The Eventuality of Equating Energy and Mass - Laws and Theories

Einstein's famous equation, , revolutionized the theory of physics and introduced new perspectives to the study of energy and mass. However, a close consideration of its principles raises essential concerns on the equitability of mass and energy as well as other phenomena like the speed of light. The unavoidable scientific claim of this paper is that the total energy of matter depends on its internal and external energies, which are accounted for by kinetic and potential energies. In the current work, thought experiments reveal important additions to this idea regarding the apparent effects of external energy on the nature of matter and particles. This paper employs detailed thought experiments and theoretical discussions to identify and address several notable inconsistencies related to the energy and mass equation based on previous works in physics. The relative external energy of an object will be influenced by the position of the observer. The outcomes of the experiments presented herein also provide key insights into the constancy of the internal energy of all matter and particles. Generally, this paper provides an important basis for analyzing the theory underlying the physics of energy and mass, addressing questionable ideas that are common but poorly substantiated and providing a new understanding of the nature of mass and energy that lays the foundations for further research in this area by projecting the difference between them.

Registered Reports: A process to safeguard high-quality evidence

From the perspective of an individual researcher, Registered Reports may appear as little more than yet another article format — a format with an unusual workflow, perhaps, but ultimately just a slightly different route for one’s research to enter the published record. From the perspective of a scientific claim, however, Registered Reports are much more than that: They establish a new standard for evidence quality. A hypothesis that is upheld in a Registered Report has survived a process that was highly potent at finding any flaws with it. First, the method used to test the hypothesis was vetted in peer review and judged capable of providing an informative test before the results were known. Second, the criteria the data had to pass to be counted as supporting the hypothesis were predefined and left minimal room for the evidence to be presented as stronger than warranted (e.g., due to capitalising on chance). And third, the results would have been published in the same place even if they had contradicted the hypothesis.

Breaking groupthink: Why scientific identity and norms mitigate ideological epistemology

Can scientists be trusted to conduct unbiased science? There is a growing body of papers arguing that psychological research is guided by “ideological epistemology”. According to this account, people are innately tribal in their political dispositions and these allegiances inevitably produce groupthink and guide them away from the truth--leading to a body of flimsy or biased research. This is a serious claim and one that would likely have far-reaching implications for many fields in the social sciences, as well as branches of biology (e.g., genetics) and climatology. Yet, like any other scientific claim, it deserves careful scrutiny and rigorous analysis. In the current paper, we examine the theoretical and empirical basis for ideological epistemology in science, finding limited factual evidence for ideological bias in the published literature.

The Fallacy of Equating the Hereditarian Hypothesis with Racism

There is a large amount of evidence that groups differ in average cognitive ability. The hereditarian hypothesis states that these differences are partly or substantially explained by genetics. Despite being a positive claim about the world, this hypothesis is frequently equated with racism, and scholars who defend it are frequently denounced as racists. Yet equating the hereditarian hypothesis with racism is a logical fallacy. The present article identifies ten common arguments for why the hereditarian hypothesis is racist and demonstrates that each one is fallacious. The article concludes that society will be better served if the hereditarian hypothesis is treated the same way as any other scientific claim—critically, but dispassionately.

“Removed from Nature”

In the context of current concerns within the environmental humanities to challenge the idea that humans are somehow irreducible to nature, this article takes up the much-neglected history of the idea of human exceptionality itself. According to now familiar accounts, metaphysical assumptions about the unique status of the human are considered to have persisted—including to the present day—despite evolutionary contentions that the human should be understood as a purely physical being. Such, largely Christian and Cartesian, metaphysical notions of a human soul or mind doubtlessly endure. But in this article we consider the—largely ignored, yet now arguably more prevalent—idea that humans are exceptional because of their physicality. Here, then, we outline the emergence of the scientific claim that a uniquely human condition of nature transcendence is owed not to some immaterial quality of mind or soul, but rather to the distinctiveness of human anatomy. It was, we will argue, the body—and, above all, the head—which provided the basis of a modern attempt to establish that humans were creatures of a categorically different order from all other animals. More precisely, it was as human cultural differences were correlated with variations in the size and shape of the head that the human body, in its upright stature, came to provide an explicitly materialist—and, as we shall see, potently ethnocentric—foundation for the claim that human beings are exceptional. The modern idea of human exceptionality is thus shown to be based in large part on a scientifically dubious, and culturally specific, argument about the nature-transcendent quality of beings that walk upright. This is a particular form of humanist discourse that often forgets its own contingencies and instabilities, as well as its comprehensively violent inheritances.

Does the Universe Suggest Design, Purpose, Goodness, or Concern?

This chapter tackles the question of whether or not the natural world presents us with a picture empty of purpose or good or evil or concern. No empirical evidence can entirely refute the claim that random fluctuation is the complete truth about the origin of all things, but it follows that this is not a scientific claim. Therefore it is a question of forming a reasonable judgement. It appears that the natural world has a depth and richness that exceeds what would be necessary for thinking brains to come to be realized in it. Also, notwithstanding the pain of the world, it is a project that merits our engagement and commitment, and occasionally the transcendent breaks in. We are not competent to make an overall judgement, but we can join in with the creative process of the world and find our role.

Making Science Transparent By Default; Introducing the TOP Statement

In order to increase the replicability of scientific work, the scientific community has called for practices designed to increase the transparency of research (McNutt, 2014; Nosek et al., 2015). The validity of a scientific claim depends not on the reputation of those making the claim, the venue in which the claim is made, or the novelty of the result, but rather on the empirical evidence provided by the underlying data and methods. Proper evaluation of the merits of scientific findings requires availability of the methods, materials, and data and the reasoned argument that serve as the basis for the published conclusions (Claerbout and Karrenbach 1992; Donoho et al 2009; Stodden et al 2013; Borwein et al 2013; Munafò et al, 2017). Wide and growing support for these principles (see, for example, signatories to Declaration on Research Assessment, DORA, https://sfdora.org/, and the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines https://cos.io/our-services/top-guidelines/) must be coupled with guidelines to increase open sharing of data and research materials, use of reporting guidelines, preregistration, and replication. We propose that, going forward, authors of all scientific articles disclose the availability and location of all research items, including data, materials, and code, related to their published articles in what we will refer to as a TOP Statement.

BBS commentary by De Ruiter on Zwaan et al.

A scientific claim is a generalization based on a reported statistically significant effect. The reproducibility of that claim is its scientific meaning. Anything not explicitly mentioned in a scientific claim as a limitation of the claim’s scope means that it implicitly generalizes over these unmentioned aspects. Hence, so-called “conceptual” replications that differ in these unmentioned aspects from the original study are legitimate, and necessary to test the generalization implied by the original study’s claim.