Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was a highly influential essay in the Philosophy of Science. As it has turned out, not always in a good way. While Kuhn introduced such now-common terms as paradigm into the scientific lexicon, he also argued that science should be defined
David Wojick cfact.org David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. Watching a child grow is seeing carbon dioxide in action. Plants turn CO2 into the food we eat to live and grow on. “You can’t live on air”
If you have a great Youtube or Vimeo video to share send it to videos@thebfd.co.nz
Paula Koelemeijer Royal Holloway Stephen Hicks Imperial College London Seismic activity doesn’t just come from earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides. Everyday human activity also gives rise to vibrations that travel through the ground as seismic waves, something we call “anthropogenic noise”. When pandemic lockdown measures brought daily life to a
It’s become a well-worn cliche that we are all made of stardust. The realisation by cosmologists that every atom of heavier elements like carbon in the universe was transmuted in the core of stars has prompted as much romance as it has science. But it remains true, for
Early this year, B.C. (Before Covid), I was talking to a friend in his early thirties who had recently returned to university, studying science. He remarked that he had thought that all the talk of far-left orthodoxy on campus was an exaggeration. To his dismay, he found otherwise.
Press Release covidplanb.co.nz The Government has formally confirmed that it will not use any of the current or future serology tests to assess how widespread the Covid19 disease has been in New Zealand. In answer to an Official Information Request by the Covid Plan B group, the Director
Geoffrey Corfield Geoffrey Corfield has been active in Conservative politics in Canada since 1976, both federally and provincially. But he won’t always write about politics because he has more experience with writing history and humour. He lives in London, Ontario, frequents used book shops, swims lengths, drinks beer, plays
Simon Thornley Gerhard Sundborn covidplanb.co.nz With a smattering of new cases emerging from returnees in hotels prompting both sides of the house to double down on our tight quarantine the key question is coming into focus: where does our nation go from here? Sir Peter Gluckman, Rob Fyfe
Byram W. Bridle University of Guelph Shayan Sharif University of Guelph The average times of the fastest sprinters in the 100-metre dash are in the ballpark of 10 seconds. So, what would you think if someone promised to run the race in one second? It typically takes a minimum
Data visualisations – “graphs”, to the unitiated – have been an incredibly useful tool for cutting through the fog of bias and misunderstanding to get at the facts. One of the most famous early data visualisations was John Snow’s graph plotting every case in the infamous Broad Street cholera outbreak of
If you have a great Youtube or Vimeo video to share send it to videos@thebfd.co.nz
I grew up on science fiction stories like Robert Heinlein’s Rocketship Galileo, the story of a plucky band of tech-savvy entrepreneurs (teenagers, no less – plus one token adult, their physicist uncle) who build a pioneering moon-rocket. It’s stirring stuff, complete with Space Nazis (it was written
[Editors Note: This is an English translation of the original letter so some of the phrases are not quite right] The “science” of the Pandemic During this pandemic, the term “science” has been used “ad nauseam”, that is, has been repeated to exhaustion: “Science, science, science”, “I’m pro-science”
The once-esteemed Lancet has long taken a leftward-bent trajectory and that’s why, call me cynical if you like, before reading any editorial content published by the outfit I recommend a grain of salt at the ready. In the course of the last week-and-a-bit, that
