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'Dumbing down' is a very different kind of threat to scientific sensibility. The 'Public Understanding of Science' movement, provoked in America by the Soviet Union's triumphant entry into the space race and driven today, at least in Britain, by public alarm over a decline in applications for science places at…
A common feature in systems of magic is animism — attributing to inanimate objects the functions of life, assuming things to possess will, purpose, and power. It is significant (though quite in keeping) that "Economists" and "Financiers" have this characteristic at- titude of mind towards, and employ animistic forms…
Bill Nye the Science Guy Show: "Rules" Objective: Change the world. Produce a TV show that gets kids and adults excited about science, so that the United States will again be the world leader in technology, innovation, and sound management of the environment. For example, when our audience is of age, we'd like them to…
The determining cause of most wars in the past has been, and probably will be of all wars in the future, the uncertainty of the result; war is acknowledged to be a challenge to the Unknown, it is often spoken of as an appeal to the God of Battles. The province of science is to foretell; this is true of every…
Let me give you two examples of leaping to conclusions without the full facts. Back in the 1890’s, a certain California newspaper was apprehensive about the harmful effects the railroads would have on the environment. If the trains crossed the Mojave to get to the Pacific, this newspaper editorialized, “the huge iron…
And yet there's so much in real science that's equally exciting, more mysterious, a greater intellectual challenge - as well as being a lot closer to the truth. Did he know about the molecular building blocks of life sitting out there in the cold, tenuous gas between the stars? Had he heard of the footprints of our…
Intellectual quackery extends throughout the landscape of academia; tenured professors in the humanities and social sciences, on the right and left, are constantly purveying theories that are the philosophical, literary, and artistic equivalents of junk science. That many of the researchers consider themselves…