Science

Iatrochemists: why iron salts cure anemia

A fun anecdote from the history of medicine. (Fun in hindsight, though not necessarily fun for those who lived through the medical history.) The late-medieval Iatrochemists believed that progress could be made by uniting medicine with alchemy. Their intellectual leader was Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician whose goal was to reform medical chemistry by rejecting

Iatrochemists: why iron salts cure anemia Read More »

Mortality headlines [humor alert]

How media report statistics according to their philosophy: Enlightenment headline: SCIENCE and CAPITALISM a great success. Jaded-feminist headline: The PATRIARCHY encouraging women to be BABY-MAKING MACHINES. Socialist-Marxist headline: Europeans gain by EXPLOITING poor women in the THIRD WORLD. Postmodern headline: NO news here — “HEALTH” and “PROGRESS” mere SUBJECTIVE narratives.

Mortality headlines [humor alert] Read More »

Excellent letter from Steven Pinker on politicizing science and *Science*

Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard. His letter is to a board member of the AAAS, which publishes Science, in response to a fundraising letter. Excerpts: My own experience as a scientific communicator confirms that there is enormous distrust of the scientific and academic establishments, because people believe these establishments have been captured

Excellent letter from Steven Pinker on politicizing science and *Science* Read More »

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [Atlas Intellectuals]

In this unit of the Objectivity course we feature Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he questions whether science is or can be an objective process based upon observational facts that makes progress toward truth. Thomas Kuhn was a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [Atlas Intellectuals] Read More »

On the fifth day, God created the fierce deep-sea lizard

I’d like to know what was in his mind at that moment. Bathysaurus ferox (literally meaning “fierce deep-sea lizard”) lives by “burying itself on the deep seafloor, 3,300 to 8,200 feet (1,000 to 2,500 m) below the water’s surface. When unsuspecting prey swims by, B. ferox darts out of the sediment and snatches up the meal in its formidable

On the fifth day, God created the fierce deep-sea lizard Read More »