What underpins acceptance of scientific theories by non-scientists? In a recent argument about climate change, I maintained that, as a non-specialist, I’m not in a position to judge the validity of theories or critiques of theories of anthropogenic climate change but I instead have to make a judgement about the reasonableness of believing in statements that a certain body of people make about the world. My point was that in the absence of any dramatic evidence to the contrary it’s much more reasonable to believe that the IPCC (and almost everyone else) is right than it is to believe either that there’s a huge con or a huge mistake. I think this is right but am I missing something more?

Hello there, I have a question about why exactly there's a problem or a paradox with the concept of Bleen and Grue from N. Goodman's writings on the New Riddle of Induction. I understand that at time T, the color is Bleen (or Grue) and that any prediction we make about a color of some object (for example) can be green or blue- and it will be right. Is that the essence of the paradox? Can I claim that it is similar to Schrodinger's cat paradox? If we examine an object after time T, and it's green then its original color should be named Bleen, but I have hard time understanding why it is so?

Is it plausible the theory of "occam's razor". Could a complex answer be the right one?

I am often confused by the rhetorics of physicists that their theory "came from mathematics". I remember the physicist, Brian greence tell the story of paul dirac discovery of anti-matter by pure a priori manipulation of mathematics. I see this to be very confusing, because i often imagine mathematics as being a priori, and necessary without any connection to the real world. That is, i can always imagine possible worlds( or universes) governed by different mathematical expressions, or descriptions. Does it follow that every mathematical expression/description describes our universe? Obviously not. With paper, and pencil, we could probable describe any universe with any arbitrary number of dimension of space, but does it follow that our universe has arbitrary number of spatial dimension? Obviously not. The use of mathematics seems to be good in formulating regularities of nature( laws of nature), and to extract the implication of those laws. It makes me wonder why physicists would say their theory comes...

Are all of the laws of nature or of the universe such as the law of gravity necessary or contingent? If contingent, and found in one instance to be false, would they fail to be laws? Thanks, John

I read recently a comment by a philosopher that Karl Popper's "falsifiability" theory is considered obsolete. Is this so? I always found it to be quite useful. If it's obsolete, what rendered it so, and by what was it replaced?

Occam's razor seems to be a devestating weapon when it comes to the atheist's argument to why God doesn't exist, or more precisely it is more likely that he doesn't exist. It seems the scientific community has the consensus that they will never rely on "God" for the answer to any problem. Will there ever be a scenario in which God might prove simpler than the scientific or mathmatical explanation, and Occam's razor can be used to justify a belief in God?

According to Karl Popper, a hypothesis is scientific if it can be observationally falsified, not, if it can be verified. One instance not in accordance with a supposed law refutes the law, but many instances in conformity with the law still do not prove it. Accepting this falsification test, we may remark that the idea of the divine existence either could, or could not, be falsified by a conceivable way of observation. If it could not, then science in no position to test theism. Please comment. Thanks

I'm a scientist. The results of my research may generate technologies that could potentially be used in both and offensive and defensive military applications. These same technologies could potentially help people as well. Here are two examples: (1) My work could potentially create odor-sensing devices to target "enemies" and blow them up, but the same work could aid land-mine detection and removal. (2) My work could help build warrior robots, but it could also help build better prosthetics for amputees. For any given project, I have to decide which agency(ies) my lab will take money from. I do not want to decide based on the name of the agency alone: DARPA has funded projects that helped amputees and killed no one, while I would bet (but do not know for sure) that some work sponsored by the NSF has ultimately been used in military operations. So I'd like to base my decision on something more than the agency acronym. How can I start to get my head around this? What sorts of questions should I...

Does one have to know from the inside through experience the kinds of things social scientists study such as religious practices, chivalry, the earlier ways of life of native Americans, and so on, if one is not to distort such things or even just propagandize for or against them? Danke im voraus!