Tag Archives: science

Bisphenol A might make you fat

(This is another archival repost, written for the old blog in 2009.) If you’ll excuse my tabloid headline writer… A year ago, I wrote Lies, damn lies, and tissue culture, describing some of the reasons why caution and healthy skepticism … Continue reading

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Cotch: Science Is Vital!

On saturday, a couple of thousand nerds gathered outside the treasury to be noisy, and to argue the case that science is vital.  The scientists are getting their contribution in early ahead of the “comprehensive spending review” that is to … Continue reading

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The selfish gene drives an operon

This is another archival repost first written for the old blog in 2007. On Monday I mentioned John Maynard Smith’s videos at People’s Archive. They really are marvelous, and you should watch them all. One of the topics he discusses … Continue reading

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Lay Science: Suspending Disbelief

I was listening to an old episode of the SETI institute’s podcast Are We Alone, in which they talked to a CSICOP (or whatever it is they call themselves these days) investigator. He described how he approached claims of the … Continue reading

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In which a load is lifted

I think I’ve mentioned before that I keep a copy of Burkhardt’s Selected Letters of Charles Darwin handy in the smallest room (“for fun“). In this letter to Asa Gray in November 1857, a load is lifted from Chaz’s mind… … Continue reading

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Risk compensation, shared space and unstable evolutionary strategies

This post probably doesn’t quite work, but at At War With The Motorist I continue the thread on shared space by considering the mechanism by which it works: risk compensation — the idea that when traffic management is ripped out, … Continue reading

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Oceans on evolution: you’re doing it wrong

This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from December 2008. So, BBC TWO’s Oceans: marine ecology’s answer to Time Team. I get as excited by marine biology as the next nerd, and you don’t have … Continue reading

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Journalology: What is the scientific paper?

A year ago, the discussions at the Science Online conference inspired me to explore the question “what is the scientific paper?” — and specifically, what is wrong with the scientific paper and what its future might be.  In time for … Continue reading

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Did Darwin Kill God?

This is another archival repost from the old blog — this time from april 2009. I found on the iPlayer the latest in BBC2′s series of Darwin documentaries, Did Darwin Kill God? This is theologian Conor Cunningham’s attempt reconcile science … Continue reading

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Lay Science: The Selfish Genius

This was originally written a year ago on a now disused blog. I’m reposting it here because I enjoyed writing it so much that I wouldn’t want it to disappear. People love a good argument with Richard Dawkins. So many … Continue reading

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Church leader declares crackpot ideas, gets free air time

This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from March 2008. Wow, a slow news day, eh? The BBC, shunning predictable Chinese military aggression, another turn of the tides in Iraq, and yet more boring news … Continue reading

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Sir David was wrong

Another in the ongoing project to archive posts from an old blog – this one from february 2009. Not in the television programme — well, I don’t know, I haven’t seen it yet due to pesky tennis fans capturing the … Continue reading

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Journalology: Incentivising academic fraud

Over at Journalology I discuss the issue of academic fraud in China, again.  Academic fraud is an issue that few take seriously enough anywhere, and while China has a particularly big fraud problem, I worry that people allow that to … Continue reading

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Evelyn Fox Keller on genes, evolution, and epigenetics

This is another archival repost from the old blog, first published way back in March 2008. I’ve been following CBC’s How To Think About Science series, and caught the Evelyn Fox Keller episode the other day. It was interesting, but … Continue reading

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Help! Help! I’m being repressed

(This is another archival repost of something written on the old blog a few years ago.) I’ve been catching up with about a month of blogosphere this weekend, after travelling, and other distractions. I managed to catch a discarded copy … Continue reading

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