The search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is a vastly complex endeavour. But it’s an empirical endeavour — it requires valid and reliable measurement and scanning methods, and an ability to objectively verify and triangulate all incoming data in order to draw logical conclusions about where to look next. […]
Is it me, or are sample sizes just getting smaller? I mean, last time round we had that scare story warning us that the art of parenting is being destroyed by smartphones — you know, the one based on observations of 40 adults in a fast food restaurant in Boston. Turns out that 40 […]
I’ve concluded that they’re right. Mobile phones DO addle the brain. They DO interfere with competent cognition. They DO cause people to become rambling, incoherent, and negligent thinkers, and to talk ever-more-ridiculous garbage. But their effects are quite subtle. They cause this result in some people simply by existing: all these folks […]
Here’s a classic science communication fiasco. Many of us believe empiricism enables the resolution of uncertainty with data, and that more information is better than less. That’s why we do science. One of the moral imperatives that drive us is that carefully scrutinized, systematically replicable, and objectively verifiable information trumps […]
Stephen Hawking encounters a stag-do in Cambridge: From The Telegraph: Chris Hallam, 29, and ten friends…turned a corner and bumped into Stephen Hawking getting out of his car. And they were stunned when the Brief History of Time author agreed to pose with them for a souvenir photo. Mr Hallam, […]
It’s akin to the Sokal hoax of our digital age, with a touch of Frankenstein in there too, and possibly some monkeys with typewriters. Two major publishers, Springer and IEEE, have identified over 120 papers that made it through their peer-review process but which were actually generated using a software package designed to […]
