Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for September 26, 2019

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Authored by @remlaps

Philip Goff argues for a new scientific paradigm; Graham Farmelo says nature's language is mathematics; Building the world's largest family tree; The word, "Leprechaun" comes Latin; and Steem-based aerophotography from a paramotor

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  1. A Post-Galilean Paradigm - In this conversation with edge.org, Philip Goff talks about the philosophy of science, with a specific interest in consciousness. He says that a pivotal moment in the history of science happened when Galileo did the philosophical heavy lifting to separate the realms of the soul and the material world. After Galileo, he says, science was reduced to the study of things that can be described as pure mathematics and geometry. This split was good for fields like physics, he says, but the exclusion of qualitative information makes it impossible to deal with consciousness in today's scientific terms. Making the point that a physical Grand Unified Theory would be incomplete if it can't explain consciousness, he argues that science needs to be redefined so that the Galilean paradigm is seen as a subset of science that also includes qualitative information, and notes that there is literature from the 1920s - The Russell-Eddington panpsychist view - that he believes can provide a useful framework for dealing with consciousness. In short, this view describes matter from two perspectives: first is the perspective of the physical sciences, and second is the intrinsic perspective that matter is constructed from forms of consciousness. The link contains a video and a written transcript.

  2. The Mathematical Language of Nature - In somewhat of a contrast to Goff's view, in this podcast, Graham Farmelo argues that the universe's natural laws can be understood through math and numbers. In particular, drawing on the examples of Einstein and string theory, he argues that when researchers start with math, instead of experimental observations, there may be problems, but it often still leads to valid insights about the physical world, and it is frequently the best insight that's possible. He agrees with critics, though, that when theories make predictions, it requires patience for scientists to wait for testable observations that can confirm or refute the theories. He says that he thinks most critics are overly-critical in their expectations for observations to catch up with theory. Although the discussion seems to be at odds with Goff's philosophical discussion, it seems to be limited to the area of physics, so the two claims are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

  3. How we're building the world's largest family tree - In this TED talk, Yaniv Erlich discuses his work with geni.com as the chief scientist for MyHeritage. The video contains interesting visualizations of the data, including time sequenced maps showing migration patterns across history. Erlich also reports that the error rate for mothers corresponds with the adoption rate at about 0.3 percent, and the error rate for fathers is higher - around 1.9% - which he blames on the milk men. And he shows how the data is being combined with DNA analysis in order to answer a number of questions about history, society, and demography in our cultures.

  4. New Research Shows That the Word Leprechaun Has Latin Roots - According to a team of researchers from Cambridge University and Queen’s University Belfast, the word "leprechaun" comes from the Latin word Luperci which was a group of priests who celebrated the Lupercalia festival. Not much is known about that festival, except that it was likely a purification ritual that involved swimming, animal sacrifice, and a fertility "treatment" involving two young boys (possibly nude) chasing women through the streets with whips from the sacrificed animal.

  5. STEEM Taking Aerial Photos from a Paramotor 📷 - In this Steem post, @unipsycho describes his activity taking landscape photos while flying in a paramotor, and also includes a selection of photos. (A 10% beneficiary setting has been assigned to this post for @unipsycho.)

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He agrees with critics, though, that when theories make predictions, it requires patience for scientists to wait for testable observations that can confirm or refute the theories.

Data is data. It has the power to send theories to the graveyard and the motivation to look for new paradigms :)

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Yeah, Farmello's argument seemed pretty uncontroversial to me.

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