Category Archives: The scientific method

A defense of science?

Posted on October 27, 2018 by

Susan highlighted a New York Times article about Bruno Latour, that I had actually seen and had been considering writing about. I have written about Bruno Latour before and I’m still not sure what to make of this article. One … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Philosophy for Bloggers, Politics, Science, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 71 Comments

Why do we do research?

Posted on October 25, 2018 by

I thought I would briefly comment a little more about the claims made in John McLean’s thesis. Something to bear in mind is why we do research. Essentially, research is very simply about trying to understand something; to answer some … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Global warming, Research, The philosophy of science, The scientific method, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 42 Comments

John McLean, PhD?

Posted on October 20, 2018 by

A recent PhD thesis from James Cook University has been receiving a reasonable amount of attention on sites that either dispute anthropogenic global warming (AGW), or its significance (I won’t link to them, but you can probably find them if … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming, Pseudoscience, Satire, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , | 110 Comments

THE GWPF’s annual lecture

Posted on October 14, 2018 by

Since I had nothing better to do with my afternoon, I watched the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s (GWPF) Annual Lecture, given this year by Richard Lindzen. If you really want to watch it, you can find the link here, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Carbon tax, Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Global warming, Policy, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 175 Comments

Galactic electric currents vs nuclear fusion

Posted on October 3, 2018 by

In a Twitter discussion with Ned Nikolov, I discovered that some people believe that the Sun is powered by Galactic electric currents. I don’t even understand how this is meant to work, but that doesn’t really matter since it’s clearly … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 30 Comments

Some reflections

Posted on August 12, 2018 by

Since there are now 1000 posts on this blog, I thought I might write another with some reflections. We’re also about to go on holiday for a few days, the last before my daughter heads off to university, so there … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Climate change, ClimateBall, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 73 Comments

Research should inform, not influence

Posted on August 5, 2018 by

Thomas Basbøll, who I sometimes have discussions with on Twitter, has a guest post on the LSE impact blog claiming that we need our scientists to build models that frame our policies, not to tell stories that shape them. If … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Policy, Politics, Research, Scientists, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 339 Comments