Why so many scientists are so ignorant Sign Up for Our free email newsletters Science has enormous cachet and authority in our culture — for very understandable reasons! One recent example is Bill Nye, the "Science Guy," who isn't actually a scientist but owes his career as a popular entertainer to his purported scientific expertise. As Olivia Goldhill points out in Quartz, Nye's answer was as self-assured as it was stunningly ignorant. The video, which made the entire U.S. philosophy community collectively choke on its morning espresso, is hard to watch, because most of Nye's statements are wrong. Nye fell into the same trap that Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking have been caught up in. There's obviously a grain of truth in this. More to the point, and more practically, all of the institutions that make modern life possible, very much including experimental science, but also things like free-market capitalism, the welfare state, liberal democracy, human rights, and more, are built on philosophy.
Steven Pinker: 10 'grammar rules' it's OK to break (sometimes) Among the many challenges of writing is dealing with rules of correct usage: whether to worry about split infinitives, fused participles, and the meanings of words such as "fortuitous", "decimate" and "comprise". Supposedly a writer has to choose between two radically different approaches to these rules. Prescriptivists prescribe how language ought to be used. They uphold standards of excellence and a respect for the best of our civilisation, and are a bulwark against relativism, vulgar populism and the dumbing down of literate culture. It's a catchy dichotomy, but a false one. But this does not mean that every pet peeve, bit of grammatical folklore, or dimly remembered lesson from Miss Thistlebottom's classroom is worth keeping. How can you distinguish the legitimate concerns of a careful writer from the folklore and superstitions? A rule should be rejected, in contrast, if the answer to any of the following questions is "Yes." and, because, but, or, so, also dangling modifiers
The Ancient Roots of Punctuation In his new book, “Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks,” Keith Houston reveals the stories behind esoteric punctuation marks, from the pilcrow (¶) to the manicule (☞) to the octothorpe, a.k.a. the hashtag. Many of these have their roots in ancient Greece or Rome, and have evolved over time in Medieval religious texts, Renaissance scholarship, and modern printed works (not to mention the Internet). Here, Houston, who lives in Scotland and also runs a Shady Characters blog, tells the origin stories of some of these marks. Octothorpe (#) Left, from the pen of Isaac Newton; right, detail from Johann Conrad Barchusen’s “Pyrosophia” (1698). The story of the hashtag begins sometime around the fourteenth century, with the introduction of the Latin abbreviation “lb,” for the Roman term libra pondo, or “pound weight.” Pilcrow (¶) Excerpt from a page from Villanova University’s “Rudimenta Grammaticæ” (1500). Ampersand (&) Manicule (☞) Diple (>)
What Should We Call Self-Driving Cars? I’ve been writing about humanless carriages a lot recently. Okay, I know, “humanless carriages” is not an actual thing that people say. There are instead “driverless cars,” and “self-driving vehicles.” If driverless cars do eventually take over the roads, what will it do to the way we talk about driving? “A driver could come to mean the machine that drives just as a computer is a machine that computes,” Alexis Madrigal wrote for The Atlantic in 2014. It’s certainly less clunky than “autonomous,” or “self-driving,” and more precise than “driverless.” More than a century ago, there was a long debate over what motorcars should be called. This was, apparently, a matter that got people riled up. The goal was to find a term that was, the Times said, “at once significant, euphonious, and short.” “Of this wretched pair,” the Times groused, “it is hard to tell which is the more obnoxious. Here in the future, we face a similar etymological conundrum.
Lengua española y periodismo (II) Hay un hecho de gran relevancia que los periodistas latinoamericanos y españoles creo que deberíamos tener muy presente. Hay tres lenguas de impregnación universal en Occidente: inglés, por encima largamente de todos, francés, en relativa decadencia, y español, cada día más pujante, con sus 450 millones de hablantes en todo el mundo. Y, así, el periodista que pueda ganarse la vida con esa lengua parte de una plataforma, un trampolín, superior a lo que pueda exhibir no importa qué otro idioma, sin excluir grandes expresiones culturales como alemán, italiano o ruso, del ámbito europeo. Por eso me parece urgente que, sobre todo nosotros los periodistas, seamos conscientes de la necesidad de mantener una unidad viable de la lengua, aunque siempre respetuosa del genio particular de cada área reproductora del castellano. Y ¿cuál es el estado, la salud de una lengua tan múltiple? Yo diría que básicamente bueno, aunque siempre necesitado de alguna atención.
Future - The secret “anti-languages” you’re not supposed to know Could you erectify a luxurimole flackoblots? Have you hidden your chocolate cake from Penelope? Or maybe you’re just going to vada the bona omi? If you understand any of these sentences, you speak an English “anti-language”. Thieves’ Cant, Polari, and Gobbledygook (yes, it’s a real form of slang) are just a few of the examples from the past – but anti-languages are mercurial beasts that are forever evolving into new and more vibrant forms. A modern anti-language could very well be spoken on the street outside your house. One of the first detailed records of an anti-language comes from a 16th Century magistrate called Thomas Harman. Byng we to Rome vyle to nyp a bounge, so shall we have lower for the bowsing ken – Thieves’ Cant As Green points out, many slang words concern our basest preoccupations. Yet the Thieves’ Cant also includes some intricacies that are not found in the informal language you or I speak. A “prigger of prancers”
Why one woman stole 47 million academic papers — and made them all free to read Many academic journals are extremely expensive. Want to read just one article? That could cost you around $30. The best way to access academic papers is through universities or libraries. Alexandra Elbakyan has had enough. Elbakyan is a Russia-based neuroscientist turned academic Robin Hood. For students and researchers around the globe who can't afford academic journals, Elbakyan is a hero. Either way, what she's doing is most definitely illegal. Last year, leading journal publisher Elsevier took action against Sci-Hub, claiming it violated US copyright laws and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prohibits the fraudulent access of computer systems. This story is bigger than a single court ruling. If Sci-Hub wins, the age of academic paywalls may effectively be over. How Sci-Hub breaks the paywall Sci-hub Elbakyan's personal story is like many others. Elbakyan explained her predicament in a letter to the New York court that ruled against her: Is this legal? No. Harvard
10 Critical Skills You’ll Need to Succeed at Work in 2020 — Life Learning 10 Critical Skills You’ll Need to Succeed at Work in 2020 Which skills will be most in demand in the coming years? This infographic shows you how to set yourself up for success. Many factors and ingredients work together to create a recipe for success in work and in business. Perhaps, though, one of the most important ingredients to success is the ability to adapt as technology changes and new trends emerge in a fast-paced digital world. A new infographic shows that six key factors are driving the change were seeing right right now: extreme longevity, the rise of smart machines and systems, our computational world, new media ecology, superstructures organizations and the globally connected world. With all of these massive issues in play, what will the working landscape look like in five years? I’ll tell you one thing: they look nothing like the skills desired of workers in the industrial revolution, or even in the dot-com era. A design mindset is also going to be key.
Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger Scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced on Feb. 11 that they have detected gravitational waves, ushering in a new era in the way humans can observe the universe. (Reuters) Scientists announced Thursday that they have succeeded in detecting gravitational waves from the violent merging of two black holes in deep space. The detection was hailed as a triumph for a controversial, exquisitely crafted, billion-dollar physics experiment and as confirmation of a key prediction of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It will also inaugurate a new era of astronomy in which gravitational waves are tools for studying the most mysterious and exotic objects in the universe, scientists declared at a euphoric news briefing at the National Press Club in Washington. [A brief history of gravity, gravitational waves and LIGO] "Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves. “For me, this was really my dream. Power recycling optic 2.
A Cloud Atlas Provides Clues to Life on Earth After countless years of daydreamers being told otherwise, there’s now a good reason to keep your head in the clouds. Scientists combed through satellite photographs of cloud cover taken twice a day for 15 years from nearly every square kilometer of Earth to study the planet’s varied environments. By creating cloud atlases, the researchers were able to better predict the location of plants and animals on land with unprecedented spatial resolution, allowing them to study certain species, including those that are often in remote places. The results were published last week in PLOS Biology. Photo Clouds directly affect local climates, causing differences in soil moisture and available sunlight that drive photosynthesis and ecosystem productivity. The researchers demonstrated the potential for modeling species distribution by studying the Montane woodcreeper, a South American bird, and the King Protea, a South African shrub. Continue reading the main story
The Observers’ guide to verifying photos and videos on social media networks This image was mistakenly broadcast by one of France’s largest TV channels, France 2. The scene was described as having unfolded in Iran, back in December 2009. A cursory glance reveals a range of details that could allow us to verify its authenticity. Are Iranian police shields the same colour as in this image? Are Tehran’s pavements painted yellow? Is that really how young Iranians dress? The photo was actually taken in Honduras. Another example, far more recent, relates to the migrant crisis in Europe, a favourite theme for those who wish to mislead the European public. According to the caption posted to YouTube, the video depicts violence at the hands of migrants in Erfurt, a city in central Germany. Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Street View To really scrutinise a photo or a video, you have to get up close and personal. Time for a pop quiz! Here, no attempt has been made to mislead the viewer. Google Street View Who's the author ? Then, listen to the words.
The harsh truth about speed-reading For a long time, people have claimed to be able to read very quickly without any loss of comprehension—and many have claimed to teach this amazing skill. President Kennedy was one famous speed-reader, who could supposedly finish reading the New York Times in minutes; according to Time, he could read about 1,200 words a minute, or about three times the rate of a top college-level reader (he arrived at that number himself). More recently, “six-times World Speed Reading Champion” Anne Jones allegedly devoured J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 47 minutes, Dan Brown’s Inferno in just under 42 minutes, and Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in 25 minutes, 31 seconds. But do any of these records stand up to scrutiny? When I asked Jones if it would be fair to say she skimmed the books, she responded with a question herself: “I am not going to give you a quote about skimming. Another alleged “world’s fastest reader,” Fox News darling Howard Berg, makes even grander claims.