Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
It might sound silly to claim that evolution has stopped, but some that I’ve discussed this with at times have suggested it might be the case. The thinking is that natural selection no longer kicks in because we now step in with modern medicine and so those who would not have been previously naturally selected … Read more
Anybody who has been hanging out in the skeptic landscape knows about Chiropractors vs Simon Singh. For those that don’t here is a brief summary … Simon Singh, the UK based science writer wrote an article – “Beware the Spinal Trap” in which he was critical of the practice of chiropractors. Basically … bad back perhaps, but … Read more
The academic rebellion initiated by Cambridge mathematician Tim Gowers is growing in strength. First a bit of context. The Victorian model of academic publishing has become obsolete because of the Internet and so historical momentum is the only reason these publishers continue to own and profit from researchers’ copyrights, review work and editorial efforts. If … Read more
I’m in Ireland at the moment, and looking forward to a visit to the natural History museum today in Merrion Sq … as an aside, if you are here and free, then today is a special day in conjunction with the Dublin City of Science to highlight how the collections are used by scientists. … What We Do … Read more
There is some really encouraging news in the Guardian today concerning the highly annoying pay-walls that lock a lot of very interesting things away. In a pre-internet era it all made sense. Various publishers took responsibility for the printing and distribution of credible peer-reviewed journals. That obviously involved costs, so they charge, and of course … Read more
A very interesting paper is available from the Cornell University Library entitled “Gods as Topological Invariants“. The abstract reads … We show that the number of gods in a universe must equal the Euler characteristics of its underlying manifold. By incorporating the classical cosmological argument for creation, this result builds a bridge between theology and … Read more