If you’re in the habit of reading science blogs, you’ve probably already seen Mark Trodden’s article on the science of coffee, including a chemical analysis of the contents of espresso. You might be asking “Is there nothing these science types won’t analyze?” Apparently not, as Dylan Stiles demonstrates. Now there is somebody who needs to… Continue reading Get Out of the Lab
Category: Science
Does This Happen to Anybody Else?
Quantum Pontiff Dave Bacon preaches the Word: One thing that bugs the heck out of me, is when I hear particle physicists talk about their field as if it is all of physics. I have a great love of particle physics, so I’m not dissing the field at all, nor arguing that it isn’t more… Continue reading Does This Happen to Anybody Else?
Science Is Not a Path to Riches
There have been a number of responses to my Science Is Hard post over the last several days, and I’ve been trying to come up with something to say about them. This is the second of two posts responding to comments by some of my fellow ScienceBloggers. Turning to Steinn’s first post on the subject,… Continue reading Science Is Not a Path to Riches
Science Is Tedious
There have been a number of responses to my Science Is Hard post over the last several days, and I’ve been trying to come up with something to say about them. In particular, Steinn points out that science is easier than digging ditches, while in comments, “revere” of Effect Measure says that science is tedious,… Continue reading Science Is Tedious
Science Is Hard
Jonah Lehrer at the Frontal Cortex asks an interesting question: Why is science so much work? But I’m curious why science takes so long. I know this is an incredibly naive question, but why do post-docs have to work so hard? What is it about the scientific process that forces the average researcher to come… Continue reading Science Is Hard
Why They’re Leaving
Inside Higher Ed had a piece yesterday about leaks in the science pipeline— that is, reasons why so few students end up majoring in science, math, or engineering these days. The hook for the article is some Congressional hearings on the subject, but the author lists some possible explanations related to the structure of academia… Continue reading Why They’re Leaving
Useless Book Review
The New York Times offers a review of several books on science and religion today, including a new screed by Dawkins, Daniel Dennett’s book from a little while back, and several books attempting to find common ground between science and religion, by Francis Collins, Owen Gingerish, Joan Roughgarden, and E. O. Wilson. This is probably… Continue reading Useless Book Review
Classic Edition: Do the Pigeon Dance
As promised in the previous post, some thoughts on superstition in science. This was originally posted in October 2004, and astute readers may note that my opening comments about sports went horribly awry not long after. I take this as proof of my point: talking about these things only screws them up.
Different Kinds of Common Sense
One of the drawbacks of having the sort of day job that I do is that it’s hard to blog about interesting things in a timely manner. For example, Janet’s post on improving communication between scientists and non-scientists is a week old, now. That’s positively neolithic in blog terms. It’s well worth a look, though,… Continue reading Different Kinds of Common Sense
Nuclear Power and Security
Scientific Curmudgeon John Horgan reads calls for more nuclear power and offers a slightly different objection to nuclear power than most people: Five years ago, I might have considered climbing aboard this bandwagon, even though Indian Point has an imperfect safety record, but not any more. In fact, I want to whack the neo-nukers and… Continue reading Nuclear Power and Security