The integrity of science depends on its capacity to provide an increasingly more reliable picture of how the world works. Over the past decade or so, serious threats to this integrity have come to light. The expectation that science is inherently self-correcting, and that it moves cumulatively and progressively away from false beliefs and toward truth, has been challenged in numerous fields—including cancer research, neuroscience, hydrology, cosmology, and economics—as observers discover that … [Read more...]
No, Hurricanes Are Not Bigger, Stronger and More Dangerous
Guest contribution by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., formerly Professor of Environmental Studies and now director of the Sports Governance Center in the Department of Athletics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change and other books. Earlier this week a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by a team of authors led by Aslak Grinsted, a scientist who studies ice sheets at the … [Read more...]