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Tag: history and philosophy of science

Science, Eugenics, and Twitter

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Picture of a flat-faced dog (a pug) sitting gracelessly and panting

[Picture of a flat-faced dog (a pug) sitting gracelessly and panting]

On Saturday, February 16th, biologist and noted public intellectual Richard Dawkins tweeted about eugenics. Dawkins provided no context. No ongoing dispute he was inserting himself into. No obvious interlocutor. And certainly not anything as convenient as a few previous tweets to set the stage for this surprising announcement.  As someone interested in science communication, genetics, and ethics, I find it worth exploring how he screwed up, how he didn’t screw up, and what any of this means for science…

Strength in Numbers? The Meaning of Scientific Consensus

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t is an Avengers Endgame Portals meme. The top lines states “An unverified claim”, below that it states “The scientific community:” and then shows a picture of hordes of soldiers coming out of portals.

“Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”… Read more »

Dispatches from the statistics wars

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We recently took a guided tour of statistical significance, in which we focused on how the media often fails to correctly interpret statistical information. But, journalists are not the only group that is tripped up by statistics. The scientific community itself has been engaged in deep debate about the proper use of statistical methodology. These debates… Read more »

Graduating ScIU Writers 2019

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Our blog would be nothing without our writers. Unfortunately they can’t stay here forever; they must go on to their next great adventures in life. So we wanted to take a moment to recognize a few of our authors who have recently left or are preparing to leave soon. We wish you all the very… Read more »

Can science be value-free? The “gap” argument

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This graphic has the structure of two circles connected by a bridge. The right circle has a line graph and is labeled "data,", which is conntect by a bridge labeled "evidence" with background knoweldge, to the left circle labeled "hypothesis" with a lightbulb inside.

If scientists are in the business of facts, is there still space for human values?  Like many other scientists-in-training, I used to think of the sciences as ideally free from societal values, such as environmentalism and feminism.  Sure, our ethical or political biases might guide what scientists study or how others use that knowledge.  But,… Read more »

What are scientific facts?

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This post is from ScIU’s archives. It was originally published by Chris ChoGlueck in October 2017 and has been lightly edited to reflect current events. Whether it’s the “alternative facts” from politicians or the “fake news” from the media, facts are at the fore. While they can’t agree on much else, politicians, pundits, and the… Read more »

What are scientific facts?

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Whether it’s the “alternative facts” from politicians or the “fake news” from the media, facts are at the fore. While they can’t agree on much else, politicians, pundits, and the public do agree (mostly) about facts: facts are separate from fictions, they are reliable and authoritative, and, most importantly, they have something to do with… Read more »

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