Category Archives: The scientific method

Nature Scientific Reports

Posted on July 7, 2019 by

Correction – 07/07/2019: I’ve been informed that the journal title is actually Scientific Reports, not Nature Scientific Reports. I’ve edited the text, but not the title. Michael Brown made me aware of a new paper in Scientific Reports by Valentina … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Global warming, Pseudoscience, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 225 Comments

Kooninisms

Posted on June 18, 2019 by

Gavin Schmidt has a Realclimate post about a recent talk given by Steve Koonin. Somewhat bizarrely, Koonin has a response to Gavin’s post that he has posted on WUWT. Given that Koonin has no climate expertise, presumably he thinks that … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, physicists, Scientists, The scientific method, Watts Up With That | Tagged , , , , , , | 201 Comments

Extreme weather event attribution

Posted on June 11, 2019 by

This is a joint post between myself and Eric Winsberg, Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida. Eric has just published, together with Naomi Oreskes and Elisabeth Lloyd, a paper called Severe Weather Event Attribution: Why values won’t … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Climate change, Research, Science, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , | 182 Comments

If it seems obvious, it probably isn’t

Posted on May 13, 2019 by

There’s an interesting paper that someone (I forget who) highlighted on Twitter. It’a about when science becomes too easy. The basic idea is that there are pitfalls to popularising scientific information. Compared to experts, laypeople have not undergone any specialized … Continue reading →

Posted in Pseudoscience, Research, Science, Scientists, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 44 Comments

The debate has changed

Posted on May 4, 2019 by

I’ve been finding it quite difficult to think of things to post about. One reason is that I’ve been rather busy. Another, though, is that I think the debate has changed. It seems that there is more and more discussion … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, economics, Environmental change, Policy, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 117 Comments

Is STS trivial?

Posted on April 26, 2019 by

In a recent Making Science Public post, Chris Toumey asked is STS trivial? Since I’ve written about Science and Technology Studies (STS) on a number of occasions, I found it an interesting post and posed a question in the comments. … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Philosophy for Bloggers, physicists, Research, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 188 Comments

Post-normal science

Posted on April 7, 2019 by

I’ve been reading a paper by Daniel Sarewitz, that was being highlighted by Jane Flegal on Twitter. The paper is called Of Cold Mice and Isotopes Or Should We Do Less Science? There’s quite a lot that could be said … Continue reading →

Posted in Policy, Politics, Research, Science, Scientists, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 125 Comments