5,340 research outputs found
Can scientific discovery be a religious experience?
In a recent commentary on the “two cultures”, Mary Warnock and N. G. McCrum contrast
the current debate with the course it took in C. P. Snow’s day. Forty years ago one
commentator on the insularity of scientific culture had observed the reluctance of scientists
to evangelise on behalf of their disciplines: according to David Waring, attempts to convert
the non-specialist were often seen as beneath contempt. One found the “typical attitude of
a proud and infallible church which does indeed discuss its own theology with its own
initiates but cannot condescend to speak to the multitude”. The situation has certainly changed. Lay sermons in science have become a popular genre. But that image of the Church scientific deserves further comment. The analogy between organised science and organised religion has been used by historians of science as a heuristic
device for exposing facets of the scientific enterprise that might otherwise be missed. A
recent example would be Margaret Wertheim’s controversial but revealing book
"Pythagoras’s Trousers", in which she reflects on a recurrent exclusion of women from science by a priesthood of physical scientists. The scientist as priest is a long established
trope. In seventeenth-century England Robert Boyle presented himself as a “priest in the
temple of nature”, while Isaac Newton saw himself as spiritual heir of an ancient priesthood
which had worshipped the one true God in a heliocentric universe. Is there room for faith within the Church scientific
Into the American Civil War: Thoughts on the Character of the Nation-Building Event
Streaming video requires Flash Player, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player to view.Brooks spoke about how to understand events in the public sphere when looking at the American Civil War in the early 1850's. Specifically, he examines texts from Harriet Beecher Stowe that were published as part of the anti-slavery cause.The Ohio State University. Humanities Institute Public Sphere and Modern Social Imaginaries working groupThe Ohio State University. Department of EnglishThe Ohio State University. Department of Germanic Languages and LiteraturesThe Ohio State University. Department of HistoryThe Ohio State University. Department of Political Science DepartmentThe Ohio State University. Department of Spanish and PortugueseThe Ohio State University. Department of Women’s StudiesOhio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent Web page, streaming video, event photo
Simultaneous Coherent Structure Coloring facilitates interpretable clustering of scientific data by amplifying dissimilarity
The clustering of data into physically meaningful subsets often requires
assumptions regarding the number, size, or shape of the subgroups. Here, we
present a new method, simultaneous coherent structure coloring (sCSC), which
accomplishes the task of unsupervised clustering without a priori guidance
regarding the underlying structure of the data. sCSC performs a sequence of
binary splittings on the dataset such that the most dissimilar data points are
required to be in separate clusters. To achieve this, we obtain a set of
orthogonal coordinates along which dissimilarity in the dataset is maximized
from a generalized eigenvalue problem based on the pairwise dissimilarity
between the data points to be clustered. This sequence of bifurcations produces
a binary tree representation of the system, from which the number of clusters
in the data and their interrelationships naturally emerge. To illustrate the
effectiveness of the method in the absence of a priori assumptions, we apply it
to three exemplary problems in fluid dynamics. Then, we illustrate its capacity
for interpretability using a high-dimensional protein folding simulation
dataset. While we restrict our examples to dynamical physical systems in this
work, we anticipate straightforward translation to other fields where existing
analysis tools require ad hoc assumptions on the data structure, lack the
interpretability of the present method, or in which the underlying processes
are less accessible, such as genomics and neuroscience
Darwinism and the Survival of Religion
It is a great honour and privilege to give the Constantinos Th. DimarasLecture for 2016. I am grateful to the National Hellenic Research Foundationfor the opportunity to do so and to Dr Efthymios Nicolaidis for kindly issuingthe invitation.In our age of the internet, there are few topics that excite such strongopinions in the blogosphere as the relations between science and religion.Deeply embedded in the consciousness, both scholarly and popular, of WesternEurope is the belief that science and religion have continuously been, and mustbe, in conflict. This belief has been described as “the idea that wouldn’t die”,despite excellent historical research drawing attention to its shortcomings.2It is certainly not the only view. Those, including scientists themselves, whorepresent different religious traditions, have often argued that, when “science”and “religion” are properly understood, there can be a deeper relationship ofharmony, or at least compatibility, between them. When, during the 1960s, Istudied the history of science at Cambridge University, I realised that thesetwo master narratives of conflict and harmony are too general to capturethe complexity of historical controversy and debate.3 One of my aims in thislecture is to illustrate this complexity by examining religious responses toCharles Darwin’s theory of evolution
The application of high power lasers to the welding of tee section joints in ship production
PhD ThesisThe use of computers by naval architects has revolutionised ship
design and -construction management. The use of high power laser
technology could similarly revolutionise production processes to produce
a quantum leap in productivity.
Facilitating low heat input materials processing, the laser is suited
to various cutting, welding and heat treatment applications in
shipbuilding to increase productivity through improved product accuracy.
From these processes, the Author has concentrated on the application of
high power lasers to the welding of tee section joints - the most common
joint configuration in ship structures - by a single sided method (skid
welding) to give both the lowest possible heat input and greatest
flexibility.
-Using a lOkW laser, single pass fully penetrating skid welds may be
produced for joints in plate of up to 15mm thick, but using this size of
laser, production parameter envelopes to produce visually and
structurally sound joints reduce in size as plate thickness increases to
greater than 10mm. It is shown that fully penetrating laser skid welds
produced in steel conventionally used for surface vessel construction are
of superior structural quality to fillet welds as required by
classification society rules.
The work has shown that achieving process consistency in an automated
production based skid welding workstation operating with existing levels
of joint tolerance will be dependent not only on well designed laser and
beam delivery harware but also on suitable on-line adaptive control
systems.
It has been demonstrated that by employing laser skid welding for
steelwork fabrication, an increase in productivity can be gained,
principally through increased processing speed and improved product
accuracy.British Shipbuilders:
The Science and Engineering Research Council
Darwinism and the Survival of Religion
It is a great honour and privilege to give the Constantinos Th. Dimaras Lecture for 2016. I am grateful to the National Hellenic Research Foundation for the opportunity to do so and to Dr Efthymios Nicolaidis for kindly issuing the invitation.In our age of the internet, there are few topics that excite such strong opinions in the blogosphere as the relations between science and religion. Deeply embedded in the consciousness, both scholarly and popular, of Western Europe is the belief that science and religion have continuously been, and must be, in conflict. This belief has been described as “the idea that wouldn’t die”, despite excellent historical research drawing attention to its shortcomings. It is certainly not the only view. Those, including scientists themselves, who represent different religious traditions, have often argued that, when “science” and “religion” are properly understood, there can be a deeper relationship of harmony, or at least compatibility, between them. When, during the 1960s, I studied the history of science at Cambridge University, I realised that these two master narratives of conflict and harmony are too general to capture the complexity of historical controversy and debate. One of my aims in this lecture is to illustrate this complexity by examining religious responses to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution
Darwinism and the Survival of Religion
It is a great honour and privilege to give the Constantinos Th. DimarasLecture for 2016. I am grateful to the National Hellenic Research Foundationfor the opportunity to do so and to Dr Efthymios Nicolaidis for kindly issuingthe invitation.In our age of the internet, there are few topics that excite such strongopinions in the blogosphere as the relations between science and religion.Deeply embedded in the consciousness, both scholarly and popular, of WesternEurope is the belief that science and religion have continuously been, and mustbe, in conflict. This belief has been described as “the idea that wouldn’t die”,despite excellent historical research drawing attention to its shortcomings.2It is certainly not the only view. Those, including scientists themselves, whorepresent different religious traditions, have often argued that, when “science”and “religion” are properly understood, there can be a deeper relationship ofharmony, or at least compatibility, between them. When, during the 1960s, Istudied the history of science at Cambridge University, I realised that thesetwo master narratives of conflict and harmony are too general to capturethe complexity of historical controversy and debate.3 One of my aims in thislecture is to illustrate this complexity by examining religious responses toCharles Darwin’s theory of evolution
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