How To Think About Our Problems
To plan for problems ahead, such as droughts, was a better survival strategy than expecting an eternity of bountiful harvests.
Marian L. Tupy
· 6 min read
Science / Tech
A collection of 377 posts
Should We Colonize Mars? The Fate of Humanity May One Day Depend on It
Do we have the right to supplant Martian life with our own? Yes—because a human life has more value than that of a bacterium.
Owen Lewis
· 7 min read
Sex Differences in Cognition
There is also a wide range of literature regarding sex differences in interest, which is also complicated, and which may explain a larger portion of the sex discrepancy in STEM careers.
Christopher J. Ferguson
· 8 min read
The Many Faces of Scientific Fraud
Everyday fudging of experimental data in laboratories cannot exclusively be explained by researchers’ desire to get an intuited result in a better-than-perfect form, as was the case with Mendel, or to distinguish themselves through the accuracy of their measurements, as with Millikan.
Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis
· 12 min read
GM Crops Like Golden Rice Will Save the Lives of Hundreds of Thousands of Children
The International Rice Research Institute developed numerous different Golden Rice strains back-crossed into commonly grown varieties, behind tough security barriers because of constant threats from activists encouraged by Greenpeace.
Matt Ridley
· 11 min read
Andrew Yang—Technocratic Populist
Government and policy would be better off if they were presided over and/or dictated by technical experts.
Marshawn Brewer
· 12 min read
Science and Data: Notes on a Misconception
The theory that science is based on evidence derives from a philosophy known as empiricism.
Lucas Smalldon
· 7 min read
How Feminism Has Constrained Our Understanding of Gender
Feminist research into sex differences has typically concluded that the number of sex differences is small, and therefore unimportant, thus making the logical error that a small number of differences means those differences are inconsequential.
John Barry
· 7 min read
Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne
Careless in his facts, Coyne is also careless in his references.
Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski
· 14 min read
There is No ‘Gay Gene,’ but Sexuality is Affected by Many Genes of Small Effect
Day by day, as genetic science advances, it becomes ever clearer that all psychological traits are genetically influenced.
Jerry Barnett
· 4 min read
David Gelernter is Wrong About Ditching Darwin
The last lesson of Gelernter’s piece is that while we shouldn’t judge someone’s arguments by their credentials alone, neither should we give unwarranted credence to those who have impressive credentials, particularly when they pronounce on a field in which they lack expertise.
Jerry A. Coyne
· 11 min read
In Celebration of Errors
Shouting someone down for speaking a thought in public effectively ends the critical discussion. There can be no further exploration of why the idea at issue is wrong, or what kernel of truth there may be therein.
Logan Chipkin
· 6 min read
Abandon in Place: The Price of the First Steps to the Moon
I was a child in the 1960s, and I embraced Apollo as the adventure of all time
Craig Colgan
· 10 min read
Culture War Churn and the YouTube Rabbit-Hole
The YouTube-rabbit-hole phenomenon will undoubtedly continue to radicalize certain individuals. But give it time, let the churn machine keep churning.
Peter Clarke
· 7 min read
A Black Eye for the Columbia Journalism Review
Essays attacking the left- or right-wing bias of this or that media outlet are, of course, old hat in my business.
Jonathan Kay
· 8 min read