Saints & Sinners: A Dialogue on the Hardest Topic in Science We harbor no illusions that a single article will alter anyone’s mindset on the issue of race differences in a deeply appreciable manner. Michael Rocque and Brian Boutwell 17 Jan 2017 · 14 min read
Not My Rights Movement If this rate of letter propagation continues, we’ll soon have an acronym that spans several lines and will be worth well over two thousand points in Scrabble. Fred Litwin 17 Dec 2016 · 15 min read
Science as Art All of this discussion leaves unanswered the question of how we decide if something represents a breakthrough — after all, there isn’t an international court of arbitration for creativity. Adam Perkins 18 Nov 2016 · 9 min read
Elite Opinion vs the Wisdom of Crowds: The Intelligentsia’s Tendency to Get Things Wrong The anti-democratic attitude of the liberal elite is absurd from a theoretical viewpoint because a democratic judgment represents the will of the majority... Adam Perkins 9 Oct 2016 · 9 min read
Risky Business: Public Health and the Culture of Crisis The goal of public health is ostensibly primary prevention: this means a focus on anticipating, (rather than treating), disease, disorder, and injury. Jaime Anne Earnest 14 Sep 2016 · 8 min read
When Bad Ideas Refuse to Die: the Denial of Human Individuality The situationist idea that personality is an illusion is an arresting one, but it is false. Luke Smillie and Nick Haslam 26 Jul 2016 · 4 min read
On the Reality of Race and the Abhorrence of Racism To our knowledge, we have yet to see a similar example applied specifically to race. Bo Winegard / Brian Boutwell 23 Jun 2016 · 10 min read
Giving Genes Their Due, But Not More To go from noticing that genetic differences were making a difference to knowing which genetic differences were making a difference, geneticists had to move from the classical twin methods to the modern “molecular” methods. Erik Parens 21 May 2016 · 16 min read
Evolutionary Conflict and the Family We should start at the beginning, which is to say, conception. That magical moment when sperm meets egg holds an important insight. Brian Boutwell 11 Apr 2016 · 10 min read
The Bermuda Triangle of Science Quantitative genetic work on human behavior has also had its time in the spotlight as arguably the most controversial subject in science. Brian Boutwell 10 Mar 2016 · 9 min read
What Does Science Tell Us About the So-Called Ferguson Effect? A substantial segment of the American public is questioning the legitimacy of police actions, including the use of force. This attention is a Ferguson effect in itself. Scott E Wolfe Scott H Decker and David C Pyrooz 1 Mar 2016 · 9 min read
Taking the Wonder Out of Science Education A couple of years ago, the London Science Museum produced its own travelling act for children called “The Energy Show”. Emma C Williams 20 Feb 2016 · 7 min read
The Unbearable Asymmetry of Bullshit There will always be things that we haven’t figured out yet, and even some that we get wrong.” But science is not just about conclusions, he argues, which are occasionally (or even frequently) incorrect. Brian D Earp 15 Feb 2016 · 8 min read
Good News on Rain Forests: They Bounce Back Strong This was the vision of tropical deforestation held in the popular imagination for many years, but the reality is more complex – and more hopeful. Susan Letcher 13 Feb 2016 · 6 min read
Alice in Blunder Land “Begin at the beginning,’ the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” Robert King 28 Jan 2016 · 9 min read
