A collection of 339 posts
The hepatitis B vaccine episode is a preview of what happens when scientific institutions are corrupted by people who reject the scientific method itself.
How AI training produces evasion over engagement.
Amid all the overexcitement about artificial intelligence, there is little room for public consideration of mind-blowing findings on natural intelligence.
The hyperbole surrounding AGI misrepresents the capabilities of current AI systems and distracts attention from the real threats that these systems are creating.
In anticipation of the ‘new results’ RFK Jr. has promised about the causes of autism, an overview of what science has already learned.
The disillusion produced by GPT-5 is not a technical hiccup, it’s a philosophical wake-up call.
The Constance Holden Memorial Address, 2025.
A reply to Lawrence Krauss.
‘The Technological Republic’ is a searching indictment of a culture that has lost sight of its metaphysical horizons and now seeks an escape from history.
Sir Simon Baron-Cohen: “When you systemise, you try to analyse the rules, the events that happen with some regularity, and causal relationships, so you can identify predictable patterns.”
This is a story of some of the greatest findings in modern research, and of the dismal narrow-mindedness and motivated reasoning displayed by scholars who ought to know better.
Of the six chemical elements necessary for life, phosphorus is the rarest. It determines what grows and shrinks, who lives and dies. By disrupting the planet’s phosphate cycle, unchecked factory farming could have apocalyptic consequences.
Political scientists have always extolled the ideal of the informed voter, but information has become a cacophony.
Why do so many people reflexively favour social solutions to climate change while discounting the promise of technological breakthroughs? The answer lies in our evolutionary past.
Assuring the long-term future of Earth’s wildlife requires more economic and technological development, not less.