Eyes, erosion and expertise
October 16, 2017
Over the last month or so I have been struggling with some eye problems. Several times I found myself in Eye Casualty and observed the sun rising over the Queen’s Medical Centre buildings. I am glad they exist just around the corner from where I live. It took a long time to get the bottom …
The language and politics of hope
June 9, 2017
Yesterday, feeling rather under the weather, I whiled away my time as a sniffling wreck by sitting on twitter and watching the world tweet by. I also diverted myself by watching the James Comey testimony in the US. Then I watched the exit polls for the General Election in the UK. Then I fell asleep and woke up to …
Reflections on retirement
September 11, 2016
So, I am about to retire and become Emeritus Professor at the end of the month. That makes one think! The problem is I have been thinking for a while – but to no avail! People ask me what I’ll do and I say I don’t know – and I really don’t. I’ll still supervise …
That was the week that was
June 25, 2016
This week was one of the strangest weeks of my life. In the middle of the week I had two days of real enjoyment. On Tuesday, 21 June, current and former members of our Institute for Science and Society came together at an event organised for me by Sujatha Raman and entitled ‘Adventures in Science, …
Science and politics in an uncertain world
June 19, 2016
Our end of award conference is taking place on Wednesday 22 June and I know that I should be writing something cheerful and upbeat about our programme, what we have done and are still doing. However, the conference is happening at a difficult time, and somehow I have lost my blogging enthusiasm. The conference is …
Making science public blog posts in 2013 – an overview
December 17, 2013
This is now our second year of blogging at Making Science Public. Just like at the end of the previous year, I want to provide an overview of what we have done, what we have covered, and what the highlights of our blogging activities have been. Launch and SiP There were two major events that …
The ‘Making Science Public’ blog: What is it for?
August 17, 2013
Our ‘Making Science Public’ blog puzzles some readers, and perhaps rightly so. One blogger in particular pointed out recently that he found what we are doing ‘confusing’. This confusion emerged in particular in the context of us posting some guest-posts on climate science and climate politics (and climate scepticism) and also in the context of …
Making thoughts public: One year on
December 31, 2012
This is the end of the year and a time for reflection. I have now been blogging for just under a year and, looking back, this has been quite a learning curve, about blogging, myself, and the various topics I have blogged about. At first I had been rather reluctant to take up blogging and …
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Some family memories
December 24, 2012
It will soon be time for our family to sit down and watch the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. This is a ritual that is almost as important as Christmas itself. When I came to Oxford in 1985 from Germany, having studied French and philosophy. I had never heard of the Christmas lectures and ‘science’ was …
The scientist as political tourist: the perils of pairing
November 7, 2012
On Wednesday last week (31 October 2012), BBC Radio Four’s ‘Today’ programme featured a scheme run by the Royal Society to promote interaction and engagement between civil servants, Parliamentarians and scientists. According to their website, the ‘Pairing Scheme’ seeks to match participating scientists ‘with either an MP or civil servant and the Royal Society supports …
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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