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Category Archives: Analysis
Joel Mokyr, Gita Chadha, Lawrence Krauss, Joseph Vijay
All that thinking about Joel Mokyr and his prescription to support society’s intellectual elite in order to ensure technological progress took me back to a talk Gita Chadha delivered in 2020, and to a dilemma I’d had at the time … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged art and artist, genius, Gita Chadha, Jeffrey Epstein, Joseph Vijay, Karur crowd crush, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Feynman
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Mokyr hearts Nobel Prizes
I don’t like Joel Mokyr’s history of progress and have written about that before. I also have a longer analysis and explanation of my issues coming soon in The Hindu. On December 8 I got more occasion to critique his … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Brian Keating, Enlightenment, genius, history of science, impedialism, Joel Mokyr, Nobel Prizes, prescriptive knowledge, upper tail
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New labour codes
On November 21, the Union government said the four consolidated labour codes on wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety and health had been brought into force, replacing 29 national labour laws, five years after Parliament had signed off … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged Anna University, Concurrent List, contractors, Employees' State Insurance, gig workers, hazardous work, informal labour, informal sector, labour codes, labour law, labour rights, Ministry of Labour and Employment, platform workers, Provident Fund, risk-based inspection, sanitation workers, social security, workers welfare
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‘First state to disburse highest compensation’
The following jacket advertisement (which is expensive) appeared in The Hindu (and perhaps other newspapers as well; I didn’t check) yesterday: Something seemed off about the messaging here when I looked at it yesterday morning, and it clicked into place … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged Bhagwant Singh Mann, desilting, flood risk, livestock, monetary compensation, Punjab, rural flooding
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A little ignorance can be a good thing
Picture a city where most drivers use the same navigation app. At 9 am, the app says one side street is the quickest shortcut to get from area A to area B. Thousands of commuters accept this option and drive … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged game theory, ignorance, machine meaning, noise, route planning, stochastic resonance, uncertainty, urban planning
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Why do we trust scientists?
Individuals can’t master the mathematics of cryptography or the molecular biology of vaccines, yet they still trust these fields of science and the suggestions of their exponents to make decisions. Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged Brian Keating, Brian Wansink, communalism, contributory expertise, epistemic dependence, facts, Francesca Gino, Harry Collins, Indian knowledge systems, interactional expertise, John Hardwig, Max Weber, Mertonian norms, organised scepticism, p-hacking, rational-legal authority, Robert Evans, scientific expertise, social knowledge, social prestige
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The ‘impact’ of climate writing
The problem begins simply enough. A journalist finds a word that seems to fit almost everything. It might be “crisis”, “pivot” or the ever-convenient “impact”. It’s concise, authoritative, and headline-friendly. It appears once, then again, and soon it begins to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged climate journalism, Google Ngrams, impact, risk communication, science communication, science writing, writing
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On Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall was a celebrated figure in conservation. Her work with chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania redefined primatology. However, more than a few publications as well as conservation experts writing on social media platforms have since … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Bigfoot, bushmeat, chimpanzees, Colonialism, Derek Bryceson, Eslom Mpongo, ethology, genetically modified organisms, Gombe Stream National Park, hunting game, Jane Goodall, population control, Rashidi Kikwale, Seeds of Hope, Tanzania, whataboutery, zoonotic spillover
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The ‘religious’ function of science
We often understand science primarily in terms of its tangible successes, looking to it for advances in medicine, for the foundations of technologies, and for the tools with which to predict and manage our environment. This perspective views science as … Continue reading