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Tag Archives: Brian Keating
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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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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Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
We may go on deleting sections of our history but in the world outside where there are multiple centres of research into the Indian past, and many scholars, there these expunged sections from books used in India will continue to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Ayurveda, Brian Keating, Charles Lieber, Elon Musk, Hyperloop, NCERT, Nobel Prizes, prestige bias, public transport, Rapido, Romila Thapar, Vedas
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Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
We may go on deleting sections of our history but in the world outside where there are multiple centres of research into the Indian past, and many scholars, there these expunged sections from books used in India will continue to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Ayurveda, Brian Keating, Charles Lieber, Elon Musk, Hyperloop, NCERT, Nobel Prizes, prestige bias, public transport, Rapido, Romila Thapar, Vedas
Comments Off on Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
The question of Abdus Salam ‘deserving’ his Nobel
Peter Woit has blogged about an oral history interview with theoretical physicist Sheldon Glashow published in 2020 by the American Institute of Physics. (They have a great oral history of physics series you should check out if you’re interested.) Woit … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Abdus Salam, BICEP2, Brian Keating, electroweak theory, ICTP Trieste, Nobel Prize for physics, Nobel Prizes, Norman Dombey, Paul Dirac, Peter Woit, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg
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Charles Lieber case: A high-energy probe of science
There’s a phenomenon in high-energy particle physics that I’ve found instructive as a metaphor to explain some things whose inner character may not be apparent to us but whose true nature is exposed in extreme situations. For example, consider the … Continue reading
Why are the Nobel Prizes still relevant?
Note: A condensed version of this post has been published in The Wire. Around this time last week, the world had nine new Nobel Prize winners in the sciences (physics, chemistry and medicine), all but one of whom were white … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds, Science
Tagged Abhijit Banerjee, Albert Einstein, Appa Rao Podile, Booker Prize, Brian Keating, Caltech, Chien-Shiung Wu, CV Raman, Esther Duflo, Fermilab, Göran Hansson, gender-based discrimination, Hindutva, Hugo Award, impact factor, Isaac Asimov, John B Goodenough, late capitalism, Lise Meitner, Margaret Atwood, nationalism, Nature journal, Nobel laureates, Nobel Prize, prestige bias, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sexism, The Big Bang Theory, Vera Rubin
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