This is a re-post of one from late 2007. I was in at a local school last week, talking with their scholarship candidates, & we talked about a lot of this stuff. So I thought it would be worthwhile to post it again (at the top of the queue, so to speak!) so as to […]
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how not to design an experiment
On the Panda’s Thumb today I read a review of a very poor experimental set-up indeed. Apparently demonstrating that beneficial mutations (here, antibiotic resistance) lower the fitness of the organism possessing them, it actually does no such thing because of the multiple flaws in its design. But read the review – the reviewer (ERV) studies virology […]
Continue readingpossibilities for future research into evolution
A week or so back I posted comments by Massimo Pigliucci about future directions for evolution research. He was speaking in the context of an international workshop where these new ideas and directions were up for discussion. Well, that workshop’s over, material from it is available on-line (parts 1, 2, & 3), and the participants […]
Continue readingscience as a human endeavour
What follows is the text of a talk I gave to a teachers’ conference last weekend, on the ‘human side’ of science. In other words (lots of them!), it’s about the nature of science. Quite a long post (for me), but I hope you get something from it.
Continue readinghow evolutionary theory develops
I’ve just come across an excellent post by evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci, talking about how evolutionary theory has developed since the ‘modern synthesis’ was set out. (And of course, the modern synthesis was an advance on Darwin’s orginal theory of natural selection as the agent of descent with modification – science changes as it accommodates […]
Continue readingadvice to young scientists
OK, while I’m between conferences (was at AWIS, attending Scicon from tomorrow), here is the promised blog. It’s basically a series of notes I wrote while listening to one of the inspirational speakers at the AWIS conference, Jilly Evans – a New Zealander who now runs a biotech company in the US. Here’s what Jilly […]
Continue readingare internet polls worthwhile?
Over the weekend the Dominion ran an internet poll, accompanying this article. It posed the question: Should schools be allowed to teach ‘intelligent design? The two options given were a) yes, all theories should be taught, & b) no, it doesn’t belong in science class. (I might be a bit off in the wording, as the […]
Continue readingbeing clever isn’t something we should be frightened of
I’ve just watched TV One’s interview with Robert, Lord Winston, who was here to open the new Fertility Associates buildings, receive an honorary degree from Auckland University, & probably much else besides. And he had some important, provocative things to say about the state of science in New Zealand, and the country’s attitudes to science.
Continue readingthings to remember when writing an essay
I’m marking exams at the moment & this has made me think I should revisit an earlier item on writing an extended (essay-type) answer to a question.
Continue readingthe thylacine – back from the dead?
Not quite (although that's implied in some of the rather breathless reporting of an extraordinary paper that was published on-line this month). Nevertheless, the real story describes a striking achievement: the cloning of DNA from the extinct thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger.
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