Questions tagged [philosophy-of-science]
The philosophy-of-science tag has no usage guidance.
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Statistical significance set at $p < 0.05$ or $\alpha = 0.05$?
Obviously, both refer to the same thing. But, which is more correct/more common in biomedical papers? By alpha, I mean alpha level (Also see one). (And, should it be $p < 0.05$ or $p = 0.05$ if it'...
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How well evolution is supported by experts? Are there acceptable scientific objection to evolution? [closed]
There are people in internet , with professional sounding voice , who claim that evolution is not scientifically possible (such as there is not enough time for evolution, or modern genetics has ...
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What retrospective analysis happens after a clinical trial fails?
After a failed pharmaceutical clinical trial, what retrospective analyses are typically performed to understand why the drug program failed the trial? For example, are further experiments done to ...
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What is the adjective for PHAGE? [closed]
if the adjective of the noun BACTERIUM is 'bacterial' and that of VIRUS is 'viral', what is the adjective for (BACTERIO)PHAGE? Is 'phagial' accepted?
Thank you
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How to fit simulated with measured data having systematic errors?
Consider a given time series of measured data, i.e. the number of persons tested positive for COVID-19. And consider a simulation - consisting of a model, possibly fed with some parameters estimated a ...
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Could we have endless pleasure?
Are there any studies that point out that we could have a device in the future or drug that could give us endless amount of pleasure by stimulating or blocking processes in the brain or nerve system? ...
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Is an attraction to studying the philosophy of biology a good reason to pursue grad studies in the field? [closed]
I have always leaned more towards questions surrounding psychology, sociology, and philosophy but fate has me graduating with a BSc in Biology this year. Would it be smart to pursue it further more ...
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Why is history not called science even though palaeontology is? [closed]
In the scientific method, we propose models to explain a phenomenon and propose falsifiable tests for it. In palaeontology, we cannot do direct tests to verify our models, but we still make ...
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Why has the term "natural history" been used to denote the study of nature, and more recently, of life?
The term "natural history" is a translation of the Latin phrase historia naturalis meaning "the story of nature". Nowadays denoting the study of life, it originally also covered astronomy.
Why has ...
user40471
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What problem does kin selection solve?
I'm trying to understand what problem led to a development of kin selection.
The explanations I've found consist roughly of the following:
The existence of some altruistic and cooperative ...
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Philosophy of Science question permitted here? [closed]
Clarified my question re vernacular - science codependency, shortly after it was put on hold. Also, 'Philosophy of Science' IS a topic in biology stack exchange Please explain why my post's still on ...
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The falsifiability of natural selection [closed]
I was wondering if we could think about experiments to falsify natural selection . According to this wiki : we could invalidate natural selection
“...if it could be shown that selection or ...
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What is the philosophical definition of life? [closed]
How does philosophy define life? And how does it overlap and contrast with the concepts and nuances of other sciences such as biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics?
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Why we aren't making Darwin's theory a Law [closed]
I was wandering about darwin's theory which is controversial theory and there are no enough evidence to prove it right or falsify it, since I'm a biology student so i studied basic way of a hypothesis ...
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Questions about scientific method in neuroscience [closed]
In what ways does intuition from subjective experience guide topic choice in neuroscience? How important is it to frame research questions quantitatively? Can our own beliefs about how we think bias ...
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Correlation between threat and odour, taste
Is there any sort of correlation between threat and taste/smell?
Are we evolved such that things which are harmful to life taste and /or smell bad and things(food) which are useful to us taste, smell ...
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Crick’s Central Dogma — Counter Cases
I was recently reading about non-coding RNAs being a counter example to Central Dogma of Biology. Can someone add more cases which violate the Central Dogma? Thanks!
UPDATE - Reference of lncRNAs ...
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What are the characteristics of a living organism? [closed]
It seemed fairly basic at first, and yet I have to ask because even a quick Google search reveals that it doesn't seem to be quite so straight-forward anymore. After more research, I found multiple ...
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Is there any definition of life which makes viruses undeterminable?
There are many different definitions of life (RNA, something that comes through evolution) but not one I have seen which could not determine wheter viruses are living things (even though there are ...
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Biologically, does life and death matter? [closed]
(Sorry that I'm on mobile, so I can't make a good formated question (no links). I will add them later. Just can't resist the urge to ask)
In the recent hot question about whether mitochondrial is ...
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Evolution and the levels of selection
Reading Okasha's "Evolution and the levels of selection" he talks about "the levels of selection problem." There is a bit of a problem with this opening chapter because, while he talks about why the ...
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If not intelligent design, what is an alternative scientific theory to evolution? [closed]
In the popular culture, Intelligent Design is often portrayed as trying to be an alternate theory to evolution. However, as the following question points out, it is not scientific, and so cannot be ...
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Is there a name for this principle in biological contexts?
This is mostly a question about usage.
There is a probability-related idea that has been used in at least two biological contexts. The idea is that if something happened, it was probably likely to ...
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Does evolution by selection require that individuals consciously change behaviour in an effort to suit their genes? [closed]
Imagine an animal that is incapable of digesting a particular kind of food. Now suppose the mutations for digesting that food were to suddenly appear within the population. There still has to be a ...
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Is a "Fact" any theory for which there is overwhelming evidence in any field other than biology?
Evolution is often described as a fact, and a theory. Evolution is a heavily overloaded term, with one definition being the fact that, "changes in the frequency of alleles in populations of ...
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