Related papers: The Science Wars: a pox on both their houses
In this little non-technical piece, I argue that some of the lessons that can be learnt from the bold action carried out in 1996 by the physicist Alan Sokal and typically known as the "Sokal affair" not only apply to some sector of the…
This article aims to show the weakness of the current scientific assessments, based on a set of contradictory pseudo-axioms. The six pseudo-axioms are deeply analysed. From the analysis are derived several conclusions. In spite of the…
Though the majority of physicists would probably not support preemptive wars, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction would not exist without their contributions. Einstein's anti-militaristic position has been well-documented and the…
Some scientists take themselves and their work very seriously. However, there are plenty of cases of humour being combined with science. Here I review some examples from the broad fields of physics and astronomy, particularly focusing on…
In this essay, I argue that the idea that there is a most fundamental discipline, or level of reality, is mistaken. My argument is a result of my experiences with the "science wars", a debate that raged between scientists and sociologists…
Some attack scientific rationality, others defend it, but both miss the point. What both parties take to be scientific rationality is actually a species of irrationality masquerading as scientific rationality. The current orthodox…
The hostility between the two cultures, scientific and literary, was framed by C.P. Snow in 1959 and later by others. The scientific culture is nowadays often identified with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) whereas…
Research in foundations of physics is stagnant, as claimed by many scientists during the last years. I suggest that one reason might be the reification of language, particularly of mathematics, which favour the search for answers to wrong…
During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific knowledge evolved rapidly, accompanied by a surge of misinformation, labelled an infodemic by the WHO. In this context, we study the interaction between science and misinformation on Twitter (now X)…
Collective and individual action necessary to address climate change hinges on the public's understanding of the relevant scientific findings. In this study, we examine the use of scientific sources in the course of 14 years of public…
In a commentary published in mid-2024 (to which the present work is a direct response), a number of scientists argue that U.S. funding agencies have "politicized" the process by which grants are awarded, in service of diversifying the…
The debate between scientific realism and anti-realism remains at a stalemate, making reconciliation seem hopeless. Yet, important work remains: exploring a common ground, even if only to uncover deeper points of disagreement and, ideally,…
The war on Ukraine has affected significantly scientific cooperation and communication in particle physics and also in many other fields of scientific, cultural and educational exchange. Immediately after the war in February 2022, many…
In Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the critical term is paradigm-shift when it suddenly becomes evident that earlier assumptions no longer are correct and the plurality of the scientific community that studies this domain…
In this article, I trace the early historical developments that ultimately led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Even after the completion of weapons, many scientists continued to argue that nuclear armaments were indispensable for…
While sanctions in political and economic areas are now part of the standard repertoire of Western countries (not always endorsed by UN mandates), sanctions in science and culture in general are new. Historically, fundamental research as…
As the COVID19 pandemic has spread across the world, a concurrent pandemic of information has spread with it. Deemed an infodemic by the World Health Organization, and described as an overabundance of information, some accurate, some not,…
An attempt to redefine science in the 21st century (BK Jennings, On the Nature of Science, Physics in Canada, 63(7) 2007) has abandoned traditional notions of natural law and objective reality, blurred the distinctions between natural…
Since 2016, the term "misinformation" has become associated with a scientific paradigm that studies, at its core, people making, reading, and sharing false statements, usually on social media, and often warning of the harm to society…
The end (for human scientists) is nigh? The posit of this discourse is that the majority, if not all, scientific research will eventually be undertaken by one, or a number of, weak artificial intelligences.