The New York Times has launched a series titled, Scam or Not? A recent article in that series examined the ketogenic diet. Likewise, Julia Belluz, the excellent science reporter for Vox.com, published her recent assessment of research on ketogenic diets. A fair summary of both pieces might be, “yes there…
The presumption of this post is that you are a well-educated person, but an amateur in the scientific field of interest. That would be me in the case of ancient DNA, and what it tells me about my ancestors narrowly, and human history generally. I’ll assume you have read David…
… now does that sound like a scam headline or what? All it needs is the obligatory, “using this one weird trick.” But I did not use any trick. I followed a procedure that required some discipline. And I may have benefited from a specific physiology consequent to my ethnicity.…
[Please read Part I of this post first] Part V: Newtonian science & low hanging fruit As science advanced over the 19th and early 20th century, adding triumph after triumph, the seeds of scientism were laid. Having advanced so far, and conquered so many fields, was there any line too far,…
[Please read Part I of this post first] Part IV: The disunity of science This next part sketches an account of the disunity of science, one which makes room for Popper, but one which creates other discomforts for philosophy of science, which has generally been committed to the unity of science,…
[Please read Part I of this post first] Part III: What now of Popper? Maybe, Popper was a philosophical dead end. Maybe, falsifiability was never central or important for demarcating science. Might falsifiability have been naught but its own bold conjecture, since superseded? For those who follow Popper, scientists should never…
[Please read Part I of this post first] Part II: The Science of Climate Change From this point, it becomes too vague to refer to “climate change.” There are several knowledge claims at issue, and the availability of evidence, and the caliber of this evidence, differs across claims. For instance, there’s…
In this election year, belief or disbelief in climate change has become a litmus test: take a position, and you reveal yourself to be either Democrat or Republican. In keeping with the polarization of these times, there is no middle ground, no possibility of being unsure, no viable agnostic position.…