In a previous post, I argued that falsifiability is not the be-all and end-all of Science. There are valid scientific beliefs that are not falsifiable. However, there is something to the idea that beliefs should be falsifiable. One way to … Continue reading
A Christian reader named Paul writes to me from New Zealand with the following common question. With permission, I am posting his question and my answer on my blog. St. Paul writes: A few months ago I discovered your blog … Continue reading
A friend of mine from St. John's College, who was recently accepted to a physics doctoral program at Penn State, asked me what my opinion of Loop Quantum Gravity is. I replied be email, and then I decided, why not … Continue reading
I've been staying home sick with some horrible cough for about 3 weeks now. One would think that this would be quite conducive to blogging, but when I'm running a fever I find it hard to concentrate enough to produce … Continue reading
There's a common notion floating around, due to Karl Popper, that scientific theories are characterized by the fact that they are falsifiable. The idea is that it is never possible to verify a scientific theory (i.e. the sun always comes … Continue reading
This is just a quick note to say I've been travelling a lot recently (to Japan to visit the IPMU and to Seattle for Christmas) and have also been very busy with job application stuff. I've accepted an exciting new postdoc … Continue reading
Last week, 52 Senate Democrats voted to get rid of the filibuster for Presidential nominations to certain positions—in particular for Lower and Appelate Court Nominees, but not for Supreme Court nominees. This move was branded as the "nuclear option" back … Continue reading
Suppose you want to write down the laws of physics. How would you go about it? What? You want to do some experiments first? Forget about that. This is theoretical physics. Let's not worry about pedantic things like what the … Continue reading
A couple posts elsewhere refuting a common Medieval-bashing trope, that the Medieval Church tried to suppress scientific ideas, in a series of mythical conflicts between Science and Religion, by historian of Science St. James Hannam. On the same site, Tim … Continue reading
Sometimes educators talk about "closing the achievement gap" which separates high and low performing students. There are documented gaps in educational outcomes on the basis of e.g. economic classes, race, etc. Some of these gaps lead to serious social problems … Continue reading