Science

Adam Perkins offers a revealing example at Quillette: But why do we specifically need free speech in science? Surely we just take measurements and publish our data? No chit chat required. We need free speech in science because science is not really about microscopes, or pipettes, or test tubes, or even Large Hadron Colliders. These are merely tools that help us to accomplish a far greater mission, which is to choose between rival narratives, in the vicious, no-holds-barred battle of ideas that we call “science”. For example, stomach problems such as gastritis and ulcers were historically viewed as the products of stress. This opinion was challenged in the late 1970s by the Australian doctors Robin Warren and Barry Marshall, who Read More ›

A handy guide from Tasnim Elmamoun at PLOS blogs: So… how do we identify spin? As Chiu and colleagues point out, spin can take a variety of forms, including: 1) “inappropriate study given study data;” 2) “inappropriate extrapolations or recommendations for clinical practice;” 3) “selective reporting;” 4) and “more robust or favorable data presentation.” Let’s unpack these a little bit. The first of these types, “inappropriate study given study data,” occurs when findings simply are interpreted incorrectly. Specifically, Chiu et al. found that this type of spin is commonly used in conjunction with casual (or colloquial) language, which in many cases has the potential to alter interpretation of the data. So how do researchers strike a balance between using scientific Read More ›

From Skye C. Cleary and Massimo Pigliucci at Aeon: A strange thing is happening in modern philosophy: many philosophers don’t seem to believe that there is such a thing as human nature. What makes this strange is that, not only does the new attitude run counter to much of the history of philosophy, but – despite loud claims to the contrary – it also goes against the findings of modern science. This has serious consequences, ranging from the way in which we see ourselves and our place in the cosmos to what sort of philosophy of life we might adopt. Our aim here is to discuss the issue of human nature in light of contemporary biology, and then explore how Read More ›

Report: NAS Launches New Report: “The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science”: Today is the launch of NAS’s newest report by David Randall and Christopher Welser. The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Road to Reform examines the different aspects of the reproducibility crisis of modern science. Our goal is to bring the reproducibility crisis to the forefront of public awareness and to call on policymakers to take effective steps to address it. We also include a series of policy recommendations, scientific and political, for alleviating the reproducibility crisis. NAS was founded on, and continues to be guided by the idea that the pursuit of truth is the highest purpose of scholarly work. Civil and open debate is Read More ›

Readers may remember Ask Bret Weinstein who, with his also-biologist wife Heather Heyng, was driven from Evergreen State in Washington during a campus war on science (a side-skirmish in a bigger culture war*). From Debra Soh at Quillette: It’s been almost a year since violent student protests erupted at Evergreen State College—enough time for the “non-traditional” Olympia, WA university to draw useful lessons from a fracas that made it a byword for campus identity politics run amok. Unfortunately, a report from an Independent External Review Panel, tasked by college President George Bridges with finding ways to attain closure on the events of last Spring, provides scant hope this will happen. The Evergreen admin is still placating people it must denounce if Read More ›

Here: Paper. “Popper, in approx 1978 for the most part, took his criticisms of Darwinism back. But when John Horgan interviewed Popper in 1992, Horgan noted that Popper “blurted out that he still found Darwin’s theory dissatisfying. “One ought to look for alternatives!” Popper exclaimed, banging his kitchen table.” ” See also: Laszlo Bencze on the current campaign against Karl Popper’s falsification criterion for science. “I assume that these critics have only read other people’s writings about Popper and not Popper himself.” and Question for multiverse theorists: To what can science appeal, if not evidence?

Recently, we noted a piece by astrophysicist Adam Becker at Aeon, asking whether “fetish for falsification and observation” holds back science. Essentially, multiverse cosmologists have been trying for some time to undermine basic principles of science such as the requirement for evidence and the capacity for falsification, in order to get their evidence-free theories accepted as science. Once they are accepted as official science on the basis that they somehow feel right, evidence against them won’t really matter much. Laszlo Bencze, who has studied Karl Popper’s work in some detail, writes to offer some thoughts: — I finally read the article referenced. It is filled with the same confusion about Popper’s philosophy of science as I have seen many times Read More ›

John Horgan asks at Scientific American if science is hitting a wall: Economists show increased research efforts are yielding decreasing returns The economists are concerned primarily with what I would call applied science, the kind that fuels economic growth and increases wealth, health and living standards. Advances in medicine, transportation, agriculture, communication, manufacturing and so on. But their findings resonate with my claim in The End of Science that “pure” science—the effort simply to understand rather than manipulate nature–is bumping into limits. And in fact I was invited to The Session because an organizer had read my gloomy tract, which was recently republished. I had lots of reactions to The Session. Here are a few: … In the realm of Read More ›

From Ratio Christi: Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler and Hitler’s Ethic. is also the author of The Death of Humanity., From Darwin to Hitler and Hitler’s Ethic.

From Rush D. Holt, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), at Scientific American: In the past few years, we have engaged in more forceful and frequent advocacy, rephrasing our motto from “the voice for science” to “the force for science,” and after decades of slow decline in membership, our rolls have turned around dramatically. Our new members, who like our longtime members clearly value Science magazine, now say that they value even more our public advocacy and efforts to fully integrate science and engineering into society and government. In short, we are seeing around the world—in marches, in scientific society membership, in civic participation—scientists joining with each other and turning outward. More and Read More ›

From Giorgia Guglielmi, Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, T. V. Padma, Holly Else, Quirin Schiermeier & Barbara Casassus at Nature: More than 250 cities around the world — from Mexico City to London to Mumbai — are hosting events. That’s fewer than last year, when marches in more than 600 cities drew about 1 million people. Still, this year’s overall turnout should be close to that of 2017, because many cities will host related events over the entire weekend, says Valerie Grover, satellite director of the main March for Science organization, who is based in Madison, Wisconsin. This year’s events range from rallies to festivals, and include musical performances, teach-in sessions and expos hosted by March for Science’s partner organizations. That should Read More ›

From Shawna Williams at The Scientist: TS: Do you think last year’s march, or other activism associated with it, have yielded results? RH: Some. The biggest effect was that scientists reminded themselves and each other that this is appropriate to do, that it’s important to do. I think many of the marchers last year were pleasantly surprised at the buoyant effect of being with thousands of other like-minded people to talk about the beauty of science, the relevance of science, the important place of science in society. . . . Maybe scientists shouldn’t need a reminder that it’s appropriate to go public, and in fact there’s an obligation to go public, but I think scientists do need that reminder, and Read More ›

From John Stossel at Townhall: We’ve been told conservatives don’t believe in science and that there’s a “Republican war on science.” But John Tierney, who’s written about science for The New York Times for 25 years and now writes for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, told me in my latest online video, “The real war on science is the one from the left.” Really? Conservatives are more likely to be creationists — denying evolution. “Right,” says Tierney. “But creationism doesn’t affect the way science is done.” More. If we are dealing in the present day (as opposed to a pretend past about how the human ability to raise the eyebrow leads to the human mind), creationism can indeed have no Read More ›

From astrophysicist Adam Becker at Aeon: Falsifiability doesn’t work as a blanket restriction in science for the simple reason that there are no genuinely falsifiable scientific theories. I can come up with a theory that makes a prediction that looks falsifiable, but when the data tell me it’s wrong, I can conjure some fresh ideas to plug the hole and save the theory. The history of science is full of examples of this ex post facto intellectual engineering. In 1781, William and Caroline Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. Physicists of the time promptly set about predicting its orbit using Sir Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation. But in the following decades, as astronomers followed Uranus’s motion in its slow 84-year Read More ›

From Mark Steyn: Google/YouTube and Facebook do not, of course, make laws, but their algorithms have more real-world impact than most legislation – and, having started out as more or less even-handed free-for-alls, they somehow thought it was a great idea to give the impression that they’re increasingly happy to assist the likes of Angela Merkel and Theresa May as arbiters of approved public discourse. Facebook, for example, recently adjusted its algorithm, and by that mere tweak deprived Breitbart of 90 per cent of its ad revenue. That’s their right, but it may not have been a prudent idea to reveal how easily they can do that to you. More. How will it affect Darwin vs design?