two magesteria In the courtroom
Three years before he died, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, one of my favorite popularizers of science, published a book called Rocks of Ages: Science and …
Ethics
what do we mean by “how much oil is left” in the gulf?
If Shakespeare were alive today, he might suggest that PR/branding/marketing people should go before lawyers. The spin doctor’s job is to make their company look good – even when it shouldn’t. The existence of spin doctors is reason number one why we must fix our badly broken education system. If science teaches one thing, it is skepticism: People shouldn’t be so anxious to be told what to think.
growing pains
A few months after I started Cocktail Party Physics in 2006, I was asked to join the then-relatively-new SEED Science Blogs. It was tremendously flattering …
when science narratives go bad
So, the Spousal Unit and I clicked on the Science Channel last week for a bit of Monday evening viewing to unwind after a long …
climate change and scientific behavior
I don't know about other scientists, but I've been thinking twice before hitting 'send' on my emails lately. The last thing I want is to …
measles, mumps, rubella—or autism
Yes, that's a deliberately provocative headline. I chose it because that's what the media would like you to think your choices are. You can vaccinate …
REPOST: exquisite corpses
[Cocktail Party Physics is on hiatus until October 9 due to a slight case of marriage. In the meantime, we're resurrecting some older posts for …
physicists behaving badly
Imagine the following scenario: a promising young physics graduate student discovers a novel solution to an important problem posed by his advisor. (Still smarting from …
postmodern prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus incurred the wrath of the Olympian gods by giving the secret of fire to men. As punishment, Zeus condemned him to …
silly science songs
Former Bell Labs physicist Jan Hendrik Schoen was a bit of a wunderkind back in 2001, hailed by some as a modern-day alchemist because he’d …