Science History

Can anyone ever truly take credit for a discovery? Every researcher stands 'on the shoulders of giants', as Sir Isaac Newton said. Scientists talk to each other and argue and hone their thoughts…

A greeting card appropriate to Silchester, about 1500 years ago. The English is from a little bit later, more likely King Alfred’s time.  However, for the Britons still living there, although…

How did Tycho Brahe die? It's been a mystery for over 400 years.  11 days after he took ill, he passed away on October 24th, 1601 and in that wake arose a host of speculations, myths,…

  An advocate for gene-centrism recently wrote that the concept is a reductive mechanism for the understanding of evolution. The first part of that statement is correct; it is reductive, and is…

If you've been in science media for any length of time, there are two arguments you will hear invoked to support almost any questionable position; that Einstein did his best work while he was a…

The first man to walk on the moon passed away today, a few weeks after heart surgery. He was 82.  Neil Armstrong mostly stayed out of the public spotlight - no appearance in "Transformers: Dark…

Prior to World War II and dating back to the 1890s, the phrases “social technology” and “social engineering” carried strong connotations of central planning. This became particularly true in the…

For about a day I had been trying to read Real Clear Science, particularly the article linked Evolution Debate: Blame Atheists.  Alas, every time I visited the site I got a message: This site is…

Bill Bryson edited a very good book in 2010 titled, “SEEING FURTHER – The Story of Science and the Royal Society”. Each chapter was written by a different author chosen for expertise in particular…

This is interesting, on the BBC website: In pictures: Russian Empire in colour photos The first picture is captioned: This vivid colour photograph is 100 years old, a self-portrait by the Russian…