Francis Willughby and me
November 26, 2021
You have probably all heard of Newton or Halley or Hooke or Pepys … But have you heard of Willughby? I had, vaguely, but I did not look hard enough. They were all early members of the Royal Society (founded in 1660) and involved in a little scandal to which I’ll come later. But first …
The concept of net zero hangs in the balance
November 12, 2021
‘Net zero’ has been in the air for a while and I let it waft over me without taking much notice. However, a few days ago I read Ken Rice’s thoughts on this matter on his And Then There’s Physics blog. He argues against a “recurring narrative that the concept of net-zero is flawed”, saying …
Science, philosophy and metaphor (a post by Andrew Reynolds)
November 5, 2021
Soon a book will appear that will be of interest to life scientists and metaphor scientists alike. It is by Andrew Reynolds and entitled Understanding Metaphors in the Life Sciences (December 2021; please click through for more information!). It is one of the many interesting books in Cambridge University’s Understanding Life series, including, for example, …
Geoengineering metaphors: 2011 and 2021
October 29, 2021
I recently saw this call for papers for a Preconference at the 72nd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association on May 25, 2022 “The Science of Science Communication: Mapping the Field”. The invitation starts with this paragraph: “The beginning of the new century’s ‘Roaring 20s’ is determined by global crises around climate change, biodiversity …
Science, politics and integrity
October 15, 2021
On 12 October three things appeared in my Twitter timeline: a report, an academic paper and an interview, all dealing with science and politics in the context of the management of the coronavirus pandemic. Most importantly, there was the House of Commons report which showed for all to see what a shambles the UK government’s …
Post-Brexit gene editing regulation
October 8, 2021
Some of us are old enough to remember the controversies surrounding genetically modified or engineered foods and crops that raged in Europe (which included the UK) around the turn of the millennium. Some of us are even old enough to remember debates about recombinant DNA in the seventies (for those who don’t, I recommend Matthew …
IPCC reports, climate change and language work
September 6, 2021
This blog post is not about climate change communication. It is about what I call the ‘language work’ carried out by scientists when writing the various IPCC reports. Introduction On 9 August 2021 the first part of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, namely the Contribution of Working Group 1 …
Eyes and organoids
August 20, 2021
I have written in the past about eyes and about organoids (but if you really want to know more about organoids, you should read Philip Ball’s How to Grow a Human). These two topics, eyes and organoids, recently came together. A few days ago, I saw tweets like this: “Small blobs of human brain grown …
From RRI to RBM: How gene drive drives new efforts in engagement
August 13, 2021
The other day, I was listening to the very interesting history of genetic engineering, including gene editing and gene drive, as told by Matthew Cobb in his three-part radio series: Genetic dreams, genetic nightmares. This reminded me that I hadn’t thought or written about gene drive for a while, one of the most controversial genetic …
Covid, cowering and cowardice
July 25, 2021
We all remember Boris Johnson saying in March 2020 that we should take covid on the chin, followed by him saying in April that year that Covid was an invisible mugger that one should wrestle to the floor. This metaphorical framing of the virus as a physical assailant and of those having to deal with …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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