Wrong science and right science

The right and the wrong with epilepsy and her science

This is a commentary and an opinion paper attempting a critical reassessment of the methods and practices of epilepsy research as we see it. The enormous progress in the field of epilepsy in recent years is a cause of celebration. Advances have been made on most fronts, and the position of patients with epilepsy in society has greatly improved. However, there have also been culs-de-sac and dead...

Right and Wrong in the Conduct of Science∗

Science, in particular physics, is a collective enterprise; a fruit of the exquisitely social nature of human living. So it is inevitable to encounter ethical issues in the natural sciences, since the contest of differing interests and views is perennial in its practice, indeed essential to its momentum. The crucial ethical question always hangs in the air: How is the truth best served? This is...

Does being wrong make Kettlewell wrong for science teaching ?

Biology textbooks, almost without exception, introduce students to evolutionary theory with reference to the phenomenon of industrial melanism, long regarded as the classic example of natural selection. Its status as an icon among biology teachers and the public stands in stark contrast to ongoing debates among scientists which reveal that this phenomenon is nowhere near as well understood as t...

Has science started to go wrong?

Health risk assessment for planned waste incinerators: getting the right science and the science right.

Health risk assessment is widely advocated in the United Kingdom as the most comprehensive means of assessing the health risks posed by the emissions of a planned waste incinerator. Its main advantage over other methods of assessment, such as air quality impact assessment, is its ability to address explicitly the direct (inhalation) and indirect (ingestion and dermal contact) health risks posed...