Science’s Demons, from Descartes to Darwin and Beyond

This characterization of the supernatural being is irrelevant to their nature.

> Canales quotes a computer scientist at Microsoft who argued that Internet and finance companies today “are trying to become Maxwell’s demons in an information network.” His example was a health-insurance company using Big Data to sort desirable customers from undesirable customers

That’s a cute thought experiment albeit not directly the of the same kind previously discussed. This person is clearly discussing aggregated human effects, nothing hard to prove there.

> This strange being disappears entirely from the final version of “On the Origin of Species,” where only the theory of natural selection appears, absent any miraculous causes or supernatural forces.

Makes you wonder if the publication would have received the same attention had this part not being removed from the final revision.

> Still, among those who studied it more closely, Maxwell’s demon has inspired new technologies and theories in fields as diverse as chemistry, cosmology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, and cybernetics.

The article, albeit being a great summary, does little effort to acknowledge the difference between demons being merely analogies for the unknown versus being the catalyst of new ways to tame nature.

I'll say the old theology (with deities, etc.) had more amusing bits than the modern scientific theology, which tends to be dour and self-righteous.

(But, hey, miracles now are a lot cheaper ...)

> They are not supernatural creatures; rather, they are particular kinds of thought experiments, placeholders of sorts for laws or theories or concepts not yet understood.

[1] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175324/be...