Philosophy of science has come a very long way from its historically rooted focus on theories, explanations, and evidential relations in physics elaborated in terms of a rather mythical “theory T”. But even in philosophy of biology, attention has largely been on the concepts and abstract mathematics of evolutionary biology,...
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Yesterday
Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025)
An award-winning astrophysicist looks at how the understanding of uncertainty and randomness has led to breakthroughs in our knowledge of the cosmos
All of us understand the world around us by constructing models, comparing them to observations, and drawing conclusions. Scientis ... Show More
1h 29m
Nov 19
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even tod ... Show More
54m 29s
Nov 13
Craig Hogan, "The Unlikely Primeval Sky" (American Scientist, November-December)
Of all the patterns that could possibly be preserved in the post–Big Bang radiation, the one we see is surprisingly smooth on large angular scales. Sitting by a campfire on a dark night, looking up at the Milky Way, a curious child asks, “What does the sky tell us? Where does it ... Show More
30m 27s
May 2014
Melinda B. Fagan, “Philosophy of Stem Cell Biology: Knowledge in Flesh and Blood” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
Philosophy of science has come a very long way from its historically rooted focus on theories, explanations, and evidential relations in physics elaborated in terms of a rather mythical “theory T”. But even in philosophy of biology, attention has largely been on the concepts and ... Show More
1h 9m
Apr 2023
Brian Villmoare, "The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Big History seeks to retell the human story in light of scientific advances by such methods as radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis. Brian Villmoare's book The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History (Cambridge UP, 2023) provides a deep, causal view of ... Show More
59m 36s
Oct 2021
Roger Penrose, “The Cyclic Universe” (Open Agenda, 2021)
In the last twenty years, cosmology has unexpectedly emerged as one of the most exciting and dynamic fields of modern science. From astoundingly precise measurements of the cosmic microwave background to the ongoing mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, modern cosmology is un ... Show More
2h 31m
May 2023
#318 — Physics & Philosophy
<p>Sam Harris speaks with Tim Maudlin about the foundations of physics and metaphysics. They talk about the nature of scientific reductionism, emergence, functionalism, the nature of time, presentism vs eternalism, causation, the nature of possibility, the laws of nature, David L ... Show More
54m 15s
Mar 2015
Nick Turnbull, ‘Michel Meyer’s Problematology: Questioning and Society” (Bloomsbury, 2014)
To be human is to question. This act of questioning is the essence of philosophy, as it allows ontology and epistemology to exist. For example, to understand what it is to be we must first ask the question of what it is to be. This insight, of the primacy of questioning, is at th ... Show More
52m 16s
Sep 2023
Stars, Cells, and God | Purpose in Cosmology and Biology
Join biochemist Fazale “Fuz” Rana and astronomer David Block as they discuss new discoveries taking place at the frontiers of science that have theological and philosophical implications, including the reality of God’s existence.
Purpose in Cosmology and Biology
Is the fine-tun ... Show More
53m 33s