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Science and the Media: Upside-Down Pyramid Thinking
This is the second post to appear in our new section called “quick thoughts.” The aim of this section is to raise an issue for comment in more detail than the weekly roundup does, but in a more...
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Big pharma, at home and outsourced
When I was in college, a friend told me something that sounded too good to be true: I could get paid forty dollars for a blood test. And if I didn’t have a history of a certain symptom, they would pay...
View ArticleRebooting The Bubble Chamber
Three things happened. First, Steve Fuller came to our department. In a casual lunchtime talk, he argued that science studies—meaning not history and philosophy of science—has succeeded by giving...
View ArticleShermer, Isopp, and the ‘Liberal War on Science’
Last week Bernhard Isopp dissected science writer, noted “skeptic”, and purported science historian Michael Shermer‘s claim that there is a “liberal war on science“. Shermer’s article is so simplistic...
View ArticleCan you predict the weather?
All of my friends raise an eyebrow when they hear that I’m a member of a competitive weather forecasting team. What is a weather forecasting team? And what possible qualifications could I have as a...
View ArticleSnowquester – A perfect storm for HPS/STS
If you were following the weather recently, you know about the Snowquester. What happened was that there was very little snow in Washington DC, and lots of snow in Boston and the Northeast. While this...
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Com’on…it wasn’t that bad: Winter 2014
How cold, nasty, and intolerable was the winter of 2014? I woke up this morning to a dusting of whiteness out my window: there was snow in April Fool’s Day storm 1997 over northeast USA. Toronto. I...
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Infographic: Americans use more energy in 2013 than in 2012
The bad news is that Americans used more energy in 2013 than in 2012. Unchanged is the fact that US energy efficiency is still terrible. The good news is that 2013 saw more renewable energy produced!...
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Do sports perpetuate or help fight discrimination?
I look at an article from sports sociology that suggests descriptions of athletes might perpetuate inaccurate stereotypes. Like many other people, I was shocked to hear the alleged tape recording of...
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Is it 99.999% certain that humans are driving global warming? (No.)
A post recently came up in my Facebook feed that is notable for the confluence of three things: (1) a spectacular claim, (2) it’s wrong, and (3) it’s not a journalist’s fault. The combination of (1)...
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