In a recent social media interaction, a member of Mastodon challenged my observation that: “The fact a large part of society has been convinced to abandon science with devastating effects is going to be what the early 21st century is known for.” In an interesting thread of replies, the responder made many observations that seemed Read More
Good problem solvers recognize three realities:
Science is a valuable endeavor for humans. It is through these efforts to understand how nature works that we fulfil our curiosity, contemplate our place in the universe, improve the health of humans, and otherwise affect our environments. Of course, when scientific discoveries are used to create technological “solutions,” things get far more complicated. In Read More
Cleaning out a folder with old files, I discovered a proposal for an alternative to the traditional science project in which students all investigate a different question. I believed (10 years ago, and I still do) that it would be interesting and instructional to have all students devise their own methods for doing the investigation.
Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976) was a botanist and plant scientist who lived in worked in the Soviet Union. He was the director of the Institute of Genetics which was part of the Academy of Sciences within the USSR. In that position, he was able to exert political influence and he used that influence to promote a Read More
Historians of science speculate widely on the reasons why Charles Darwin waited so long to publish On the Origins of Species. (For those not familiar with the story, Darwin had conceived the theory of natural selection in the years after his voyage on the HMS Beagle ended in 1836, but he did not publish until Read More