CiteULike: Tag science

Q & A

Alexander Varshavsky — 2007-06-05T04:13:20-00:00

Current Biology, Vol. 13, No. 13. (1 July 2003), pp. R501-R502.

Alexander Varshavsky is Smits Professor of Cell Biology at the California Institute of Technology. He moved to Caltech in 1992, after 15 years at the MIT's Department of Biology. He was born and educated in Russia, and was 30 at the time of his emigration to the U.S. in 1977. In Russia, and for a while at MIT, he studied the structure and replication of chromosomes. Over the last 24 years, the work of his laboratory focused on the ubiquitin system and closely related fields. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and has received the Gairdner Award, the Lasker Award, the General Motors Sloan Prize, the Wolf Prize, the Horwitz Prize, and the Wilson Medal.

Integrating scientific cultures

Trey Ideker — 2007-04-17T16:32:57-00:00

Mol Syst Biol, Vol. 3 (17 April 2007)

Nature's guide for mentors

Adrian Lee — 2007-06-14T00:58:54-00:00

Nature, Vol. 447, No. 7146. (14 June 2007), pp. 791-797.

Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films

KS Novoselov — 2007-07-27T21:44:51-00:00

Science, Vol. 306, No. 5696. (22 October 2004), pp. 666-669.

We describe monocrystalline graphitic films, which are a few atoms thick but are nonetheless stable under ambient conditions, metallic, and of remarkably high quality. The films are found to be a two-dimensional semimetal with a tiny overlap between valence and conductance bands, and they exhibit a strong ambipolar electric field effect such that electrons and holes in concentrations up to 1013 per square centimeter and with room-temperature mobilities of [~]10,000 square centimeters per volt-second can be induced by applying gate voltage. 10.1126/science.1102896

Integrating palliative care for liver transplant candidates: "Too well for transplant, too sick for life"

Anne Larson — 2008-04-13T02:52:10-00:00

JAMA, Vol. 295, No. 18. (10 May 2006), pp. 2168-2176.

Chronic liver disease results in more than 1 million physician visits and more than 300,000 hospitalizations per year in the United States. More than 27,000 patients annually progress to end-stage liver disease (ESLD), liver failure, or death. Patients with ESLD experience such complications as encephalopathy, malnutrition, muscle wasting, ascites, esophagogastric variceal hemorrhage, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, fatigue, and depression. Despite significant improvements in palliation, patients' quality of life diminishes and their disease will often inexorably progress. Liver transplantation, a valid treatment option, increases life and reduces many symptoms. With the current shortage of organs, up to 10% to 15% of these patients die without receiving an organ. Many patients also are not candidates for transplantation due to comorbid illness. In addition, some patients receive a transplant but succumb to complications of the transplant itself. Such patients and families face the conundrum of a potentially treatable yet often fatal illness. Through the case of a 55-year-old woman with a life-long history of hepatitis B virus infection who is awaiting transplant, we discuss the transplant eligibility process and the struggle with maintaining hope for a cure in the face a life-threatening illness. In all of these circumstances, the health care team must combine elements of palliative care with life-sustaining therapy to maximize the patient's quality and quantity of life.

Sudden traumatic death in children: "We did everything, but your child didn't survive"

Robert Truog — 2008-04-13T02:42:02-00:00

JAMA, Vol. 295, No. 22. (14 June 2006), pp. 2646-2654.

When caring for children who become suddenly and catastrophically ill, clinicians must simultaneously attend to a complex and rapidly evolving medical situation, as well as to the equally challenging demands of establishing compassionate relationships with family members and communicating well with colleagues. An 18-month-old toddler was brought to the hospital with severe head injury after being struck by a car. Over a period of hours, her condition evolved from prognostic uncertainty to the diagnosis of brain death and considerations of organ donation. Against this medical backdrop, the clinicians successfully established a trusting relationship with family members by careful attention to their emotional, informational, and care needs as they absorbed the devastating prognosis, took in the results of the brain death examination, and considered the option of organ donation. This case illustrates the importance of interdisciplinary communication, the vital role of social workers and other psychosocial providers with expertise in working with families, and the critical significance of mutual care and support for the clinicians who accompany families through these tragic life events.

Village Elders' and Secondary School Students' Explanations of Natural Phenomena in Papua New Guinea

Soikava Pauka — 2005-07-26T17:01:23-00:00

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, Vol. 3, No. 2. (June 2005), pp. 213-238.

Art and Artifact of Children's Designing: A Situated Cognition Perspective

Wolff-Michael Roth — 2005-11-02T12:33:26-00:00

The purpose of this study was to investigate knowing and learning in an engineering design environment within an elementary classroom. Based on extensive ethnographic observation, video recordings, interviews with participants and observers, and children's design artifacts and engineering logbooks, fourth- and fifth-grade students' designing activities were interpreted from the perspective of situated cognition. The results show that children's designing was related to the artifacts, tools, materials, teacher-set constraints, and current trends in the setting. However, these elements cannot be taken as having some absolute ontology but are interpretively flexible. In the course of the engineering unit, the fourth- and fifth-grade students learned to exploit this interpretive flexibility to frame and solve problems. The emerging artifacts had at least two important functions: They were resources that structured the design process by both opening up possibilities and providing constraints, and they served to coordinate discursive and practical actions. The findings have important implications for affordances and constraints of learning environments in which designing is both a goal and a vehicle of instruction and for the evaluation of students' activities in such settings.

The Cognitive Basis of Science

2006-01-28T16:42:53-00:00

(02 May 2002)

What makes science possible? Specifically, what features of the human mind, of human cognitive development, and of human social arrangements permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and lay persons as well as in professional scientists. What makes science possible? Specifically, what features of the human mind, of human cognitive development, and of human social arrangements permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and lay persons as well as in professional scientists.

What the Social Brain Sciences Can Tell Us About the Self

Todd Heatherton — 2006-02-18T22:12:12-00:00

Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 13, No. 5. (2004), pp. 190-193.

Abstract- Social brain science is an emerging interdisciplinary field that encompasses researchers who use the approaches of evolutionary psychology, social cognition, and especially neuroscience to study human social nature. The advent of brain imaging and other cognitive neuroscience methods has provided researchers with new tools to explore the social mind. We describe how these methods can be used to explore the perplexing question of self, for example, resolving long-standing debates regarding theories of self-referential memory and providing novel insights into other aspects of self.

Narrative Form and Normative Force: Baconian Story-Telling in Popular Science

Ron Curtis — 2005-09-03T18:17:14-00:00

Social Studies of Science, Vol. 24, No. 3. (1994), pp. 419-461.

Why do science journalists cast their material in narrative form, using familiar fictional genres such as the detective story? Why do they avoid other genres, such as the dialogue? Popular science provides a cognitive space, and the scientific detective story an interpretative repertoire, in which only one theory of science is readily but tacitly expressed and endorsed, not only to a popular audience but also as part of a continuing debate among scientists themselves. There is a strong formal, structural analogy between popular scientific story-forms and the method of induction by elimination. Science is Baconian, these stories imply, and it can progress only through a cooperative effort among scientists to conquer nature by labour, not their adversaries in debate. To develop a new critical self-consciousness about theories of science, popular science needs to explore alternative literary forms, particularly the radically anti-Baconian, Socratic dialogue.

A research manifesto for services science

Henry Chesbrough — 2006-08-01T09:48:02-00:00

Commun. ACM, Vol. 49, No. 7. (July 2006), pp. 35-40.

The perils of relying on interested parties to evaluate scientific quality.

W Wagner — 2007-01-07T12:37:37-00:00

Am J Public Health, Vol. 95 Suppl 1 (2005)

Recently, there has been a trend in both civil litigation and regulatory law to circumvent the scientific community's collective judgment on the quality of individual studies with an adversarial process of evaluating scientific quality using interest groups. The Supreme Court's Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc opinion and two recent "good science" laws passed by Congress adopt an adversarial process informed by affected parties for reviewing and screening scientific quality. These developments are unwise. Both theory and experience instruct that an adversarial, interest group-dominated approach to evaluating scientific quality will lead to the unproductive deconstruction of science, further blur the distinction between policy and scientific judgments, and result in poor decisions because the courts and agencies that preside over these "good science" contests sometimes lack the scientific competency needed to make sound decisions.

Interpretive Social Science: An Overview

Frank Richardson — 2008-06-25T14:25:33-00:00

American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 41, No. 4. (1 January 1998), pp. 465-495.

Mainstream social sciences in the 20th century have always been highly fragmented, with considerable isolation among disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and political science and many disconnected islands of theory and research pursued within each field. Today, even more fundamental epistemological questions about the nature of human action or social life and the proper way to explain or understand it are hotly debated and remain quite unresolved. This article argues that it may be helpful broadly to classify diverse approaches to social or human science as (a) explanatory, (b) descriptivist, (c) critical, (d) postmodern/social constructionist, and (e) hermeneutic or interpretive approaches to such inquiry. Every such typology is shaped by its own epistemological ideals and value commitments. The authors try to make their commitments explicit and explain some of the ways they feel that an interpretive social science or hermeneutic viewpoint offers a relatively coherent view of social inquiry that assists them in incorporating the virtues and avoiding the limitations of other approaches. 10.1177/0002764298041004003

Review: Global History of Science Comes of Age [Review of: James E. McClellan III and Harold Dorn. Science and Technology in World History. An Introduction (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)]

Floris Cohen — 2007-11-06T19:03:51-00:00

Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 6, No. 4. (2001), pp. 362-368.

Contact And Exchange in the Ancient World (Perspectives on the Global Past)

2007-01-18T13:27:59-00:00

Do civilizations independently invent themselves or are they the result of cultural diffusion? The contributors to this volume do not attempt to provide a definitive answer to this contentious question, one of the most debated issues of the past century. Instead, they shift the focus from theory to reality by presenting empirical evidence on a wide range of cultural phenomena in history and prehistory, thereby demonstrating the processes whereby cultural traits are acquired and modified—the dynamics of transmission and transformation. The range of topics covered in this volume is of extraordinary breadth. Attention is paid to biological organisms at the cellular level on the one hand and to developments spanning an entire continent on the other. Victor H. Mair traces the distribution of belt hooks and belts from the steppes to North and Central China. At the other end of Asia, Irene Good shows how textiles were used as a medium of exchange in the third millennium B.C. and explicates their cultural significance. In a chapter on the spread of bronze metallurgy across Asia, Andrew Sherratt documents the means whereby complicated technologies were adapted by distant peoples. Yan Sun clarifies the mechanisms whereby bronze implements were used to convey political messages locally and regionally in East Asia. Using linguistic and philological analyses, Peter B. Golden elucidates the ethnogenesis of the Turks, and Michael Witzel reconstructs the complex interrelationships among migratory and settled peoples in western Central Asia during the Bronze Age. Through an inspection of dozens of images and a close reading of textual sources, Elfriede R. Knauer determines the origins of the Chinese goddess known as Queen Mother of the West, an enigma that has puzzled scholars for more than a century. In another piece of trans-Eurasian investigation, Thomas Allsen provides an account of hunting with trained cheetahs. Extending their purview beyond Europe and Asia, John Sorenson and Carl Johannssen use abundant botanical and zoological evidence to affirm that the Old World and the New World must have been in contact long before the fifteenth century. Rounding out the volume is a survey of the problem of modernocentrism by Jerry H. Bentley, in which he provides numerous instances of a globally intertwined past that is not so different from the human present as often imagined. Together these essays constitute a fresh, new look at the way early societies were intimately interrelated. The results of the research presented here show unmistakably that, just as they do today, human beings in antiquity found it natural to share their cultures far and wide. Employing an impressive battery of disciplinary approaches (history, archaeology, art history, linguistics, philology, biology, anthropology), the contributors have created a picture of the human past that is certain to stimulate future research.

Laboratory Life

Bruno Latour — 2005-05-20T17:07:29-00:00

(01 September 1986)

Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge

David Turnbull — 2005-06-22T18:23:46-00:00

(01 August 2000)

Science and technology have created many of the problems besetting us at the turn of the century, yet, paradoxically, we cannot address them without their assistance. This beautifully illustrated book takes a fresh approach to resolving the problems of progress and modernity by reframing science and technology. In an eclectic and highly original study, Turnbull brings together a wide range of traditions as diverse as cathedral building, Micronesian navigation, cartography and turbulence research. He argues that all our differing ways of producing knowledge, including science, are messy, spatial and local. Every culture has its own ways of assembling local knowledge, thereby creating space through the linking of people, practices and places. The spaces we inhabit and assemblages we work with are not as homogeneous and coherent as our modernist perspectives have led us to believe-rather they are complex and heterogeneous motleys.

Telepathy: Origins of Randomization in Experimental Design

Ian Hacking — 2005-06-06T18:37:56-00:00

Isis, Vol. 79, No. 3. (1988), pp. 427-451.

Clustering by Passing Messages Between Data Points.

Brendan J Frey — 2007-01-19T13:03:03-00:00

Science (11 January 2007)

Clustering data by identifying a subset of representative examples is important for processing sensory signals and detecting patterns in data. Such "exemplars" can be found by randomly choosing an initial subset of data points and then iteratively refining it, but this only works well if that initial choice is close to a good solution. We describe a new method called "affinity propagation," which takes as input measures of similarity between pairs of data points. Real-valued messages are exchanged between data points until a high-quality set of exemplars and corresponding clusters gradually emerges. We used affinity propagation to cluster images of faces, detect genes in microarray data, identify representative sentences in this manuscript and identify cities that are efficiently accessed by airline travel. Affinity propagation found clusters with much lower error than those found by other methods, and it did so in less than one-hundredth the amount of time.

Informed Legislatures: Coping with science in a democracy

Megan Jones — 2008-03-05T23:03:35-00:00

(30 August 1996)

Informed Legislatures offers the first comprehensive examination of technical information and decisionmaking in state legislatures and recommends ways to improve science and technology support to legislatures through staff, state universities, and other groups. Megan Jones, David H. Guston, and Lewis M. Branscomb report on fieldwork from eleven state legislatures. While partisan analysis is necessary in the legislative process, non-partisan sources are vital to help legislatures triangulate among special interests. The book argues that maintaining internal expertise is effective in the ongoing struggle of state legislatures to be independent of governors and lobbyists. Practioners interested in state legislatures, professionals in state and local government, lobbyists, state legislators and staff, public university administratives and faculty, and scholars who focus on the role of scientific and technical information in political institutions will find "Informed Legislatures" to be an invaluable resource. Co-published with the Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University.

The Secret Pulse of Time: Making Sense of Life's Scarcest Commodity

Stefan Klein — 2008-04-12T20:43:27-00:00

(28 November 2007)

Have you ever fantasized about having more time--now, this minute, to accomplish everything you need and want to get done today? Or wondered why time flies when you are thoroughly engrossed in something? Or why minutes pass so slowly when you're standing in line at the store or airport, or on hold waiting for a customer service rep to answer your call? Or how, simply, to find more time to relax and unwind? Now, with The Secret Pulse of Time, already a longstanding best seller in Germany, internationally best-selling and award-winning science writer Stefan Klein has crafted what amounts to "operating instructions" for time. "We are all taking part in a giant experiment in dealing with time," Klein writes--and his aim with this book is to help us each to understand "the degree to which our experience of time hinges on our outlook on life." With his journalist's unerring eye for the telling detail, Stefan Klein effortlessly combines original investigation and reportage, personal revelation, and a wide-ranging, commanding presentation of scientific research among disciplines including brain physiology, social psychology, philosophy, and Einsteinian physics--with the goal of guiding us not only to better master time but also to understand why we so often fail to do so. Woven into his narrative are dozens of practical ways to make sense of and gain control over time, including: - How not to lose your head when a deadline is quickly approaching - How the present becomes a memory--and vice versa - How to attune to your inner clock for more productive, satisfying days - How to avoid becoming worn out by the fast tempo of modern life Popular science at its very best, The Secret Pulse of Time awakens us to and empowers us with the idea that time is far more at our disposal than we have ever before realized.

A Study Of Executive Budget-Balancing Decisions

Stephen Anderson — 2008-02-27T22:01:56-00:00

The American Review of Public Administration, Vol. 36, No. 3. (1 September 2006), pp. 323-336.

This article illustrates how chief executives approach deficit plan design. A decision model is developed that lays out the deficit-closing options and their cumulative impact on the multiple competing goals of minimizing political loss while maintaining long-term fiscal balance. The article analyzes the deficit-closing plans of New York City mayors from fiscal year 1981 to fiscal year 2004. The authors classify the nature of the deficit-closing options employed each year and the constraints associated with each option and investigate the political loss associated with alternative decisions. The findings suggest that in any given year, an attempt is made to achieve a balance between the long-term gains of structural budget balance and the loss of political support. Even in election years some semblance of balance is normally maintained, however, there is an attempt to hold down the total size of the deficit, thus reducing loss of political support. 10.1177/0275074005280953

Science and the Semantic Web

James Hendler — 2005-12-25T22:52:25-00:00

Science, Vol. 299, No. 5606. (24 January 2003), pp. 520-521.

Going Beyond Panaceas Special Feature: Drivers of reforestation in human-dominated forests

Harini Nagendra — 2007-12-01T18:21:57-00:00

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 104, No. 39. (25 September 2007), pp. 15218-15223.

Tropical forest habitat continues to decline globally, with serious negative consequences for environmental sustainability. The small mountain country of Nepal provides an excellent context in which to examine trajectories of forest-cover change. Despite having experienced large-scale forest clearing in the past, significant reforestation has taken place in recent years. The range of biophysical and ecological environments and diversity of tenure arrangements provide us with a context with sufficient variation to be able to derive insight into the impact of a range of hypothesized drivers of forest change. This article draws on a dataset of 55 forests from the middle hills and Terai plains of Nepal to examine the factors associated with forest clearing or regeneration. Results affirm the central importance of tenure regimes and local monitoring for forest regrowth. In addition, user group size per unit of forest area is an important, independent explanator of forest change. These variables also can be associated with specific practices that further influence forest change such as the management of social conflict, adoption of new technologies to reduce pressure on the forest, and involvement of users in forest maintenance activities. Such large-N, comparative studies are essential if we are to derive more complex, nuanced, yet actionable frameworks that help us to plan better policies for the management of natural resources. 10.1073/pnas.0702319104

Sustainability Science: A room of its own

William Clark — 2007-12-01T17:13:27-00:00

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 104, No. 6. (6 February 2007), pp. 1737-1738.

10.1073/pnas.0611291104

The values of science: Empiricism from a feminist perspective

Nancy Tuana — 2007-06-28T09:09:15-00:00

Synthese, Vol. 104, No. 3. (1995), pp. 441-461.

This essay delineates the contributions of feminist critiques of science to contemporary reconstructions of empiricism. I argue that three central tenets arise from feminist attention to the dynamics of gender and oppression in the theories and methods of science: 1) a rejection of the science/politics dichotomy; 2) an acknowledgement of the epistemic import of subjective components of knowledge; and 3) a reconfiguration of the subject of knowledge. These three tenets are illustrated and supported through examples from the history of science.

BEALER ON THE AUTONOMY OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Michael Shaffer — 2007-01-08T06:26:35-00:00

Metaphilosophy, Vol. 38, No. 1. (January 2007), pp. 44-54.

EU risk assessment: science and policy

Sharon Munn — 2007-02-15T15:53:01-00:00

Toxicology, Vol. 181-182 (27 December 2002), pp. 281-285.

The EU risk assessment programme on existing substances is governed by Council Regulation (EC) 793/93. This regulation sets out a framework for evaluating and controlling the risks posed by existing substances. The results of the EU risk assessment programme are science-based regulatory risk assessments. This paper gives an overview of some fundamental principles governing the EU existing substances risk assessment programme, focusing on where and why there may be gaps between science and policy. Examples are then given showing that EU regulatory decisions are based on science, but also illustrating how policy influences the regulatory decisions.

The role of toxicological science in risk assessment and risk management.

BD Goldstein — 2007-01-07T14:38:57-00:00

Adv Exp Med Biol, Vol. 500 (2001), pp. 651-656.

Assimilation and Innovation in Indonesian Science

Lewis Pyenson — 2005-12-05T18:12:37-00:00

Replicating software engineering experiments: a poisoned chalice or the Holy Grail

James Miller — 2005-02-12T00:11:21-00:00

Information and Software Technology, Vol. 47, No. 4. (15 March 2005), pp. 233-244.

Recently, software engineering has witnessed a great increase in the amount of work with an empirical component; however, this work has often little or no established empirical framework within the topic to draw upon. Frequently, researchers use frameworks from other disciplines in an attempt to alleviate this deficiency. A common underpinning in these frameworks is that experimental replication is available as the cornerstone of knowledge discovery within the discipline. This paper investigates the issues involved in accepting this premise as a fundamental building block with empirical software engineering and recommends extending the traditional view of replication to improve the effectiveness of this essential process within our domain.

Information access in the presence of OCR errors

Kazem Taghva — 2005-03-29T21:31:09-00:00

(2004), pp. 1-8.

ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: The Third Culture

Kevin Kelly — 2007-07-03T03:02:33-00:00

Science, Vol. 279, No. 5353. (13 February 1998), pp. 992-993.

10.1126/science.279.5353.992

The mismeasurement of science

Peter Lawrence — 2007-08-17T20:25:29-00:00

Current Biology, Vol. 17, No. 15. (7 August 2007), pp. R583-R585.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics)

Karl Popper — 2006-07-08T04:53:28-00:00

(29 March 2002)

When first published in 1959, this book revolutionized contemporary thinking about science and knowledge. It remains the one of the most widely read books about science to come out of the twentieth century.

The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies

Michael Gibbons — 2005-05-16T21:31:14-00:00

(09 September 1994)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Kuhn — 2005-05-16T21:28:33-00:00

(15 December 1996)

There's a "Frank & Ernest" comic strip showing a chick breaking out of its shell, looking around, and saying, "Oh, wow! Paradigm shift!" Blame the late Thomas Kuhn. Few indeed are the philosophers or historians influential enough to make it into the funny papers, but Kuhn is one. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is indeed a paradigmatic work in the history of science. Kuhn's use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "normal science," his ideas of how scientists move from disdain through doubt to acceptance of a new theory, his stress on social and psychological factors in science--all have had profound effects on historians, scientists, philosophers, critics, writers, business gurus, and even the cartoonist in the street. Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts--or the way his work has been used to cast doubt--on the idea of scientific progress. Yet it has been said that the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1960s, for instance, was sped by geologists' reluctance to be on the downside of a paradigm shift. Even Weinberg has said that "Structure has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science." As one of Kuhn's obituaries noted, "We all live in a post-Kuhnian age." --Mary Ellen Curtin

Talking Science : Language, Learning, and Values (Language and Classroom Processes, Vol 1)

Jay Lemke — 2006-07-09T05:07:54-00:00

(01 January 1990)

Talking Science discusses the role of language in teaching and in communication of scientific and technical subjects. It identifies and analyzes the many strategies teachers and students use to communicate about science and to influence one another's beliefs and behavior. Special emphasis is placed on analyzing patterns of social interaction, the role of language and semantics in communicating scientific concepts, and the social values and interests which lie behind these patterns of communication. Working from transcripts of recordings made in real science classrooms, this volume goes beyond previous work on the organization of classroom discourse to show how the conceptual content of a specialized subject is actually communicated through the semantic patterns that teachers and students weave with language. Modern techniques of discourse analysis are used to place the communication of science in the context of classroom lessons, debates, and disruptions. Critical analysis further shows how a "mystique of science" is perpetuated in classrooms and identifies the hidden social interests it serves.

Rational Mysticism : Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment

John Horgan — 2006-07-09T00:10:54-00:00

(22 March 2004)

In Rational Mysticism, acclaimed journalist John Horgan embarks on an adventure of discovery, investigating the ways in which scientists, theologians, and philosophers are attempting to formulate an empirical explanation of spiritual enlightenment. Horgan visits and interviews a fascinating Who's Who of experts, including theologian Huston Smith; Andrew Newberg, explorer of the brain's "God module"; Ken Wilber, a transpersonal psychologist and Buddhist; psychedelic pharmacologist Alexander Shulgin; Oxford-educated psychologist and Zen practitioner Susan Blackmore; and postmodern shaman Terence McKenna. Horgan also explores the effects of reputed enlightenment-inducing techniques such as fasting, meditation, prayer, sensory deprivation, and drug trips. In his lively and thought-provoking inquiry, Horgan finds surprising connections among seemingly disparate disciplines, not the least of which is a shared awe of the nature of the universe.

The Far-Future Universe: Eschatology from a Cosmic Perspective

2007-05-13T15:12:49-00:00

Will our universe continue to expand 100 billion years from now? Does human life and all intelligence inevitably come to an end as the universe evolves? Could our present space be converted catastrophically into a new kind of space governed by different physical laws? Can we construct a theology of the future universe? Would the continuation of the universe for eternity be a good thing? Nearly 400 years ago, Galileo ground the Dutch "spyglass" and looked to the stars. His discoveries raised questions about the origin of the universe—questions that today, with our high-powered optical instruments, have become even more audacious. In Rome, at the Casina Pio IV, once a summer residence of Pope Pius IV and with links to Galileo, a group of scientists and theologians recently gathered to exchange research-in-progress, ideas, and opinions about the far future. The Far-Future Universe presents eighteen provocative essays offering speculations on various scenarios for the future, from the perspectives of cosmology, physics, biology, humanity, and theology, including: John D. Barrow, research professor of mathematical science, who notes: "When there is an infinite time to wait then anything that can happen, eventually will happen. Worse (or better) than that, it will happen infinitely often." Paul Davies, British theoretical physicist, who addresses the question: "Eternity: who needs it?," poses six cosmological models, and examines the implications of each for the ultimate fate of the universe. A. Graham Cairns-Smith, honorary senior research fellow at the University of Glasgow, who considers exotic genetic materials and distinguishes between "life as we know it" and "life in general." Other contributors consider global time, artificial intelligence, religious ideas about the end of the world, and the nature of existence. Stimulating, challenging, and exciting, these visions of the far future are a starting point for further reflection and speculation.

Visions : How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century

Michio Kaku — 2005-08-02T22:34:21-00:00

(15 September 1998)

Take it easy: that's Michio Kaku's motto. Given the extraordinary advances science has thrown up in time for the millennium, the only way you could possibly fit them into a single volume is by a correspondingly massive simplification. Subtitled How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond, Visions assumes that, by and large, scientists get to do whatever they like, that all technologies are consumer technologies, and that consumers welcome anything and everything science throws at them. Kaku gets away with this frankly dodgy strategy by dint of sheer hard work. He has based his predictions on interviews with more than 150 renowned working scientists; he integrates these interviews with a huge body of original journalistic material; and, above all, he roots that mass of information on an entirely reasonable model of what the purpose of science will be in the third millennium. Up until now, science has expended its efforts on decoding most of the fundamental natural processes--"the dance," as Kaku puts it, of elementary particles deep inside stars and the rhythms of DNA molecules coiling and uncoiling within our bodies. Science's task now, Kaku believes, is to cross-pollinate advances thrown up by the study of matter, biology, and mind--modern science's three main theaters of endeavor. "We are now making the transition from amateur chess players to grand masters," he writes, "from observers to choreographers of nature." Then again, he also believes that "the Internet ... will eventually become a 'Magic Mirror' that appears in fairy tales, able to speak with the wisdom of the human race." Kaku, in short, deserves a good slapping--but he also deserves to be read. --Simon Ings, Amazon.co.uk In Visions, physicist and author Michio Kaku examines the great scientific revolutions that have dramatically reshaped the twentieth century--the quantum mechanics, biogenetics, and artificial intelligence--and shows how they will change and alter science and the way we live. The next century will witness more far-reaching scientific revolutions, as we make the transition from unraveling the secrets of nature to becoming masters of nature. We will no longer be passive bystanders to the dance of the universe, but will become creative choreographers of matter, life, and intelligence. The first section of Visions presents a shocking look at a cyber-world infiltrated by millions of tiny intelligence systems. Part two illustrates how the decoding of DNA's genetic structure will allow humans the "godlike ability to manipulate life almost at will." Finally, VISIONS focuses on the future of quantum physics, in which physicists will perfect new ways to manipulate matter and harness the cosmic energy of the universe. What makes Michio Kaku's vision of the science of the future so compelling--and so different from the mere forecasts of most thinkers--is that it is based on the groundbreaking research taking place in labs today, as well as the consensus of over 150 of Kaku's scientific colleagues. Science, for all its breathtaking change, evolves slowly; we can accurately predict, asserts Kaku, what the direction of science will be, based on the paths that are being forged today. A thrilling, unique narrative that brings together the thinking of many of the world's most accomplished scientists to explore the world of the future, Visions is science writing at its best.

Web science: a provocative invitation to computer science

Ben Shneiderman — 2007-05-27T21:51:15-00:00

Commun. ACM, Vol. 50, No. 6. (June 2007), pp. 25-27.

Is computer science science?

Peter Denning — 2005-04-12T08:43:06-00:00

Commun. ACM, Vol. 48, No. 4. (April 2005), pp. 27-31.

How to write consistently boring scientific literature

Sand-Jensen — 2007-04-22T00:13:56-00:00

Oikos, Vol. 116, No. 5. (May 2007), pp. 723-727.

New Life for Systematics

Stephen Hopper — 2007-05-31T19:27:15-00:00

Science, Vol. 316, No. 5828. (25 May 2007), 1097.

10.1126/science.1144898

The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics

Eric Lofgren — 2007-10-24T08:53:54-00:00

The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Vol. 7, No. 9. (September 2007), pp. 625-629.

Summary Simulation models are of increasing importance within the field of applied epidemiology. However, very little can be done to validate such models or to tailor their use to incorporate important human behaviours. In a recent incident in the virtual world of online gaming, the accidental inclusion of a disease-like phenomenon provided an excellent example of the potential of such systems to alleviate these modelling constraints. We discuss this incident and how appropriate exploitation of these gaming systems could greatly advance the capabilities of applied simulation modelling in infectious disease research.

Bones, Bodies, Behavior: Essays in Behavioral Anthropology (History of Anthropology)

2008-01-04T12:04:47-00:00

<div>History of Anthropology is a series of annual volumes, inaugurated in 1983, each broadly unified around a theme of major importance to both the history and the present practice of anthropological inquiry. Bones, Bodies, Behavior, the fifth in the series, treats a number of issues relating to the history of biological or physical anthropology: the application of the "race" idea to humankind, the comparison of animals minds to those of humans, the evolution of humans from primate forms, and the relation of science to racial ideology. Following an introductory overview of biological anthropology in Western tradition, the seven essays focus on a series of particular historical episodes from 1830 to 1980: the emergence of the race idea in restoration France, the comparative psychological thought of the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan, the archeological background of the forgery of the remains "discovered" at Piltdown in 1912, their impact on paleoanthropology in the interwar period, the background and development of physical anthropology in Nazi Germany, and the attempts of Franx Boas and others to organize a consensus against racialism among British and American scientists in the late 1930s. The volume concludes with a provocative essay on physical anthropology and primate studies in the United States in the years since such a consensus was established by the UNESCO "Statements on Race" of 1950 and 1951. Bringing together the contributions of a physical anthropologist (Frank Spencer), a historical sociologist (Michael Hammond), and a number of historians of science (Elazar Barkan, Claude Blanckaert, Donna Haraway, Robert Proctor, and Marc Swetlitz), this volume will appeal to a wide range of students, scholars, and general readers interested in the place of biological assumptions in the modern anthropological tradition, in the biological bases of human behavior, in racial ideologies, and in the development of the modern human sciences.</div>

Babbage and Moll on the State of Science in Great Britain: A Note on a Document

Nathan Reingold — 2008-01-04T11:29:07-00:00

The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 4, No. 1. (1968), pp. 58-64.

Gentlemen of Science

Jack Morrell — 2008-01-04T11:21:54-00:00

(1981)