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Philosophy of Science/Physics Talk
London School of Economics, THIS THURSDAY
-------------ALL WELCOME-----------------
(apologies for cross postings)
'Theories as Obstacles'
Dr Towfic Shomar*
Thursday February 14th, 4-6pm
Contingency and Dissent in Science Special Invited Speaker
T206, Lakatos Building,
London School of Economics
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE
ABSTRACT
Scientific theories, sometimes, play a major role in preventing advancement
in science. Theories set the framework of thinking in certain directions,
forcing scientists to discard certain information because it does not fit
with the way these theories perceive the world, and hence a huge amount of
information is lost. Now, had this information been processed and analyzed,
we would have been presented with a different version of events, with a
different science. History of physics provides us with many examples where
theories prevented scientists from advancing in certain ways. The
breakthrough came always from minds that had not yet been poisoned with the
theories’ posits. Some of these examples are presented here. Can our
understanding to such history help us in solving the current crisis in
physics? A discussion of the role of String Theory in theoretical physics,
and the idea of unification in general, might help in giving an answer to
such a question.
Towfic Shomar is a philosopher of science and physics, and is the vice dean
and head of the Department of Human and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts,
Philadelphia University, Jordan.
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