a


id: climate-change-denial-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Change_Denial-0.md
category: reference
title: Climate Change Denial
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Change_Denial
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:54.287775+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: climate-change-denial-20260505-0
summary:
Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand is a 2011 non-fiction book about climate-change denial, coauthored by Haydn Washington and John Cook, with a foreword by Naomi Oreskes. Washington had a background in environmental science prior to authoring the work; Cook, educated in physics, founded (2007) the website Skeptical Science, which compiles peer-reviewed evidence of global warming. The book was first published in hardcover and paperback formats in 2011 by Earthscan, a division of Routledge. The book presents an in-depth analysis and refutation of climate-change denial, going over several arguments point-by-point and disproving them with peer-reviewed evidence from the scientific consensus for climate change. The authors assert that those denying climate change engage in tactics including cherry picking data purported to support their specific viewpoints, and attacking the integrity of climate scientists. Washington and Cook use social-science theory to examine the phenomenon of climate-change denial in the wider public, and call this phenomenon a form of pathology. The book traces financial support for climate-change denial to the fossil-fuel industry, asserting that its companies have attempted to influence public opinion on the matter. Washington and Cook write that politicians have a tendency to use weasel words as part of a propaganda


id: climate-change-denial-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Change_Denial-1.md
category: reference
title: Climate Change Denial
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Change_Denial
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:54.287775+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: climate-change-denial-20260505-0
summary:
The book's coauthor John Cook won the 2011 Eureka Prize for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge, awarded by the New South Wales Government as part of the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes, and was honoured for his role in communicating the essence of climate change science to the general public. Director of the University of Queensland Global Change Institute, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, cited Cook's research and authorship of Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand as the rationale behind him winning the award. The Ecologist reviewed the book and described it as: "well researched and painstakingly footnoted". The review concluded: Climate Change Denial is a wise and timely book. ... It deserves an audience". Writing for ECOS magazine, Mary-Lou Considine wrote that the book "dissects objections to the peer-reviewed science" in "forensic detail". Considine recommended the book to those who had previously visited the website Skeptical Science and subsequently wanted to learn more about the wider topic discussed on the site. In a review of the book by the academic journal Natures Sciences Sociétés, the authors' thesis was praised for its ability to bring reason to their analysis: "This book shows how we can break through denial, accept reality, and thus


id: the-discoverers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discoverers-0.md
category: reference
title: The Discoverers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discoverers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:55.450506+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-discoverers-20260505-0
summary:
The Discoverers is a non-fiction historical work by Daniel Boorstin, published in 1983, and is the first in the Knowledge Trilogy, which also includes The Creators and The Seekers. The book, subtitled A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself, is a history of human discovery. Discovery in many forms is described: exploration, science, medicine, mathematics, and more-theoretical ones, such as time, evolution, plate tectonics, and relativity. Boorstin praises the inventive, human mind and its eternal quest to discover the universe and humanity's place in it. In "A Personal Note to the Reader", Boorstin writes "My hero is Man, the Discoverer. The world we now view from the literate West ... had to be opened by countless Columbuses. In the deep recesses of the past, they remain anonymous." The structure of the book is topical and chronological, beginning in the prehistoric era in Babylon and Egypt. == Themes == The Discoverers (as well as The Creators and The Seekers) resonates with tales of individuals, their lives, beliefs and accomplishments. They form the building blocks of his tale and from them flow descriptions and commentary on historical events. In this respect he is like other historians (David McCullough,


id: encyclopaedia-of-the-history-of-science-technology-and-medicine-in-non-western-cultures-20260505-0
category: reference
title: Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:56.659181+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: encyclopaedia-of-the-history-of-science-technology-and-medicine-in-non-western-cultures-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_the_History_of_Science,_Technology,_and_Medicine_in_Non-Western_Cultures-0.md

summary:
Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures is an encyclopedia edited by Helaine Selin and published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1997, with a second edition in 2008, and third edition in 2016. == Summary == From the Preface: The purpose of the Encyclopaedia is to bring together knowledge of many disparate fields in one place to legitimize the study of other cultures' science... The Western academic divisions of science, technology and medicine have been united in the Encyclopaedia because in ancient cultures these disciplines were connected. The first edition (1997) has 600 articles by a range of experts. The arrangement is alphabetical from "Abacus" to "Zu Chongzi". It includes an index from page 1079 to page 1117. K. V. Sarma contributed 35 articles, Greg De Young 13, Boris A. Rosenfeld 12, and Emilia Calvo and Ho Peng Yoke 11 each. Fabrizio Pregadio contributed 10 articles, Julio Samo wrote 9, and Richard Bertschinger, Radha Charan Gupta and David A. King wrote 8 each. Dozens of other contributors wrote fewer articles. In 2008 the Encyclopaedia was split into two volumes and extended to 1000 articles for a second edition. == Reviews == Toby E. Huff (1999)

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_the_History_of_Science,_Technology,_and_Medicine_in_Non-Western_Cultures


id: an-examination-of-the-philosophy-of-bacon-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Examination_of_the_Philosophy_of_Bacon-0.md
category: reference
title: An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Examination_of_the_Philosophy_of_Bacon
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:57.844596+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: an-examination-of-the-philosophy-of-bacon-20260505-0
summary:
An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon (French: Examen de la Philosophie de Bacon) is a posthumous work by Savoyard philosopher Joseph de Maistre, analyzing and criticizing the philosophy of Francis Bacon. It was published in 1836 and translated into English by Richard Lebrun in 1998. == Thesis == Maistre considers Bacon to be the fountainhead of a destructive rationalistic ideology, blaming him for much of the scientism and atheism of the Age of Enlightenment. The argumentation against Bacon's philosophy is based on Maistre's epistemology first enunciated in the St Petersburg Dialogues (1819), according to which science depends on the innate ideas that are common to all human minds. Without such first principles, Maistre argues, experiments would be useless because there would be no basis for judging their validity. Maistre also argues that genius plays a pivotal role in great scientific discoveries, as demonstrated by inspired intellects such as Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton, contrary to Bacon's theory about conforming to a mechanistic method. == Reception == Although not as well known as some of Maistre's other works, its importance has long been recognized in France. Augustin Bonnetty remarked that "it would perhaps be necessary to go back


id: fatal-misconception-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Misconception-0.md
category: reference
title: Fatal Misconception
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Misconception
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:28:59.078583+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fatal-misconception-20260505-0
summary:
Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population is a 2008 book by Matthew Connelly, an associate professor of history at Columbia University. Efforts to control population have been controversial, and Connelly argues that "the road to controlling population growth in the 20th century was paved with good intentions and unpleasant policies that did not work". For example, millions of intrauterine contraceptive devices were exported to poor countries although they were known to cause infections and sterility. == Reception == === Book reviews === Nicholas Kristof reviewed the book favorably for The New York Times, but concluded: "It's certainly fair of Connelly to dredge up the forced sterilizations, the casual disregard for injuries caused by IUDs, the racism and sexism and all the rest — but we also need to remember that all that is history. The family planning movement has corrected itself, and today it saves the lives of women in poor countries and is central to efforts to reduce poverty worldwide. If we allow that past to tarnish today's efforts by family planning organizations, women in poor countries will be doubly hurt." Reihan Salam reviewed the book for the New York Sun, where he raised some cautionary points.


id: a-history-of-knowledge-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Knowledge-0.md
category: reference
title: A History of Knowledge
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Knowledge
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:00.274251+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-history-of-knowledge-20260505-0
summary:
A History of Knowledge is a 1991 book on intellectual history, with emphasis on the western civilization, written by Charles Van Doren, a former editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It is a history of human thought covering over 5,000 years of philosophy, learning, and belief systems that surveys the key historical trends and breakthroughs connecting the globalizing human landscape of the 20th century all the way back to the scattered roots of human civilization in India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Greece, and Rome. For a sense of the tone, the first section is entitled "The Wisdom of the Ancients" and begins, "By the time written history began, some fifty centuries ago, mankind had learned much more than our primitive ancestors knew." The book's last chapter focuses on the potential developments of the 21st century. It also contains biographies of many notable historical figures. == References ==


id: a-history-of-science-technology-and-philosophy-in-the-16th-and-17th-centuries-20260505-0
category: reference
title: A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:17.748843+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-history-of-science-technology-and-philosophy-in-the-16th-and-17th-centuries-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Science,_Technology,_and_Philosophy_in_the_16th_and_17th_Centuries-0.md

summary:
A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries is a book by Abraham Wolf first published in 1935 by George Allen and Unwin. A survey of the history of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it received a mixed critical reception. == Background and summary == Written by Abraham Wolf with the assistance of University College London astronomer Angus Armitage and University of Bonn professor Friedrich Dannemann, the book was first published in London in 1935 by George Allen and Unwin. A second edition, with minor revisions to the bibliography by Douglas McKie, was published in 1950, following Wolf's death. Dedicated to Master of Science students at University College London, where Wolf lectured, the book comprises twenty-six chapters, with a particular focus on the physical sciences (including astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, and meteorology) and mathematics, as well as the positive relationship between modern science and technology. A companion history, titled A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 18th Century, was published in 1938. == Reception == The book received mixed reviews from critics. Herbert Blumer commended Wolf for writing "a very notable contribution to the history of science." The British Journal for

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Science,_Technology,_and_Philosophy_in_the_16th_and_17th_Centuries


id: a-history-of-science-technology-and-philosophy-in-the-18th-century-20260505-0
category: reference
title: A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 18th Century
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Science,_Technology,_and_Philosophy_in_the_18th_Century
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:18.908034+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-history-of-science-technology-and-philosophy-in-the-18th-century-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Science,_Technology,_and_Philosophy_in_the_18th_Century-0.md

summary:
A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 18th Century is a book by Abraham Wolf first published in 1939 as a sequel to his 1935 work, A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries. == Summary == Written by Abraham Wolf as a sequel to A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries (1935), the book was first published in 1939. It comprises 32 chapters, most of which pertain to the sciences, including astronomy, botany, chemistry, geology, geography, mathematics, mechanics, medicine, meteorology, physics, and zoology. Conversely, only two chapters are about philosophy. == Reception == Science reviewer Frederick E. Brasch concluded that the book was a "decidedly useful compendium of scientific, technical and philosophical knowledge of the eighteenth century" but criticised its index and table of contents. Writing in The American Historical Review, Frederick Barry described Wolf's work as "readable" and "interesting". The American Journal of Psychology reviewer E. G. Boring called the book a "masterpiece of erudition". Tenney L. Davis, in the Journal of Chemical Education, called the book "truly encyclopedic in scope", but specifically criticised it for not having a "satisfying" account of chemistry in the


id: hold-ye-front-page-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold_Ye_Front_Page-0.md
category: reference
title: Hold Ye Front Page
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold_Ye_Front_Page
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:20.128508+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hold-ye-front-page-20260505-0
summary:
Hold Ye Front Page is a series of books published by the UK tabloid newspaper The Sun: Hold Ye Front Page (1999), Hold Ye Front Page II (2000), Giant Leaps (2006), and On Me 'Eadline (2007). The first book, Hold Ye Front Page, was written by John Perry, Neil Roberts and Phil Leach of The Sun. It was a UK best-seller, published to commemorate the Millennium and documented the history of the last two millennia. The authors won a British Press Award in 2000, with the judges praising its educational content, wit and self-parody. Its sequel detailed history from the Big Bang to the Birth of Christ. Giant Leaps charted the history of science. On Me 'Eadline did the same with sport. Education Secretary David Blunkett advocated the use of the book in classrooms, but the Times Educational Supplement questioned whether it would be suitable. The paper also published a website with the same name. Roy Greenslade of The Guardian praised its "clever combination of popular journalism and academic rigour". == References ==


id: the-invention-of-nature-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Nature-0.md
category: reference
title: The Invention of Nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:21.321145+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-invention-of-nature-20260505-0
summary:
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World is a non-fiction book released in 2015, by the historian Andrea Wulf about the Prussian naturalist, explorer and geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The book follows Humboldt from his early childhood and travels through Europe as a young man to his journey through Latin America and his return to Europe. Wulf makes the case that Humboldt synthesized knowledge from many different fields to form a vision of nature as one interconnected system, that would go on to influence scientists, activists and the public. == Sections == Part 1. Departure: Emerging Ideas Wulf describes Humboldt's childhood with his emotionally distant mother. As a child his interests in nature and travel were not taken seriously. His mother, on whom he was financially dependent, insisted he become a civil servant. As a young man, Humboldt became friends with Goethe and other German intellectuals. His mother's death allowed him the freedom and financial independence needed to journey to the New World. Part 2 Arrival: Collecting Ideas Humboldt arrives in Venezuela with his companion Bonpland and begins his journey through Central and South America. He brought with him a plethora of scientific instruments. He chronicles his travels


id: life-on-display-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Display_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Life on Display (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Display_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:22.447513+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: life-on-display-book-20260505-0
summary:
Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century is a history of modern American science education and its relationship with museums of science. It was written by Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain and published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014. == References == == External links == Official website Introduction


id: lincoln-and-darwin-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_and_Darwin-0.md
category: reference
title: Lincoln and Darwin
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_and_Darwin
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:23.715234+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lincoln-and-darwin-20260505-0
summary:
Lincoln and Darwin: Shared Visions of Race, Science, and Religion is a 2010 book by James Lander about the lives and views of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. == Overview == Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, February 12, 1809. Both lost their mother at a young age and, despite their differences in upbringing, both men saw themselves as autodidacts. Lander argues that they also shared an interest in science and a skeptical approach to religion. Darwin closely followed the events of the American Civil War and wanted Lincoln and the Union to prevail, but it is unlikely that Lincoln read Darwin's work. Lincoln and Darwin is structured as a series of alternating narratives concerning each man's interactions with the events and discoveries of the mid-19th century. Lander explores similarities in the intellectual development, concerns, and impacts of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, focusing in particular on the issue of slavery in the United States, which both men influentially opposed. Lander's broader argument is that Lincoln and Darwin shared the same outlook on the central issues of race, science, and religion. He also looks at the relationship between science and race in the 19th century


id: man-and-the-natural-world-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_the_Natural_World-0.md
category: reference
title: Man and the Natural World
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_the_Natural_World
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:24.881238+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: man-and-the-natural-world-20260505-0
summary:
Man and the Natural World. Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800 by historian Keith Thomas was originally published in Great Britain by Allen Lane in 1983. == Outline == Anthropocentric worldview. The first chapter introduces us to the extreme human-centred view of the natural world in early modern England. This view had theological foundations and roots in Greek philosophers such as Aristotle. All things were created for the benefit and pleasure of man. Wild animals, birds and fish are God's gift to all men. Plants were created by God for the sake of animals and animals for the sake of men and thus humans may lawfully kill animals. Cattle and sheep had only been given life in the first place to keep their meat fresh "till we shall have need to eat them". Furthermore, they were better off in man's care than left to the mercy of wild predators. If not for food, animals were created for moral or aesthetic purposes. The louse, for example, was created to provide "a powerful incentive to habits of cleanliness". Weeds exercised "the industry of man to weed them out". The purpose of singing-birds was to entertain mankind. No animal or plant existed for itself.


id: man-and-the-natural-world-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_the_Natural_World-1.md
category: reference
title: Man and the Natural World
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_the_Natural_World
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:24.881238+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: man-and-the-natural-world-20260505-0
summary:
Influence of botanists and zoologists. The rise of natural history helped to undermine this anthropocentric view. Anthropocentric classifications such as edible-inedible, useful-useless animals were gradually being replaced by more objective classifications based on observational criteria. That was real progress because old classifications were highly arbitrary and had harmful effects on wild animals. jays, woodpecker, worms, wrens and squirrels were targeted in particular. On the other hand, in some parts of England the robin and swallow were more or less sacred and treated with respect. The naturalists of the 17th century were beginning to study plants and animals for their own sake, independent of their utility or meaning for man. Pets narrowing the gap. In the 16th and 17th centuries pets had established themselves in the English households for company, especially in towns. Not only dogs and cats, but also pet monkeys, tortoises, otters, rabbits, squirrels and songbirds such as canaries, nightingales, goldfinches, larks, linnets, parrots, magpies and jackdaws. In the 18th century pets were given human names, and were never eaten. Observation of pets provided support for the view that pets could be intelligent, sensitive, responsive and almost every other human quality. All this helped to break down the absolute


id: merchants-of-doubt-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt-0.md
category: reference
title: Merchants of Doubt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:26.079451+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: merchants-of-doubt-20260505-0
summary:
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming is a 2010 non-fiction book by American historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels between the global warming controversy and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain, DDT, and the hole in the ozone layer. Oreskes and Conway write that, in each case, the overall strategy of those opposing action is to "keep the controversy alive" by continuing to spread doubt and confusion long after a scientific consensus has been reached. In particular, they show that Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tanks and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on a wide variety of contemporary issues. Some of the book's subjects have been critical of the book, but most reviewers received it favorably. It was made into a film, Merchants of Doubt, directed by Robert Kenner, released in 2014. == Themes == Oreskes and Conway write that a handful of politically conservative scientists, with strong ties to particular industries, have "played a disproportionate role in debates about controversial questions". The authors write that this has


id: merchants-of-doubt-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt-1.md
category: reference
title: Merchants of Doubt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:26.079451+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: merchants-of-doubt-20260505-0
summary:
== Reception == Most reviewers received Merchants of Doubt enthusiastically. Philip Kitcher in Science says that Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway are "two outstanding historians". He calls Merchants of Doubt a "fascinating and important study". Kitcher says that the apparently harsh claims against Nierenberg, Seitz, and Singer are "justified through a powerful dissection of the ways in which prominent climate scientists, such as Roger Revelle and Ben Santer, were exploited or viciously attacked in the press". In The Christian Science Monitor, Will Buchanan says that Merchants of Doubt is exhaustively researched and documented, and may be one of the most important books of 2010. Oreskes and Conway are seen to demonstrate that the doubt merchants are not "objective scientists" as the term is popularly understood. Instead, they are "science-speaking mercenaries" hired by corporations to process numbers to prove that the corporations' products are safe and useful. Buchanan says they are salesmen, not scientists. Bud Ward published a review of the book in The Yale Forum on Climate and the Media. He wrote that Oreskes and Conway use a combination of thorough scholarly research combined with writing reminiscent of the best investigative journalism, to "unravel deep common links to past environmental


id: the-myth-of-the-machine-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Machine-0.md
category: reference
title: The Myth of the Machine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Machine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:27.215728+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-myth-of-the-machine-20260505-0
summary:
The Myth of the Machine is a two-volume book by Lewis Mumford that takes an in-depth look at the forces that have shaped modern technology since prehistoric times. The first volume, Technics and Human Development, was published in 1967, followed by the second volume, The Pentagon of Power, in 1970. Mumford shows the parallel developments between human tools and social organization mainly through language and rituals. It is considered a synthesis of many theories Mumford developed throughout his prolific writing career. Volume 2 was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. == Megamachine == "In The Myth of the Machine, Mumford insisted upon the reality of the Megamachine: the convergence of science, economy, technics and political power as a unified community of interpretation rendering useless and eccentric life-enhancing values. Subversion of this authoritarian kingdom begins with that area of human contact with the world that cannot be successfully repressed - one's feelings about one's self." In the Prologue, Mumford defines his purpose here as "to question both the assumptions and the predictions upon which our commitment to the present forms of scientific and technical progress, treated as ends in themselves, have been based." Mumford dates the emergence of the "Machine" from the pyramid


id: the-new-politics-of-numbers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Politics_of_Numbers-0.md
category: reference
title: The New Politics of Numbers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Politics_of_Numbers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:28.461397+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-new-politics-of-numbers-20260505-0
summary:
The New Politics of Numbers: Utopia, evidence and democracy is a multi-author book edited by sociologists Andrea Mennicken and Robert Salais and published in 2022 by Palgrave Macmillan. == Synopsis == This work builds on the 1989 volume The Politics of Numbers of William Alonso and Paul Starr, as well as Alain Desrosières’ The Politics of Large Numbers, the contributions of Laurent Thévenot, and other scholars in France and the UK. The volume sets out to investigate the power of statistics, how they travel across countries and domains, how they may be implicated in policy reform, and how they establish accountability and regulation. The book devotes particular attention to the linkages between statistics and democracy. The book was inspired by a working group on social quantification at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2014. It is inspired by two strands of research: one related to Foucauldian ideas of power and control, which were studied by historians and sociologists at the London School of Economics; and the other being the "economics of conventions" or "theory of conventions", studied by various French scholars, including Luc Boltanski, Laurent Thévenot, and originally by Alain Desrosières. == Content == Peter Miller's chapter investigates the role of


id: our-posthuman-future-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Posthuman_Future-0.md
category: reference
title: Our Posthuman Future
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Posthuman_Future
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:29.681239+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: our-posthuman-future-20260505-0
summary:
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution is a 2002 book by Francis Fukuyama. In it, he discusses the potential threat to liberal democracy that use of new and emerging biotechnologies for transhumanist ends poses. == Human nature == Fukuyama defines human nature as "the sum of the behavior and characteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from genetics rather than environmental factors." The "typicality" is further defined as a statistical phenomenon of the usual distribution of measured parameters describing human characteristics, such the normal distribution of height or intellectual quotient. The author recognizes that distinguishing "pathological" from "normal" is difficult, but insists that drawing the line between the two is not only possible, but is routinely achieved by regulatory agencies through a legislative process. "It has often seemed to me that the only people who can argue that there is no difference in principle between disease and health are those who have never been sick: if you have a virus or fracture your leg, you know perfectly well that something is wrong." == Human dignity == Possession of moral choice, human language, reason, sociability, emotions, sentience, and consciousness constitute distinguishing qualities that differentiate humans from animals.


id: the-politics-of-large-numbers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Large_Numbers-0.md
category: reference
title: The Politics of Large Numbers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Large_Numbers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:30.831190+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-politics-of-large-numbers-20260505-0
summary:
The Politics of Large Numbers:A History of Statistical Reasoning is a book by French statistician, sociologist and historian of science, Alain Desrosières, which was originally published in French in 1993. The English translation, by Camille Naish, was published in 1998 by Harvard University Press. == Synopsis == Alain Desrosières's ambition is to reconcile an “Internal” history of the field, focusing on theory building and data collection, with an “External” history, examining the social conditions where and why a discipline develops. In his words, applying a science-in-the-making perspective “the distinction between technical and social objects—underlying the separation between internal and external history— disappears” (p. 5). The work of Desrosières mobilize the French style of social analysis of cognitive forms, looking at statistics as the ensemble of concepts, methods, and practices concerned with "making up things that hold". A central part of the book explores how socio-political structures of France, Britain, Germany, and the United States affect the establishment and evolution of the nationals statistical offices in these countries. The author discusses in depth how the activity of categorization, allocating individuals to classes, provide the encoding necessary for the realization of statistical constructs, following Durkheim's motto to 'treat social facts as things',


id: star-names-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Names-0.md
category: reference
title: Star Names
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Names
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:32.033125+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: star-names-20260505-0
summary:
Star-Names and Their Meanings (retitled Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning in some later reprints) is an 1899 book by Richard Hinckley Allen, that discusses the names of stars, constellations, and their histories. == Background and authorship == Richard Hinckley Allen (1838, near Buffalo, New York – 1908, Northampton, Massachusetts) was a youthful polymath with interests in "nature, astronomy, ornithology, and literature" whom his classmates described as "the walking encyclopedia"; after a college year spent at Yale, a pursuit abandoned because of problems with his eyesight, he traveled and then "joined his father’s export trade business". Allen's interest in astronomy, and in star names in particular, may have been stimulated by his coming across such a name with which he was unfamiliar, after which "[h]e spent many years researching astronomical nomenclature... primarily for personal enjoyment". With the encouragement of professors from Yale and Princeton, and from personal friends, Allen proceeded to publish the information he had gathered—as Star-Names and Their Meanings in 1899. == Content == First published in 1899 as Star-Names and Their Meanings, this work collected the origins of the names of stars and constellations from a panoply of sources, some primary but most secondary. It also briefly


id: war-in-the-age-of-intelligent-machines-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Age_of_Intelligent_Machines-0.md
category: reference
title: War in the Age of Intelligent Machines
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Age_of_Intelligent_Machines
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:33.194172+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: war-in-the-age-of-intelligent-machines-20260505-0
summary:
War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1991) is a book by Manuel DeLanda, in which he traces the history of warfare and the history of technology. It is influenced in part by Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1978) and also reinterprets the concepts of war machines and the machinic phylum, introduced in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Deleuze and Guattari appreciated Foucault's definition of philosophy as a "tool box" that was to encourage thinking about new ideas. They prepared the field for a re-appropriation of their concepts, for use in another context of the "same" concept, which they called "actualization". DeLanda drew on the concepts these authors put forth, to investigate the history of warfare and technology. == A social history of technology and of warfare == DeLanda describes how social and economic formations influence war machines, i.e. the form of armies, in each historical period. He draws on chaos theory to show how the biosphere reaches singularities (or bifurcations) which mark self-organization thresholds where emergent properties are displayed and claims that the "mecanosphere", constituted by the machinic phylum, possesses similar qualities. He argues for example how a certain level of population growth may induce


id: war-in-the-age-of-intelligent-machines-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Age_of_Intelligent_Machines-1.md
category: reference
title: War in the Age of Intelligent Machines
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Age_of_Intelligent_Machines
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:33.194172+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: war-in-the-age-of-intelligent-machines-20260505-0
summary:
== Centralization and decentralization == According to DeLanda, centralization and decentralization are two trends in the "war machine": either military commanders try to centralize command and control of each event on the battlefield and get "human will out of the decision-making loop" or they delegate responsibility to individual soldiers (e.g., platoons or the German mission-type tactics) to avoid "friction". "Friction", according to DeLanda, is like "noise" — too much friction blocks the war machine, which destroys itself. Thus, rather than waiting for friction to accumulate at the head of the control, command and communication center (C3), which is the case in centralized armies, decentralized war machines allow it to disperse at each level of the machine. The 1805 Jacquard loom, used holes punched in pasteboard punched cards to control the weaving of patterns in fabric and is the first example of a "migration" of human control to machine control and marks the invention of software according to DeLanda. Command and control techniques adapted by the Germans were then introduced in army arsenals by Frederick Taylor and extended to civilian society: "the imposition of military production methods into the civilian society was accompanied by the transfer of a whole command and


id: war-in-the-age-of-intelligent-machines-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Age_of_Intelligent_Machines-2.md
category: reference
title: War in the Age of Intelligent Machines
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Age_of_Intelligent_Machines
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:33.194172+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: war-in-the-age-of-intelligent-machines-20260505-0
summary:
reservoirs of population, of capital or of unconscious desires, put to work by the use of differences of fitness, class or sex, each following a procedure directing the circulation of naturally selected species, or commodities and labor, or symptoms and fantasies....|Serres (p.141) Thus, Napoleon's armies, born from the 1789 French Revolution, marked a new threshold of the machinic phylum or singularities or bifurcation: emergent properties are displayed in this "evolution" from the "clockwork paradigm" to the "motor paradigm". This evolution is not merely technological; it is not so much the invention of the steam engine — the first type of motor — that determines this "evolution". The first steam engine was invented through tinkering and can thus not be said to be the consequences of a "paradigm shift" as Thomas Kuhn would conceive it. There is no necessary pre-eminence of science over technology (nor the reverse). De Landa thus explains that the "abstract motor" is more important than the "concrete motor", taking as his example the dazzling victories during the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon himself did not incorporate the motor as a technical object into his war machine (as mentioned, he explicitly rejected the use of steamboats), but the abstract motor


id: 2009-latvian-meteorite-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Latvian_meteorite_hoax-0.md
category: reference
title: 2009 Latvian meteorite hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Latvian_meteorite_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:34.813828+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: 2009-latvian-meteorite-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
The 2009 Latvian meteorite hoax was a publicity stunt in which Swedish-based telecommunications company Tele2 staged an apparent meteorite landing which was later revealed to be fake. == The "Meteorite" incident == The drama began at around 17:30 local time (15:30 GMT) in Latvia on Sunday 25 October 2009. Student Ancis Steinbergs reported that a fiery meteor-like object had fallen in a field outside the town of Mazsalaca near the Estonian border. Reports described the object lighting up the evening sky with a blazing trail and hitting the ground with a loud crash, leaving a burning crater claimed to be around 20 m (66 ft) wide and from 3 m (9.8 ft) up to 10 m (33 ft) deep. Fire crews, police and military units attended the site, which was cordoned off while tests were carried out to check radiation levels. The crater quickly attracted scientific and media interest amid widespread speculation about the origin of the object. Steinbergs also filmed a video in which he and his two companions (his girlfriend and another student) approach the smoking crater and talk to each other excitedly when they apparently discover a burning mass at the bottom of the crater. The deliberately


id: alien-autopsy-1995-film-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Autopsy_(1995_film)-0.md
category: reference
title: Alien Autopsy (1995 film)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Autopsy_(1995_film)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:35.993109+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alien-autopsy-1995-film-20260505-0
summary:
Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is a 1995 pseudo-documentary containing grainy black and white footage of a hoaxed alien autopsy. In 1995, film purporting to show an alien autopsy conducted shortly after the Roswell incident was released by British entrepreneur Ray Santilli. The footage aired on television networks around the world. Fox television broadcast the purported autopsy, hosted by Jonathan Frakes, on August 28, 1995, under the title Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction, and re-broadcast it twice, each time to higher ratings. The footage was also broadcast on UK's Channel 4, and repackaged for the home video market. The program was an overnight sensation, with Time magazine declaring that the film had sparked a debate "with an intensity not lavished on any home movie since the Zapruder film". The program was thoroughly debunked; the footage was shot on an inexpensive set constructed in a London living room. Its alien bodies were hollow plaster casts filled with offal, sheep brains, and raspberry jam. Multiple participants in Alien Autopsy stated that misleading editing had removed their opinions that the footage was a hoax. Santilli admitted in 2006 that the film was a fake, though he continued to claim it was inspired by


id: babylonokia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonokia-0.md
category: reference
title: Babylonokia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonokia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:37.153317+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: babylonokia-20260505-0
summary:
Babylonokia (also Babylon-Nokia, Alien-Mobile, and Cuneiform Mobile Phone) is a 2012 artwork by Karl Weingärtner in the form of a clay tablet shaped like a mobile phone, its keys and screen showing cuneiform script. Weingärtner created the work to represent the evolution of information transfer from the ancient world to the present. Fringe scientists and pseudoarchaeology proponents subsequently misrepresented a photograph of the artwork as showing an 800-year-old archaeological find; that story was popularised in a video on the YouTube channel Paranormal Crucible and led to the object being reported by some press sources as a mystery. == Artwork == Weingärtner created the phone-styled clay tablet with cuneiform signs as a reaction to an exhibition at the Museum for Communication in Berlin titled From the Cuneiform to the SMS: Communication Once and Today, as well as the negative, global effects of information technology. Cuneiform signals the beginning of written records of information. The fact that it is a clay copy of what appears to be an Ericsson S868 mobile phone, a model from the 1990s, had no meaning for the artist, who was using it as a metaphor for mobile devices in general. The work of art is unique and


id: bare-fronted-hoodwink-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare-fronted_Hoodwink-0.md
category: reference
title: Bare-fronted Hoodwink
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare-fronted_Hoodwink
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:38.334119+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bare-fronted-hoodwink-20260505-0
summary:
The Bare-fronted Hoodwink (Dissimulatrix spuria) was a hoax and satirical wastebasket species of bird created by ornithologist M. F. M. Meiklejohn. The Hoodwink has the ability to be "almost seen" or "almost captured". Bird watchers can easily identify this bird by its "blurred appearance and extremely rapid flight away from the observer." Meiklejohn claimed that the single species could easily account for every bird not completely sighted. Birdwatchers added this species to their list of birds to watch for, and amateurs seemed to sight the Hoodwink more often. On 1 April 1975, the bird was put on display at the Royal Scottish Museum at Edinburgh. The exhibit also included photos of blurry birds flying away. The bird was created using the head of a carrion crow, the body of a plover, and the feet of an unknown waterfowl. The bare front appeared to be wax. Meiklejohn's paper was published in the scientific journal Bird Notes in 1950. The paper was rather long and humorous, and he even claimed the genus to be descendant of an ancient species Paleodissimulatrix. == References ==


id: beringer-s-lying-stones-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringer's_Lying_Stones-0.md
category: reference
title: Beringer's Lying Stones
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringer's_Lying_Stones
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:39.452870+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: beringer-s-lying-stones-20260505-0
summary:
Beringer's Lying Stones (German: Lügensteine) are pieces of limestone which were carved into the shape of various fictitious animals and "discovered" in 1725 by Johann Bartholomeus Adam Beringer (1667–1740), Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Würzburg. Beringer believed them to be fossils, and because some of them bore the name of God in Hebrew, suggested that they might be of divine origin. The scientific community at the time was still unsure as to what fossils actually were, the notion that they were the petrified remains of once-living organisms being merely one of several competing hypotheses. Beringer published a book on his findings but shortly after discovered that he had been the victim of a hoax. He took the hoaxers to court and won the case but his reputation was forever besmirched. == Background == Johann Bartholomew Adam Beringer was born in 1667 to German physician Ludwig Behringer. Beringer held high positions including chief physician to the Julian Hospital and dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the university. In addition to all this, he took an interest in oryctics. He had hired Christian Zänger (aged 17), and the brothers Niklaus and Valentin Hehn (aged 18 and


id: bixonimania-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixonimania-0.md
category: reference
title: Bixonimania
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixonimania
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:40.597299+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bixonimania-20260505-0
summary:
Bixonimania is a fake disease invented by researchers to examine artificial intelligence and its ability to utilize information in medical and healthcare applications. The fake enabled researchers to show that some AI engines would report as fact fake research that to an expert would be obviously implausible. == Use in exposing weaknesses of artificial intelligence == The disorder, with symptoms of sore eyes and darkening around them ("periorbital hyperpigmentation"), is supposedly caused by blue light from screens. The name was first used in a blog posted on Medium titled "How many people suffer from Bixonimania?" A more scholarly-looking paper describing it was posted later in April 2024 on a preprint server with several fake authors. A second paper was posted in May. By 2026, AI chatbots suggested bixonimania based on the list of symptoms provided. The experiment was conducted by a team from the University of Gothenburg led by Almira Osmanovic Thunström. Many steps were taken to ensure that any person who read the actual paper could tell it wasn't a real condition. The team chose an obviously inappropriate name ending in -mania, a description used only in psychiatry. The lead author was noted as belonging to Asteria Horizon University


id: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge-0.md
category: reference
title: Blue Whale Challenge
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:41.776773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-0
summary:
Blue Whale Challenge (Russian: Си́ний ки́т, romanized: Siniy kit), also known simply as the Blue Whale, is a social network phenomenon, first appeared in Russia in 2013, that is claimed to exist in several countries. It is a "game" reportedly consisting of a series of tasks assigned to players by administrators over a 50-day period, initially innocuous before introducing elements of self-harm and the final challenge requiring the player to commit suicide. Blue Whale Challenge first attracted news coverage in May 2016 in an article in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta that linked many unrelated child suicides to membership of group "F57" on the Russian-based VK social network. A wave of moral panic swept Russia. The piece was criticized for attempting to make a causal link where none existed, and none of the suicides were found to be a result of the group's activities. Claims of suicides connected to the game have been reported worldwide, but none have been confirmed. The game has been banned in some countries, including Egypt, Kenya, and Pakistan. However, experts have said that since the game is not played on any specific website or app, it may be difficult or even impossible to fully ban


id: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge-1.md
category: reference
title: Blue Whale Challenge
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:41.776773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-0
summary:
== Arrests == In 2016, Philipp Budeikin, a 21-year-old former psychology student who was expelled from his university, claimed that he invented the game in 2013. According to Budeikin, its purpose is to "clean society of biological wastes", as he intended to "clean" society from individuals who were deemed as having no value and considered as burdens. Although originally claiming innocence and stating he was "just having fun", Budeikin was arrested and held in Kresty Prison, Saint Petersburg, and in May 2016 pled guilty to "inciting at least 16 teenage girls to commit suicide". He was later convicted on two counts of inciting suicide of a minor. Commentators such as Benjamin Radford have pointed out that sensationalized stories in world news regarding the involvement of Budeikin have all linked back to just two Russian sources, with tabloid news outlets replicating the same information without elaboration. In June 2017, postman Ilya Sidorov was arrested in Moscow, also accused of setting up a Blue Whale group to encourage children to self-harm and ultimately commit suicide. He claimed to have persuaded 32 children to join his group and follow his commands. In June 2018, Russian financial analyst Nikita Nearonov was arrested for allegedly


id: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge-2.md
category: reference
title: Blue Whale Challenge
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:41.776773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-0
summary:
=== India === Throughout 2017, media in India reported several cases of child suicide, self-harm and attempted suicide alleged to be a result of Blue Whale, and in response, the Indian government's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, requested that several internet companies (including Google, Facebook, and Yahoo!) remove all links which direct users to the game. Some commentators accused the government of creating a moral panic. The Indian internet watchdog Centre for Internet and Society accused the coverage of effectively spreading and advertising a "game" for which there is little evidence. The Supreme Court asked the Indian Central government to ban the game, following which the government responded that since Blue Whale wasn't an application, it couldn't be banned. For a period of time several internet providers blocked Russian social network VKontakte over concerns about the "game" believed to originate on this Russian social network. In January 2018, the government reported there was no evidence that any death was a result of the challenge, stating, "The committee analysed the internet activities, device activities, call records and other social media activity, other forensic evidences and also interacted with rescued victims associated with these incidents. Involvement of Blue Whale challenge game


id: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge-3.md
category: reference
title: Blue Whale Challenge
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:41.776773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: blue-whale-challenge-20260505-0
summary:
=== Saudi Arabia === On 15 July 2018, the Saudi General Commission for Audio-Visual Media banned 47 video games, including Grand Theft Auto V, Assassin's Creed II and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, that had online components that were alleged to be part of the Blue Whale game following the suicides of two teenagers that had been involved in it. === Spain === In 2018, the first suicide in Spain allegedly linked to the game was reported, after a 14-year-old girl from Gipuzkoa, Basque Country committed suicide and acknowledged that she played the game. Although she initially did not intend to complete all 50 challenges (the last being to commit suicide), she ended up killing herself, stating that the perpetrators could be found "in Barcelona and in Argentina". === Tunisia === On 12 March 2018, the parents of seven Tunisian children who claimed their children had killed themselves due to the game requested a ban on Blue Whale from the Tunisian courts. A trial court in Sousse issued an interim judgment prohibiting Blue Whale and another supposed similar game named "Miriam". === United States === Many schools in the United States have warned parents about the game, though the number


id: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair-0.md
category: reference
title: Bogdanov affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
summary:
The Bogdanov affair was a controversy in the early 2000s over the legitimacy of the PhD degrees in theoretical physics obtained at the University of Burgundy by French twins Igor and Grichka Bogdanov in 2002 and 1999, respectively. The papers were published in reputable scientific journals, and were alleged by their authors to present a new theory describing what occurred before and at the Big Bang. The controversy began in 2002, with an allegation that the twins, popular in France for hosting science-themed TV shows, had obtained PhDs with nonsensical work. Rumors spread on Usenet newsgroups that their work was a deliberate hoax intended to target weaknesses in the peer review system that physics journals use to select papers for publication. While the Bogdanov brothers continued to defend the legitimacy of their work, the debate over whether it represented a contribution to physics spread from Usenet to many other internet forums, eventually receiving coverage in the mainstream media. A French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) internal report later concluded that their theses had no scientific value. The incident prompted criticism of the Bogdanovs' approach to science popularization, led to a number of lawsuits, and provoked reflection among physicists as


id: bogdanov-affair-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair-1.md
category: reference
title: Bogdanov affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
summary:
== Origin == The Bogdanov brothers were born in 1949 in the small village of Saint-Lary, in the Gascony region of southwest France. The brothers each studied applied mathematics in Paris, but then began careers in television, hosting several popular programs on science and science fiction. The first of these, Temps X (Time X), ran from 1979 to 1989. In 1991, the Bogdanovs published their book Dieu et la Science (God and Science), drawn from interviews with Catholic philosopher Jean Guitton, which became a French bestseller. This book provoked a dispute of its own when University of Virginia astronomy professor Trinh Xuan Thuan accused the Bogdanovs of plagiarizing his 1988 book The Secret Melody: And Man Created the Universe. After a legal battle in France, during which a judge initially ruled in Thuan's favour, Thuan and the Bogdanovs settled out of court, and the Bogdanovs later denied all wrongdoing. Thuan suggests that the plagiarism suit pressed the brothers to obtain doctorates as fast as possible, since (according to Thuan) the back cover of the book claimed that the Bogdanovs held doctorates when they did not. In 1993, the brothers began work toward doctorates, first working under the mathematical physicist Moshé


id: bogdanov-affair-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair-2.md
category: reference
title: Bogdanov affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Thesis readers === One of the scientists who approved Igor Bogdanov's thesis, Roman Jackiw of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke to The New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye. Overbye wrote that Jackiw was intrigued by the thesis, although it contained many points he did not understand. Jackiw defended the thesis:All these were ideas that could possibly make sense. It showed some originality and some familiarity with the jargon. That's all I ask. In contrast, Ignatios Antoniadis (of the École Polytechnique), who approved Grichka Bogdanov's thesis, later reversed his judgment of it. Antoniadis told Le Monde, I had given a favorable opinion for Grichka's defense, based on a rapid and indulgent reading of the thesis text. Alas, I was completely mistaken. The scientific language was just an appearance behind which hid incompetence and ignorance of even basic physics. === Pre- and post-publication official commentary on the journal articles === In May 2001, the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity (CQG) reviewed an article authored by Igor and Grichka Bogdanov, titled "Topological theory of the initial singularity of spacetime". One of the referees' reports stated that the article was "Sound, original, and of interest. With revisions I expect the paper to


id: bogdanov-affair-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair-3.md
category: reference
title: Bogdanov affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
summary:
No matter which way a pendulum swings, there is some point on the plane in which it swings. Yet this rephrasing is itself equivalent to the following statement: Any plane contains a point. If this was the essence of the statement, Baez noted, it cannot be very useful in "explaining the origin of inertia". Urs Schreiber, then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg, noted that the mention of the Foucault pendulum was at odds with the papers' general tone, since they generally relied upon more "modern terminology". (According to George Johnson, the Foucault pendulum is "an icon of French science that would belong in any good Gallic spoof.") Schreiber identified five central ideas in the Bogdanovs' work—"'result' A" through "'result' E"—which are expressed in the jargon of statistical mechanics, topological field theory and cosmology. One bit of jargon, the Hagedorn temperature, comes from string theory, but as Schreiber notes, the paper does not use this concept in any detail; moreover, since the paper is manifestly not a string theory treatise, "considering the role the Hagedorn temperature plays in string cosmology, this is bordering on self-parody." Schreiber concludes that the fourth "result" (that the spacetime metric "at the initial


id: bogdanov-affair-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair-4.md
category: reference
title: Bogdanov affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Claims of pseudonymous activity === One episode after the heyday of the affair involved the participation of an unidentified "Professor Yang". Using an e-mail address at the domain th-phys.edu.hk, an individual publishing under this name wrote to a number of individuals and on the Internet to defend the Bogdanov papers. This individual wrote to physicists John Baez, Jacques Distler and Peter Woit; to The New York Times journalist Dennis Overbye; and on numerous physics blogs and forums, signing his name "Professor L. Yang—Theoretical Physics Laboratory, International Institute of Mathematical Physics—HKU/Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong." It is the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology which is located in Clear Water Bay, not Hong Kong University (HKU), whose main campus is located in the Mid-Levels of Hong Kong Island. The Bogdanovs have claimed that the "domain name 'th-phys.edu.hk' was owned by Hong Kong University." This was not confirmed officially by HKU and no Prof. Yang existed on the roster of the HKU physics department; nor did the university have an "International Institute of Mathematical Physics". Suspicions were consequently raised that Professor L. Yang was actually a pseudonym of the Bogdanovs. However, Igor Bogdanov has maintained that Professor Yang is


id: bogdanov-affair-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair-5.md
category: reference
title: Bogdanov affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
summary:
Alain Riazuelo, an astrophysicist at the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris, participated in many of the online discussions of the Bogdanovs' work. He posted an unpublished version of Grichka Bogdanov's PhD thesis on his personal website, along with his critical analysis. Bogdanov subsequently described this version as "dating from 1991 and too unfinished to be made public". Rather than suing Riazuelo for defamation, Bogdanov filed a criminal complaint of copyright (droit d'auteur) violation against him in May 2011. The police detained and interrogated Riazuelo. He came to trial and was convicted in March 2012. A fine of 2,000 euros the court imposed was suspended, and only one euro of damages was awarded. But in passing judgement the court stated that the scientist had "lacked prudence", given "the fame of the plaintiff". The verdict outraged many scientists, who felt that the police and courts should have no say in a discussion of the scientific merits of a piece of work. In April 2012, a group of 170 scientists published an open letter titled L'affaire Bogdanoff: Liberté, Science et Justice, Des scientifiques revendiquent leur droit au blâme (The Bogdanov Affair: Liberty, Science and Justice, scientists claim their right of critique). In 2014, the


id: bogdanov-affair-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair-6.md
category: reference
title: Bogdanov affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bogdanov-affair-20260505-0
summary:
The much-anticipated New York Times article on the Bogdanov scandal has appeared. Alas, it suffers from the usual journalistic conceit that a proper newspaper article must cover a "controversy". There must be two sides to the controversy, and the reporter's job is to elicit quotes from both parties and present them side-by-side. Almost inevitably, this "balanced" approach sheds no light on the matter, and leaves the reader shaking his head, "There they go again..." Distler also suggested that the fact that the Bogdanovs had not uploaded their papers to the arXiv prior to publication, as was standard practice by that time, meant that the physics community must have paid vanishingly little attention to those papers before the hoax rumors broke. The affair prompted many comments about the possible shortcomings of the referral system for published articles, and also on the criteria for acceptance of a PhD thesis. Frank Wilczek, who edited Annals of Physics (and who would later share the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics), told the press that the scandal motivated him to correct the journal's slipping standards, partly by assigning more reviewing duties to the editorial board. Prior to the controversy, the reports on the Bogdanov theses and


id: peter-boghossian-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian-0.md
category: reference
title: Peter Boghossian
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:44.239028+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: peter-boghossian-20260505-0
summary:
Peter Gregory Boghossian (; born July 25, 1966) is an American philosopher and college professor. He was an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University for ten years, and his areas of academic focus include atheism, critical thinking, pedagogy, scientific skepticism, and the Socratic method. He is the author of A Manual for Creating Atheists, and (with James A. Lindsay) of How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide. Boghossian was involved in the grievance studies affair (also called "Sokal Squared" in media coverage) with collaborators James A. Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, which entailed submitting bogus papers to academic journals related to gender studies and other fields in order to test peer-reviews. This project generated significant media and academic attention, including both praise and condemnation, as well as ethical and methodological criticism. After an investigation, Portland State University restricted Boghossian's future work on the basis of research misconduct. In September 2021, Boghossian resigned his position from Portland State University, citing harassment and a lack of intellectual freedom. Boghossian coined the term street epistemology for a set of conversational techniques he described, which are designed to enable examination of strongly held beliefs, especially of the religious kind, in a


id: peter-boghossian-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian-1.md
category: reference
title: Peter Boghossian
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:44.239028+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: peter-boghossian-20260505-0
summary:
=== Previous hoax paper === In 2017, Boghossian and Lindsay published a hoax paper titled "The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct". The paper, which the authors said was intentionally absurd and written in a way that imitated the style of "poststructuralist discursive gender theory", argued that the penis should be seen "not as an anatomical organ but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity". Boghossian and Lindsay initially submitted the paper to Norma, where it was rejected. They later submitted the paper to Cogent Social Sciences, a Taylor & Francis open access journal which has been criticized as a pay-to-publish operation. The authors later revealed the hoax in Skeptic magazine. Boghossian and Lindsay stated that they intended to demonstrate that "gender studies is crippled academically by an overriding almost-religious belief that maleness is the root of all evil", and also to highlight problems with the review processes of open-access journals. A number of critics questioned whether Boghossian and Lindsay's paper demonstrated a problem in the field of gender studies. Alan Sokal, a mathematics professor who was responsible for a similar hoax in 1996, noted that Cogent Social Sciences was a low-tiered open access journal that did not


id: peter-boghossian-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian-2.md
category: reference
title: Peter Boghossian
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Boghossian
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:44.239028+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: peter-boghossian-20260505-0
summary:
=== Research misconduct investigation === In 2018, Boghossian's employer, Portland State University, initiated a research misconduct inquiry relating to the grievance studies affair. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the university's institutional review board (IRB) concluded in December that Boghossian violated the ethical guidelines by conducting research on human subjects without approval. Consequently, he was banned from doing research until he had "completed training and could demonstrate that he understood how to protect the rights of human subjects". The University also said it was "considering a further charge that he had falsified data". After news of the research conduct investigation broke, a number of prominent academics wrote letters defending Boghossian, including evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, mathematician and physicist Alan Sokal, philosopher Daniel Dennett, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and psychologist Jordan Peterson. Pinker wrote that Portland State University's investigation struck him and his colleagues "as an attempt to weaponize an important [principle] of academic ethics in order to punish a scholar for expressing an unpopular opinion". Dawkins suggested that the investigation could be politically motivated: "If the members of your committee of inquiry object to the very idea of satire as a form of creative expression,


id: bombay-cyclone-of-1882-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Cyclone_of_1882_(hoax)-0.md
category: reference
title: Bombay Cyclone of 1882 (hoax)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Cyclone_of_1882_(hoax)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:45.409075+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bombay-cyclone-of-1882-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
The so-called Bombay Cyclone of 1882 or Great Bombay Cyclone is a hoax (or otherwise fictitious) historical event. Supposedly, the cyclone struck Bombay on 6 June 1882. Though it is widely reported, even in scientific literature, historical research shows that it did not in fact happen. == Example accounts of the supposed event == Reportedly, the earliest mention of the supposed cyclone so far discovered by researchers is in an article entitled "Hurricane second only to tornado in wind violence" by M. Hall in the American newspaper The Nashua Telegraph published on 17 September 1947, followed by a piece by one B. Chester, "Earthquakes, tidal waves cause historic disasters" from The Evening Independent of 31 March 1964. The cyclone is mentioned in academic literature from at least 1976. An entry in the 2008 edition of the Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones by David Longshore states: The Great Bombay Cyclone of June 6, 1882: One of few truly great Indian cyclones to have formed over the Arabian Sea, the Great Bombay Cyclone—engorged with 110-MPH (177-km/h) winds and an 18-foot (6-m) surge—reportedly claimed more than 100,000 lives when it came ashore at Bombay right before daybreak. A 2014 academic article claims


id: bonsai-kitten-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten-0.md
category: reference
title: Bonsai Kitten
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:46.620421+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bonsai-kitten-20260505-0
summary:
BonsaiKitten.com was a hoax shock site that claimed to raise kittens in jars, so as to mold the bones of the kitten into the shape of the jar as the cat grows, similarly to a bonsai plant. It was launched in 2000 by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student under the alias of Dr. Michael Wong Chang. Many people believed that the black comedy website was serious, and filed complaints to animal rights organizations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI and several other organizations, including Snopes.com and the Humane Society of the United States, debunked the concept of a "bonsai kitten". The website's legacy remains as a notable example of a hoax site, and generated much discussion about Internet animal cruelty and the issue of free speech. == Site overview == BonsaiKitten.com is dedicated to the "long lost art" of growing "bonsai kittens". The introduction on its homepage invokes orientalism as it describes how the West has long been captivated by the culture of the Far East, such as tattoos, martial arts, and miniature sculpture. It then claims that the concept of miniature sculpture has been famously applied to bonsai trees, it can also be applied to


id: bonsai-kitten-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten-1.md
category: reference
title: Bonsai Kitten
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:46.620421+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: bonsai-kitten-20260505-0
summary:
=== Animal cruelty accusations === Very shortly after the creation of the website, controversy arose surrounding the content. Many people believed that the site was serious, and wrote to various animal rights and welfare organizations pleading for investigations. Humane World for Animals (then the Humane Society of the United States) could not determine whether the site was a hoax or not, but called for its termination either way. Other animal advocacy groups did determine that the site was a hoax, but still demanded it be shut down for fear that it could encourage copycat violence. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it was "horrified" by the site, along with the larger trend of animal cruelty on the internet, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said that the joke was "inappropriate and certainly not funny", lamenting that it is legal to joke about animal cruelty. In early 2001, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals issued a subpoena to MIT for information on the site's owners. They also sent an armed investigator to the campus to gather information, as MSPCA is deputized under state law with arrest abilities. BonsaiKitten.com was the


id: calaveras-skull-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calaveras_Skull-0.md
category: reference
title: Calaveras Skull
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calaveras_Skull
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:47.773315+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: calaveras-skull-20260505-0
summary:
The Calaveras Skull (also known as the Pliocene Skull) was a human skull found in 1866 by miners in Calaveras County, California, which was presented as evidence that humans were in North America as early as during the Pliocene Epoch (at least 2 million years ago), and which was used to support the idea the humans, mastodons, and mammoths had coexisted. The skull was later revealed to be a hoax, although it is now known that humans, mastodons, and mammoths had indeed coexisted, but much more recently (during the Pleistocene Epoch: at least 12,000 years ago). Coincidentally, calaveras is the Spanish word for skulls. == History == On February 25, 1866, miners claimed to have found a human skull in a mine, beneath a layer of lava, 130 feet (40 m) below the surface of the earth. The skull made it into the hands of Josiah Whitney, then the state geologist of California and professor of geology at Harvard University. A year before the skull came to his attention, Whitney published the belief that humans, mastodons, and mammoths coexisted; the skull served as proof of his convictions. After careful study, he officially announced its discovery at a meeting of the


id: legrand-g-capers-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legrand_G._Capers-0.md
category: reference
title: Legrand G. Capers
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legrand_G._Capers
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:48.954197+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: legrand-g-capers-20260505-0
summary:
Legrand G. Capers (April 16, 1834 – December 2, 1877) was an American physician, best known for his 1874 spurious case report of bullet-mediated impregnation of a young woman. == Biography == Legrand Guerry Capers, Jr. was born on April 16, 1834, in Charleston, South Carolina, as the son of the merchant LeGrand G. Capers (1808–1868) and his first wife, Abigail Swift (1810–1846). LeGrand G. Capers, Sr. served on Gen. Worth's staff during the Mexican–American War. LeGrand G. Capers, Jr. studied medicine as the assistant to his brother-in-law, Ebenezer Swift, and graduated from Jefferson Medical College. Later he practised as ship physician on Vanderbilt's steamers. When the American Civil War broke out, Capers participated in the foundation of the Confederate Medical Department in Alabama. On July 19, 1861, he became assistant surgeon in the 4th Georgia Volunteer Infantry. On October 30, 1863, he was promoted to chief surgeon in Cutshaw's battalion. After the end of the war in 1865, Capers moved to New Orleans and became demonstrator of anatomy in the New Orleans School of Medicine. He fell ill in October 1877 and died shortly after from tuberculosis on December 2. He is buried in Vicksburg. Obituaries appeared in the


id: cardiff-giant-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant-0.md
category: reference
title: Cardiff Giant
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:50.145870+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cardiff-giant-20260505-0
summary:
The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous archaeological hoaxes in American history. It was a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m), roughly 3,000 pound purported "petrified man", uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell, in Cardiff, New York. He covered the giant with a tent and it soon became an attraction site. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P. T. Barnum are still being displayed. == Creation and discovery == The giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. He was deeply attracted to science and especially to the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. Hull got into an argument with Reverend Turk and his supporters at a Methodist revival meeting about Genesis 6:4, which states that there were giants who once lived on Earth. Hull, a skeptic, being the minority party, lost the argument. Angered by his defeat and the credulity of people, Hull wanted to prove how easily he could fool people with a fake giant. The idea of a petrified man did not originate with Hull, however. During 1858, the newspaper Alta California had published a fake letter claiming that


id: cardiff-giant-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant-1.md
category: reference
title: Cardiff Giant
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:50.145870+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cardiff-giant-20260505-0
summary:
Being asked my opinion, my answer was that the whole matter was undoubtedly a hoax; that there was no reason why the farmer should dig a well in the spot where the figure was found; that it was convenient neither to the house nor to the barn; that there was already a good spring and a stream of water running conveniently to both; that, as to the figure itself, it certainly could not have been carved by any prehistoric race, since no part of it showed the characteristics of any such early work; that, rude as it was, it betrayed the qualities of a modern performance of a low order. However, he was taken aback by the channels on the bottom part of the giant, stating that for such grooving to be created on local Onondaga grey limestone would require years. Yale paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh examined the statue, pointing out that it was made of soluble gypsum, which, had it been buried in its blanket of wet earth for centuries, would not still have fresh tool marks on it (which it did), and termed it "a most decided humbug". Some theologians and preachers, however, defended its authenticity. Eventually, Hull


id: cello-scrotum-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_scrotum-0.md
category: reference
title: Cello scrotum
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_scrotum
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:51.325708+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cello-scrotum-20260505-0
summary:
Cello scrotum is a hoax medical condition originally published as a brief case report in the British Medical Journal in 1974. As its name suggests, it was purportedly an affliction of the scrotum affecting male players of the cello. == History == The original letter was written by Elaine Murphy but signed by her husband John. The journal had printed an earlier report about 'guitar nipple', a condition said to occur when some styles of guitar playing excessively irritate the player's nipple (a form of contact dermatitis similar to jogger's nipple), which Murphy and her husband believed was likely a joke. Murphy now points out that even a cursory study of the cellist's posture would show that the 'cello scrotum' complaint would not occur. The unlikelihood of a cellist's posture contributing to scrotal injury was raised back in 1974, but seems to have been overlooked. Murphy admitted the hoax in 2009 in another letter to the BMJ after an article in the 2008 Christmas edition of the BMJ made reference to the complaint. The truth of the case report had already been questioned in the medical literature in 1991. Others have cited it, although expressing scepticism. The implications of this


id: ctenophthalmus-nepalensis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctenophthalmus_nepalensis-0.md
category: reference
title: Ctenophthalmus nepalensis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctenophthalmus_nepalensis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:52.452130+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ctenophthalmus-nepalensis-20260505-0
summary:
Ctenophthalmus nepalensis was a fictional species of parasitic flea described by a pseudonymous author Otto Suteminn in 1969 as part of a scientific hoax. The description was published in the journal Zeitschrift der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Österreichischer Entomologen to ostensibly to demonstrate how poor their editorial process was. The hoax was uncovered only in 1973. == Hoax details and background == The hoax was foisted by Hans Malicky, who was the chairperson of the Entomological Society of Austria in the late 1960s. He sought to improve the quality of publishing by the society newsletter Entomologische Nachrichtenblatt which led to him being relieved from the post. The hoax article was published shortly after in 1969. The journal paper described two new species of fleas named Ctenophthalmus nepalensis and Amalareus fossoris, both purportedly from Nepal by the author "Otto Suteminn". It was not until 1972 that the hoax was uncovered in an article by flea taxonomist F.G.A.M. Smit of the Natural History Museum, London who published “Notes on Two Fictitious Fleas from Nepal” in the journal Entomologische Nachrichtenblatt. Smit identified that not only were the species hoaxes but so were their hosts Canis fossor (meaning grave-digging dog) and Apodemus roseus. Along with an Austrian


id: dipak-k-das-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipak_K._Das-0.md
category: reference
title: Dipak K. Das
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipak_K._Das
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:53.764019+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dipak-k-das-20260505-0
summary:
Dipak Kumar Das (1947 – September 19, 2013) was the director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington and is known for research fraud. His work centered on the beneficial properties of resveratrol, which is found in red wine, but over twenty of his research papers have been since retracted. On January 11, 2012, the University of Connecticut Health Center announced that a review board has found Das guilty of 145 counts of fabrication or falsification of data; the three-year investigation examined more than seven years of activity in Das's lab, and centered on Western blot results that had been manipulated and used in published papers. In May 2012, Das was fired from both positions at the University of Connecticut Health Center. == Biography == Das graduated from Jadavpur University and received his Ph.D. from Calcutta University in India. He joined the University of Connecticut in 1984 and received tenure in 1993. Das was a prolific publisher of research. His name appears on over 500 articles, including 117 articles on resveratrol. Das was an editor-in-chief of the journal Antioxidants and Redox Signaling. He also served as associate editor of the American Journal of


id: de-loys-s-ape-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Loys's_ape-0.md
category: reference
title: De Loys's ape
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Loys's_ape
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:54.934501+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: de-loys-s-ape-20260505-0
summary:
De Loys's ape, given the proposed scientific name Ameranthropoides loysi, was an alleged large primate reported by Swiss geological explorer François de Loys in South America. The only evidence for the animal besides de Loys's testimony is one photograph. It was promoted by George Montandon as a previously unknown species, but is now considered a misidentification of a spider monkey species or a hoax. == Encounter == Swiss oil geologist François de Loys led an expedition from 1917 to 1920 to search for petroleum in an area along the border between Colombia and Venezuela, primarily near Lake Maracaibo. The expedition was unsuccessful. De Loys's group suffered diseases and violent encounters with native populations; only four of the 20 members survived. According to de Loys's later report, in 1920, while camped on a bank of a tributary of the Tarra River, two large creatures approached the group. Initially, de Loys thought they were bears, but then noted that they were monkey-like. The creatures – one male, one female – seemed angry, said de Loys, and they advanced howling and gesturing, as well as breaking and holding some branches.They defecated into their hands,and flung feces at the expedition. Fearing for their safety,


id: dihydrogen-monoxide-parody-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parody-0.md
category: reference
title: Dihydrogen monoxide parody
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parody
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:56.126199+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dihydrogen-monoxide-parody-20260505-0
summary:
The dihydrogen monoxide parody involves referring to water (H2O) by its unfamiliar chemical systematic name "dihydrogen monoxide" (DHMO) and describing some properties of water in a particularly concerning manner – such as its ability to accelerate corrosion (rust) and cause suffocation (drowning) – often calling for it to be banned, regulated strictly, or labeled as a hazardous chemical. The motivation behind the parody is to play into chemophobia, and to demonstrate how exaggerated analysis, information overload, and a lack of scientific literacy can lead to misplaced fears. Occasionally, reports also reference its widespread contamination of rivers or municipal water supplies. The parody has also involved other uncommon chemical nomenclatures for water such as "hydrogen hydroxide", "dihydrogen oxide" and "hydric acid". == History == In 1983, on April Fools' Day, an edition of the Durand Express, a weekly newspaper in Durand, Michigan, reported that "dihydrogen oxide" had been found in the city's water pipes, and warned that it was fatal if inhaled, and could produce blistering vapors. The first appearance of the parody as "dihydrogen monoxide" on the Internet was attributed to the "Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide", a parody organization at the University of California, Santa Cruz following on-campus postings


id: dihydrogen-monoxide-parody-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parody-1.md
category: reference
title: Dihydrogen monoxide parody
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parody
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:56.126199+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dihydrogen-monoxide-parody-20260505-0
summary:
In 1989–1990, several students circulated a dihydrogen monoxide contamination warning on the University of California, Santa Cruz, campus via photocopied fliers. In 1994, Craig Jackson created a web page for the Coalition to Ban DHMO. The Friends of Hydrogen Hydroxide website was created by Dan Curtis Johnson, partly as a foil on the Coalition page, claiming to oppose its "subversive agenda". The site points out that hydrogen hydroxide is "environmentally safe" and "enhances the functionality, growth, and health of many forms of life". In 1997, Nathan Zohner, a 14-year-old student at Eagle Rock Junior High School in Idaho Falls, Idaho, gathered 43 votes to ban the chemical, out of 50 ninth-graders surveyed. Zohner received the first prize at Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair for analysis of the results of his survey. In recognition of his experiment, journalist James K. Glassman coined the term "Zohnerism" to refer to "the use of a true fact to lead a scientifically and mathematically ignorant public to a false conclusion". In late 1997, drawing inspiration from Jackson's web page and Zohner's research, Tom Way created a website at DHMO.org, including links to some legitimate sites such as the Environmental Protection Agency and National Institutes of


id: disappearing-blonde-gene-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_blonde_gene-0.md
category: reference
title: Disappearing blonde gene
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_blonde_gene
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:57.289553+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: disappearing-blonde-gene-20260505-0
summary:
The "disappearing blonde gene" refers to a hoax that emerged in parts of the Western world in the early 2000s, claiming that a scientific study had estimated that blonds would become extinct within the next two centuries. More specifically, it claimed that, because the alleles for blond hair genes are recessive, people with natural blond hair would become less common as people with dominant non-blond hair alleles had offspring with them, even though such a pairing would retain one copy of the blond allele in the genome of said offspring. Nevertheless, the hoax was repeated as fact by some mainstream Western media outlets, such as ABC News, the BBC, CNN, and The Sunday Times, between 2002 and 2006. The earliest known claims of a looming "blond extinction" date back to 1865. Several outlets propagating the hoax also falsely cited the World Health Organization (WHO), asserting that it had published a report claiming that blonds "will become extinct by 2202" in spite of the fact that neither the WHO nor any reputable expert had issued such a report. In response, the WHO released an official statement telling all those who had commented on the non-existent report to retract their remarks. ==


id: document-12-571-3570-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_12-571-3570-0.md
category: reference
title: Document 12-571-3570
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_12-571-3570
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:58.452726+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: document-12-571-3570-20260505-0
summary:
Document 12-571-3570 (also titled NASA No. 12 571-3570) is a hoax document originally posted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.sex on November 28, 1989. According to this document, astronauts aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-75 performed a variety of sex acts to determine which positions are most effective in zero gravity. The document goes on to report that of the 10 positions tested, six required the use of a belt and an inflatable tunnel, while four were contingent on hanging on. The document also discusses a video record of the 10 one-hour sessions in the lower deck of the shuttle, and notes that the subjects added their own personal footnotes to help scientists. The real STS-75 mission occurred in 1996‍—‍seven years after the text was published‍—‍clearly indicating that the document is a hoax. Nonetheless, many people have been fooled by this document and NASA has had to debunk it on several occasions. In March 2000, NASA's director of media services Brian Welch referred to the document as a "fairly well-known 'urban legend'". This fictional document was rediscovered and widely publicized by astronomer and scientific writer Pierre Kohler, who used it as a major source about sex experiments in space in his 2000


id: enigmarelle-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigmarelle-0.md
category: reference
title: Enigmarelle
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigmarelle
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:29:59.593980+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: enigmarelle-20260505-0
summary:
Enigmarelle was a fake humanoid automaton, in fact with a person concealed inside, which was exhibited as a scientific and technical curiosity around 1905 in the US and Europe, chiefly in theaters. Enigmarelle was claimed to be able to perform several extraordinary tasks, which it demonstrated in performances: these included walking, riding a bicycle, and writing its name on a blackboard. == Presentation == Enigmarelle was shown in the US and then in parts of Europe, in vaudeville theaters and circuses. The booking agent, an American named Frederick J. Ireland, was represented at these appearances as the creator and owner of the automaton. Enigmarelle was a large automaton and was in fact operated by a human concealed within its body, although the precise operating mechanisms are not known. The operator is believed to have been a performer who had had both his legs amputated and who went by the name of Alba W. Root, and who also performed as a bicycle acrobat using leg prostheses. Enigmarelle was the subject of a short documentary film in 1905 and a detailed "scientific" description with three photos in Scientific American in 1906. It is mentioned in some modern publications on automatons. === Name


id: eo-rnis-pterovelox-gobiensis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoörnis_pterovelox_gobiensis-0.md
category: reference
title: Eoörnis pterovelox gobiensis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoörnis_pterovelox_gobiensis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:00.756375+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eo-rnis-pterovelox-gobiensis-20260505-0
summary:
Eoörnis pterovelox gobiensis is a fictional bird, a humorous hoax by Lester W. Sharp, professor of botany, Cornell University, United States. It was initially a short talk presented together with a graduate student, Cuthbert Fraser, about the most unusual bird from the Gobi Desert, called woofen-poof by the local populace. Eventually it grew into a 34-page monograph signed by an "Augustus C. Fotheringham, Sc.D. (Cantab.), F.R.G.S.", printed by "The Buighleigh Press" in 1928, full of illustrated detail of anatomy, physiology, ecology, evolution, and historical references, complete with Cro-Magnon cave paintings — all inspired by a car mascot of a pelican. For example, Pterovelox "is perhaps most frequently observed in a peculiar resting position — legs straight out behind with the feet on the rock, tree branch or other object, the body being supported by continuous vibration of wings". The monograph has later been reprinted several times. The peculiarities of the bird's mating were even unwittingly quoted in a eugenics article on consanguineous marriages in 1934: "A new, and recently authenticated, case of naturally determined incest, appears to have been discovered by the British Museum Expedition to the Gobi Desert in 1929, when a bird, the Eoörnis pterovelox gobiensis, was found,


id: fatu-liva-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatu-liva-0.md
category: reference
title: Fatu-liva
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatu-liva
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:01.925930+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fatu-liva-20260505-0
summary:
The Fatu-liva is a fictional species of bird invented by George S. Chappell in his travel parody The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas, by Walter E. Traprock (1921). Fatu-liva were said to be found only in the fictional "Filbert Islands" in the South Pacific Ocean where they laid cube-like, black-spotted eggs that were very similar in appearance to dice. The bird's nest was described in the book as: "...a semi-spheric bowl of closely woven grass in which lay four snow-white, polka-dotted cubes, the marvelous square eggs of the fatu-liva." Additionally, a black-and-white photograph of what was supposedly the bird's dice-like eggs was provided. Its caption read: "This is without question the most extraordinary picture which has ever been taken of any natural history subject. It corroborates in most convincing manner the author's claim to the discovery of the wonderful fatu-liva bird with its unique gift of laying square eggs. Here we see the eggs themselves in all the beauty of their cubical form and quaint marking; here we see the nest itself, made of delicately woven haro and brought carefully from the tree's summit by its discoverer, Babai-Alova-Babai. An extremely interesting feature of the picture is


id: flying-penguin-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_penguin_hoax-0.md
category: reference
title: Flying penguin hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_penguin_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:03.131460+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: flying-penguin-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
Miracles of Evolution is a BBC film trailer featuring flying penguins made in 2008 as an April Fools' Day hoax. The film was advertised as compelling evidence for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. It was largely set on King George Island, 120 kilometres (75 mi) from mainland Antarctica. The Daily Telegraph wrote that the film was "an instant classic. It is accomplished work of this kind that guarantees the BBC its unique status." The BBC website still claims that it may attempt to film the flying penguins again because the original film did not explain how such small birds, that are not used to flying, could survive long migrations over vast, stormy oceans. Miracles of Evolution was filmed with animated penguins for the occasion of April Fools' Day, and to promote the BBC iPlayer. MSN included "The BBC's flying penguins" as one of their twelve "hoaxes of the decade." == The film == The film features Adélie penguins that live in Antarctica. Adélie penguins are one of the most southern seabirds in the world. The film claims that long and extremely cold Antarctic winters forced some groups of Adélies to adapt by (re)gaining the ability to fly. In the film


id: fur-bearing-trout-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur-bearing_trout-0.md
category: reference
title: Fur-bearing trout
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur-bearing_trout
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:04.254222+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fur-bearing-trout-20260505-0
summary:
The fur-bearing trout (or furry trout) is a legendary creature found in American folklore and Icelandic folklore. According to folklore, the trout has created a thick coat of fur to maintain its body heat. Tales of furry fish date to the 17th century. The earliest known American publication dates from a 1929 Montana Wildlife magazine article by J.H. Hicken. A taxidermy furry trout produced by Ross C. Jobe is a specimen at the Royal Museum of Scotland; it is a trout with white rabbit fur "ingeniously" attached. There are no known examples of any fur-bearing trout species, but two examples of hair-like growths on fish are known. The "cotton mold", Saprolegnia, can infect fish, which can result in the appearance of fish covered in white "fur". Another fish, Mirapinna esau, has hairlike outgrowth and sports wing-like pectoral fins. == Commonalities == Fur-bearing trout are fictional creatures that are purportedly found in the Arkansas River, northern North America, and Iceland. The basic claim (or tall tale) is that the waters of lakes and rivers in the area are so cold that they evolved a thick coat of fur to maintain their body heat. Another theory says that it is due to


id: genpet-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genpet-0.md
category: reference
title: Genpet
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genpet
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:05.428633+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genpet-20260505-0
summary:
Genpets are a mixed media installation art piece by artist Adam Brandejs. It is considered a hoax of exposure. The project has been shown in multiple galleries in Canada and Europe and has garnered some attention in the mass media. The creations were sculpted, automated creatures made of latex and plastic, and housed robotic circuitry to simulate slow respiration. They looked like small, hairless humanoids, and were intended to be displayed as living, but dormant, bio-engineered creatures for purchase as pets. The fabricated packaging indicated a purchaser had a choice of what personality traits their Genpet displayed based on a color-coded chemical behavioral modulation system, and that the creatures had a limited vocal capacity. The sculptures and packaging, along with the professional appearance and cleverly open ended interactive features website led many observers to assume that Genpets were real. In 2006, Genpets were featured on the weblog for The Museum of Hoaxes in San Diego, California. as well as broadcast on BBC News Worldwide on a BBC programme called Click as well as the Times (UK), the New York Times and G4TechTV. All the work was hand done by the artist Adam Brandejs, with assistance from makeup artist Crystal Pallister


id: golfballia-ambusta-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golfballia_ambusta-0.md
category: reference
title: Golfballia ambusta
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golfballia_ambusta
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:07.690226+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: golfballia-ambusta-20260505-0
summary:
Golfballia ambusta is a purported species of fungus with specimens primarily kept at Kew Gardens, London. The specimens are not of organisms but burnt golf balls. In 1962, they were described as a new fungal species by R. W. G. Dennis, the head of mycology at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, possibly to challenge the mycological criteria in place as to what could be considered a fungus. Its binomial name is 'burnt golf ball' in Dog Latin. == History == In 1952, a burnt golf ball was submitted to mycologists from an anonymous source in Lancashire, northwest England, and deposited in the Fungarium at Kew Gardens, London. The submitter claimed it to be a specimen of a "rare fungal species" belonging to the genus Queletia, but mycologists thought its appearance more closely resembled Scleroderma citrinum, which has an irregular, nearly spherical sporocarp with thick leathery skin and colours that vary from white to tan or brown. The surface of a golf ball is dimpled and, when burned, its outer shell cracks to expose the rubber core, which is similar to the dark gleba of a mature S. citrinum sporocarp. Kew mycologists unsuccessfully attempted to collect spores from the specimen before realizing


id: great-moon-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax-0.md
category: reference
title: Great Moon Hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:08.852773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: great-moon-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
The "Great Moon Hoax", also known as the "Great Moon Hoax of 1835", was a series of six articles published in The Sun (a New York newspaper), beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel and his fictitious companion Andrew Grant. The story was advertised on August 21, 1835, as an upcoming feature allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Courant. The first in a series of six was published four days later on August 25. These articles were never retracted; however, on September 16, 1835, The Sun admitted the articles were in fact fabricated. == Hoax == The headline read: The articles described animals on the Moon, including bison, single-horned goats, mini zebras, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat-like winged humanoids ("Vespertilio-homo") who built temples. There were trees, oceans and beaches. These discoveries were supposedly made with "an immense telescope of an entirely new principle". The telescope, transported to South Africa from New England, was said to be many times larger than any other telescope in the world. The lens measured "24 feet in diameter and 7 tons in weight". "Vespertilio-homo" can be translated


id: great-moon-hoax-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax-1.md
category: reference
title: Great Moon Hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:08.852773+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: great-moon-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
== Context == Locke's sensational reports were not out of place in the context of the mass proliferation of penny press newspapers such as the New York Sun which received much of their income from advertisements, a business practice made sustainable by large numbers of readers. The Sun was a pioneer when it came to producing shocking and often sensationalist journalism, being the first New York newspaper to report on murders, suicides, personal events, and divorces, and it was because of stories such as these that the Sun thrived in attracting readers to their articles, and thus to their advertisements. The success of such sensational stories as the "Great Moon Hoax" can be partly attributed to the influence of contemporary speculative science. Figures like the Reverend Thomas Dick, who claimed that the Moon was inhabited by billions of beings, had captured the public's imagination in the early 19th century. Locke's hoax played on similar popular beliefs, presenting them as the latest scientific findings from the well-respected astronomer Sir John Herschel, which lent the story credibility. == Legacy == The hoax is featured in Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History. Nate


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-0.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
The grievance studies affair was the project of a team of three authors—Peter Boghossian, James A. Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose—to highlight what they saw as poor scholarship and erosion of standards in several academic fields. Taking place over 2017 and 2018, their project entailed submitting bogus papers to academic journals on topics from the field of critical social theory such as cultural, queer, race, gender, fat, and sexuality studies to determine whether they would pass through peer review and be accepted for publication. Four of these papers were subsequently published, which the authors cited in support of their contention. The affair echoed Alan Sokal's 1996 hoax in Social Text, a cultural studies journal, which inspired Boghossian, Lindsay, and Pluckrose. The trio set out with the intent to expose problems in what they called "grievance studies", referring to academic areas where they claim "a culture has developed in which only certain conclusions are allowed [...] and put social grievances ahead of objective truth". As such, the trio, identifying themselves as political liberals, though with Vox identifying prior transgressions made by each against left-liberalism, described their project as an attempt to raise awareness of what they believed was the damage that postmodernism


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-1.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Attempts === Prior to the affair, various academics highlighted concerns about the intellectual validity of much research influenced by postmodern philosophy and critical theory by publishing hoax articles in various journals. It was the 1996 hoax by Alan Sokal in Social Text, in particular, that influenced James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian to publish a hoax article of their own. On May 19, 2017, peer-reviewed journal Cogent Social Sciences published "The conceptual penis as a social construct", which argued that penises are not "male"; rather, they should be analyzed as social constructs instead. The same day, Lindsay and Boghossian revealed it to be a hoax aimed at discrediting gender studies, although Cogent Social Sciences is not exclusively a gender-studies journal. While the journal did conduct a postmortem, both authors concluded the "impact [of the hoax] was very limited, and much criticism of it was legitimate". The authorship of each paper was either fictional—such as "Helen Wilson" of "Portland Ungendering Research Initiative"—or real people willing to lend their name, such as Richard Baldwin, professor emeritus of history at Gulf Coast State College. The first acceptance, "Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at the Dog Park", was achieved five


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-2.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
=== Praise === Mounk of Johns Hopkins University said that while the authors received no favors for preparing the hoax, they demonstrated mastery in postmodern jargon and not only ridiculed the journals in question, but, more importantly, outed double standards of gender studies which happily welcome hoaxes against "morally suspect" fields like economics, but are unable to accept a criticism of their own methods. He also commented on the "sheer amount of tribal solidarity it has elicited among leftists and academics" and the fact that many of the reactions were purely ad hominem, while few have actually said that there is an actual problem highlighted by the hoax: "some of the leading journals in areas like gender studies have failed to distinguish between real scholarship and intellectually vacuous as well as morally troubling bullshit". Rejecting complaints that the trio, lacking a control group, engaged in a "confused attempt to import statistics into a question where it doesn't apply", Mounk stated that the trio had promised "nothing of the sort" in the first place, and had instead successfully accomplished their goal of demonstrating that it was "possible" to "get bullshit published" in the journals in question. Justin E. H. Smith defended


id: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair-3.md
category: reference
title: Grievance studies affair
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:10.101456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: grievance-studies-affair-20260505-0
summary:
(1) journals with higher impact factors were more likely to reject papers submitted as part of the project; (2) the chances were better, if the manuscript was allegedly based on empirical data; (3) peer reviews can be an important asset in the process of revising a manuscript; and (4) when the project authors, with academic education from neighboring disciplines, closely followed the reviewers' advice, they were able to learn relatively quickly what is needed for writing an acceptable article. The boundary between a seriously written paper and a "hoax" gradually became blurred. Finally (5), the way the project ended showed that in the long run, the scientific community will uncover fraudulent practices. Lagerspetz concludes that the experiment was flawed both experimentally and ethically, and failed to provide the evidence it sought. It is unclear, on what grounds the project group decided what journals to target. One third (7) of the 21 final editorial decisions the authors received were positive, two thirds of the decisions were negative. In the absence of a control group, it is impossible to tell whether this proportion would have been lower or higher within other disciplines. == List of hoax papers == === Accepted === ====


id: vishwa-jit-gupta-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwa_Jit_Gupta-0.md
category: reference
title: Vishwa Jit Gupta
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwa_Jit_Gupta
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:11.304705+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vishwa-jit-gupta-20260505-0
summary:
Vishwa Jit Gupta, alternatively spelt Viswa Jit Gupta, or Vishwajit Gupta, (1942—2022) was an Indian paleontologist and former professor of geology at Panjab University, Chandigarh. He is reputed for research in the geological settings and fossil records of the Himalayas, publishing five books and 458 articles on the subject between 1966 and 1989. However, many of his fossils were revealed to be fake or manipulated, and he became infamous for large-scale scientific fraud, the case that came to be known as the Himalayan fossil hoax. Once recognised as "India's most celebrated fossil scientist", he has been named as "the greatest" and "most notorious paleontological fraudster" and "Houdini of the Himalayas." == Biography == Gupta studied M.Sc. in the Department of Geology (at the time the Centre of Advanced Study in Palaeontology and Himalayan Geology) at Panjab University, Chandigarh. After enrolling in a doctoral programme under the supervision of Mulk Raj Sahni, he investigated on the fossils of the Himalayan region in Kashmir. He and Sahni published the first reports of fossils in 1964, the discovery of graptolites in two papers in Nature, and fossil assemblage in two papers in Current Science, and one in the Journal of the Palaeontological Society


id: john-william-heslop-harrison-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Heslop-Harrison-0.md
category: reference
title: John William Heslop-Harrison
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Heslop-Harrison
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:12.446334+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: john-william-heslop-harrison-20260505-0
summary:
John William Heslop Harrison, (1881–1967) was a professor of Botany at Kings College, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, specialising in the genetics of moths. He is now best remembered for a widely recognised academic fraud. == Early life and education == He was born in Birtley on 22 January 1881, the son of George Heslop-Harrison, a pattern-maker at Birtley Iron Works. He was educated at Bede College School in Durham then Rutherford School for Boys in Newcastle upon Tyne. His mother was a keen gardener, and other influences such as his uncle, Rev J E Hull, and neighbour, Charles Robson, led him to an early interest in botany and natural history. He then studied at Durham College of Science, where he obtained a BSc degree in 1903. He did further postgraduate study at the University of Newcastle, gaining an MSc degree in 1916 and a DSc in 1917. In 1921 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE). His proposers were James Hartley Ashworth, Sir Thomas Hudson Beare, Percy Hall Grimshaw, and James Ritchie. He served as the Society's Vice-President 1945–1948. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1928. He died in Birtley, Tyne and Wear


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-0.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
The Himalayan fossil hoax (also called the Himalayan hoax or the case of the peripatetic fossils) is a case of scientific misconduct perpetrated by Indian palaeontologist Vishwa Jit Gupta of Panjab University. Since his doctoral research in the 1960s and the following two decades, Gupta worked on the geology and fossil record of the Himalayan region, producing hundreds of research publications that were taken as fundamentals to understanding the geological formation of the Himalayas. Australian geologist John Talent from Macquarie University followed Gupta's research and happened to visit the Himalayas where he found that Gupta's fossils did not match those geological settings and were odd — some being extraordinarily similar to fossils from other parts of the world. In 1987, in the presence of Gupta at a scientific conference in Canada, Talent publicly displayed that Gupta's fossils were identical to those found in Morocco. Talent and his student Glenn Brock reanalysed Gupta's research, bringing out systematic evidence that Gupta had manipulated, faked, recycled, and plagiarised his data. Early in 1978, Gilbert Klapper and Willi Ziegler had suspected foul play as they noticed that Gupta's conodont fossils were similar to those collected by George Jennings Hinde from Buffalo, New York, a


id: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax-1.md
category: reference
title: Himalayan fossil hoax
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_fossil_hoax
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:30:13.892347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: himalayan-fossil-hoax-20260505-0
summary:
In 1978, the American geologist Gilbert Klapper from the University of Iowa met Willi Ziegler at the University of Marburg in Germany to discuss the progress of research on extinct jawless vertebrates, the conodonts. At that time, Ziegler had Australian guests, John W. Pickett from the Geological Survey of New South Wales and his associate John Alfred Talent from Macquarie University in Sydney. Talent was by then an established expert in Devonian geology of Australian and Indian regions. As the leader of the research team of the first International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP-1), a project of UNESCO, Talent had explored the Himalayas in 1973−1977. Pickett and Talent shared their Himalayan studies and discussed Gupta's research on Devonian conodonts. They had also investigated 20 locations around Nepal, where Gupta had claimed many discoveries from Triassic, Permian, Carboniferous, and Devonian deposits (rocks ranging from around 420 to 299 million years old), and to their astonishment, found no fossils except one which was Silurian (around 443 to 420 Ma, therefore pre-Devonian). In one specific case, they explored the area where Gupta and William B. N. Berry (Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology) had reported in 1966 several fossils from Kashmir.


