The 'religious' function of science
We often understand science primarily in terms of its tangible successes, looking to it for advances in medicine, for the foundations of technologies, and for the tools with which to predict and manag…
scientism
23 posts
There's a scientistic eclipse
There is a solar eclipse today and news websites are as usual participating in amplifying nonsense. It's prima facie not nonsense in and of itself but because it's not qualified as astrologica…
Science shouldn’t animate the need for social welfare
This is an interesting discovery: First, it’s also a bad discovery (note: there’s a difference between right/wrong and good/bad). It is useful to found specific interventions on scientific findings…
On science, religion, Brahmins and a book
I'm partway through Renny Thomas's new book, Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment. Its description on the Routledge page reads: This book provides an in-depth ethnographic stu…
The omicron variant and scicomm
Somewhere between the middle of India’s second major COVID-19 outbreak in March-May this year and today, a lot of us appear to have lost sight of a fact that was central to our understanding of COVID-…
'Science people'
Two of the most annoying kinds of 'science people' I've come across on social media of late: * Those who perform rationalism – These people seem to know a small subset of things well and…
Pandemic: Science > politics?
By Mukunth and Madhusudhan Raman Former Union health secretary K. Sujatha Rao had a great piece in The Indian Express on January 14, whose takeaway she summarised in the following line: Science, evi…
A Q&A about my job and science journalism
A couple weeks ago, some students from a university in South India got in touch to ask a few questions about my job and about science communication. The correspondence was entirely over email, and I&#…
Trump, science denial and violence
For a few days last week, before the mail-in votes had been counted in the US, the contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump seemed set for a nail-biting finish. In this time a lot of people expresse…
The ignoble president and the Nobel Prize
What is the collective noun for a group of Nobel laureates? I'm considering ballast. A ballast of Nobel laureates is appealing because these people, especially if they are all white and male, ofte…
Nitin Gadkari, tomato chutney and blood
There is a famous comedy scene in Tamil cinema, starring the actors Vadivelu and 'Bonda' Mani. Those who understand Tamil should skip this awkward retelling – intended for non-Tamil speakers,…
The virus beyond biology
https://twitter.com/harari_yuval/status/1246784570244071424 A perfectly agreeable suggestion on first glance, especially since it provides an opportunity for a quick rebuke when faced with such consp…