CategoryScience
Invisibility Isn’t Science Fiction; It’s Interesting Engineering
Things are visible only when light strikes them but light can sometimes be manipulated so as not to strike them, with remarkable results.Invisibility is one of those interesting concepts that started out as imagination: What if I were invisible? Or— in the hands of a storyteller — what if my character were invisible? Tolkien famously made it a power granted by the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. The concept is used in science fiction too, for example, in the form of the cloaking device: However, as science fiction writer Douglas Adams (1952–2001) noted satirically in Life, the Universe, and Everything, in everyday life, “The Somebody Else’s Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what’s more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people’s natural disposition not Read More ›
Fine-Tuning of Universe Makes a Top Neuroscientist “Very Hopeful”
Allen Institute’s Christof Koch talks about the assumptions underlying his consciousness theory — which led many other neuroscientists to try to Cancel him
Is Our World, Post-1950, Really a Geological Epoch?
Some earth scientists lobby for calling the past 75 years the Anthropocene epoch, giving it equal importance with the 16-million-year Upper Jurassic
Grappling Honestly With Science’s Blind Spot
An astrophysicist, a theoretical physicist, and a philosopher all walk into a bar and say, “At the heart of science lies something we do not see that makes science possible” Um… yes!
If AI Speeds Up Science, Does It Risk Squashing Some Parts?
A Yale anthropologist and a Princeton psychologist warn of the dangers of overreliance on AI in science
Is There a Solution to Low Quality Research in Science?
Molecular biologist Henry Miller and statistician Stanley Young explain why statistical techniques like meta-analysis won’t solve the basic problem
Retracted Paper Is a Compelling Case for Reform
The credibility of science is being undermined by misuse of the tools created by scientists. Here's an example from an economics paper I was asked to comment on
How Data Can Appear in Science Papers — Out of Thin Air!
At Retraction Watch, Gary Smith explains how one author team apparently copy pasted missing data about green innovation in various countriesRecently, Retraction Watch, a site that helps keeps science honest, noted some statistical peculiarities about a paper last September in the Journal of Clean Energy, “Green innovations and patents in OECD countries.” The site was tipped off by a PhD student in economics that “For several countries, observations for some of the variables the study tracked were completely absent.” But that wasn’t the big surprise. The big surprise was when the student wrote to one of the authors: In email correspondence seen by Retraction Watch and a follow-up Zoom call, [Almas] Heshmati told the student he had used Excel’s autofill function to mend the data. He had marked anywhere from two to four observations before or after the missing values Read More ›
Bigfoot and Trust in Science: A Cautionary Tale
Of three men searching for Bigfoot in 1969 — a hunting guide, an enthusiast, and a physical anthropologist, which seemed surest that the monster was real?
Why Is Theology the Most Important Empirical Science?
Arguing pro or con about the existence of God has resulted in many successful and/or widely accepted theories in science
Scientists Attempt an Honest Look at Why We Trust Science Less
Contemplating the depressing results of a recent Pew survey, a molecular biologist and a statistician take aim at growing corruption in science
Five Trends That Help Us Make Sense of Space Science Today
Citizen Scientist Forrest Mims Tells His Remarkable Life Story
In his new book “Maverick Scientist,” he details the ups and downs of an extraordinarily productive life in science, with few credentials to hide behind
Will Scientists Be Forced to Consider the Occult as Science?
When the World Economic Forum invited a witch to Davos to offer incantations, it was more than just window dressing
Fighting Pseudoscience With Empathy? Try a Little Humility First…
The accusation of “pseudoscience,” under the current science regime, has often become little more than an elite-driven smear against inconvenient data
A Biochemist Begins To Sense the Limits of Materialism
William Reville seems both confident and uncertain at the same time that science can crack the problem of consciousness
Being a Good Scientist Doesn’t Mean Being an Effective Leader
Francis Collins admits that they botched the COVID-19 response.
Science vs Religion Debate: Uselessness Cubed
Science no longer means anything like what Dr. Pierre hopes that it does