I mentioned my reading list in the last post – so this time round I'll let you in on what excites me about one of the books I'm reading at the moment. (I tend to have several on the go at once, so I can dip into whatever matches with what I'm thinking about at […]
Continue readingTag: nature of science
back to the oxygen pseudoscience
Time, I think, to return to that pseudoscience on oxygen that I introduced to you a while ago. Have you worked out what it was promoting?
Continue readingdeifying Darwin? I think not
Yesterday one of the students in our 'Evolution' paper commented that those of us teaching the course were 'deifying' Darwin, which he felt was not a good thing. And if we were, it wouldn't be. To deify someone (or something) means to set them up as a god and worship them. And I can't think of […]
Continue readingthe nature of science (again)
The new Science curriculum has the 'nature of science' right up there at the top. And why? Because it's so important for people to learn, not just science facts and concepts, but also about what science is: how it's done, the tools and methods scientists use, how they communicate, its history, & how science is […]
Continue readingcell phones & male fertility
Orac's just blogged on a new study that seems to show that heavy cellphone use contributes to male infertility. No doubt this will be all over the headlines in a day or so – so I thought I'd get in first & give you some practice in critical thinking while I'm at it.
Continue readinga quote to think about
I think it was Thomas Edison who said, Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. In other words, success (in any field) requires a lot of hard work. (True also of preparing for Scholarship exams.) Now here's another science-relevant quote…
Continue readingan overview of how we see ourselves
Here's something for your reading list: an excellent extended essay on how our view of human evolution, & of our place in the world, has changed over time. Enjoy!
Continue readingfact & theory
A couple of science concepts that people often seem to have difficulty with are fact and theory: what the terms mean, and how we distinguish between them. One of my scientific heroes, the late Stephen Jay Gould, covered this very well in a 1981 essay. I've just been re-reading it & thought I'd post the […]
Continue readingthink carefully about what you read
A headline in a recent edition of the New Zealand Herald caught my eye: "Revealed: a dino's bugbear". The article kicks off: Biting insects might have killed off the dinosaurs, rather than a cataclysmic meteor impact, a new theory claims. Scientists now say disease spread by ancient mosquitoes, mites and ticks was probably the major […]
Continue readingcreationist argument #2
Another argument says that evolution cannot possibly be tested, and what possible utilisation can there be? Well, OK, that's two for the price of one.
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