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Continuing on Sir Francis Bacon's New Organon (1620).
We cover more of Bacon's "idols," the things that distort our ability to do science impartially and talk about how Bacon divides religion from science (and what this means politically). We then move on to book 2, which includes Bacon's novel update of the Scholastic term "form" to mean something closer to law of nature, and take a look at Bacon's actual method of doing science by filling out a series of tables before actually doing any experiments.
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End song: "Stuck in a Cave" by Chrome Cranks; hear Mark talk to singer/songwriter Peter Aaron on Nakedly Examined Music #93.
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Otter Bob says
October 1, 2019 at 4:33 pmThere you go again. First in the written synopsis for Part 1 and now here at 23:58. It’s not simply the “tree of knowledge”. Most importantly, it’s the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That specific knowledge is what is forbidden to mankind. What are you trying to do—put prophets and priests with more or less direct access to God out of a job?
But now that we ate it we are like gods. And lest we gain immortality by eating from the tree of life, banned we are from the Garden. Thank goodness for F. Bacon, all other knowledge is not forbidden.
dmf says
October 2, 2019 at 7:22 pm” What are you trying to do—put prophets and priests with more or less direct access to God out of a job?”
sounds like a good step on the way to becoming science minded, if we need a new St.Paul there’s always
https://monoskop.org/images/7/7e/Feyerabend_Paul_Against_Method.pdf
BRIAN P LISWELL says
October 7, 2019 at 9:10 pmI think an analogy can be made between heat, heat transfer and temperature by referring to the electrical concepts of charge, current and voltage (potential).
Heat is charge. Current is charge transfer, like heat transfer, and voltage is temperature difference.
A match has high temperature, but not much heat, due to low mass. Old example. This is analogous to the static-tingle coming off an old CRT TV screen. You place your hand close the screen and the charge jumps across the gap to your hand.
The snapping charge jump is the heat exchange, evidence of the large voltage potential (temperature) before the charge (heat) is dissipated. After charge dissipation, the voltage (temp diff) goes to 0, like an extinguished match.
A large battery has far lower initial voltage (temperature), but contains more charge (heat), like a warm filled bathtub. More heat to exchange.
But you wouldn’t say a battery doesn’t have charge just because it isn’t connected, preventing current flow . So the bathtub still contains heat even though you have yet to dump in the ice cubes.
Avery Dewing says
November 6, 2019 at 7:37 pmNew citizen here, just wanted to say I enjoyed this episode! It’d be great to hear more about Bacon’s “New Atlantis”.
Mark Linsenmayer says
November 11, 2019 at 8:10 amThanks, Avery! It sounded to us like it wasn’t actually entertaining enough to read, but go for it!