Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: science

  • On Climategate

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    at The Register

    This piece originally had a much longer section summing up the state of climate “science” – which the CRU leak has verified. The peculiar nature of the problem is why anecdote and modelling play such an important part in the persuasion business.

    Scientific theories fall by the wayside when they fail to be the give us the most convincing explanation of the evidence. The onus is therefore on the supporters of the theory to make the demonstrations,

    … Read More

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  • To the Moon – with extreme engineering

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Lunar Orbiter

    Apollo space program as a triumph of power and industrial might. The superpowers’ space programs were, of course, political and chauvinistic, designed to showcase national wealth. But there’s a better way of looking at the program, Dennis Wingo reminded me recently. Masses of money helped put man on the Moon of course, but the Moon program is really a tale of engineering improvisation and human organisation.

    Space expert and entrepreneur Dennis Wingo put the first webserver – an Apple Mac … Read More

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  • Breaking Bad: the joy of chemistry

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Breaking Bad

    Here’s a show with the perfect profile to be a huge cult British hit – black humour, suspense, all the stuff we love. But what’s puzzling is how the British public broadcasters dropped the ball by failing to notice the show – particularly the BBC.

    …Read more at The Register… Read More

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  • BBC’s science: ‘Evangelical, shallow and sparse’

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The BBC’s environmental coverage has come under fire from a former science correspondent. Award-winning author and journalist David Whitehouse says the corporation risks public ridicule – or worse – with what he calls “an evangelical, inconsistent climate change reporting and its narrow, shallow and sparse reporting on other scientific issues.”

    Whitehouse relates how he was ticked off for taking a cautious approach to apocalyptic predictions when a link between BSE in cattle (“Mad Cow Disease”) and vCJD in humans was … Read More

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  • Junk science and booze tax – a study in spin

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Let's find out what everybody is doing, and stop them doing it - A P Herbert
    “Let’s find out what everybody is doing, and stop them doing it” – A P Herbert

    Putting the price of alcohol up to a minimum of 40p a unit would keep 41,000 people a year out of hospital, save the NHS £116m a year, and avoid 12,400 cases of unemployment, a report from Sheffield University claimed last week. These appear to be remarkably precise predictions. The government used the report – widely quoted in the press – to justify higher … Read More

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  • The Large Hadron Collider: Anton Wylie

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    CERN's LHC

    The LHC comes at a crucial time for particle or quantum physics. In particular, it comes at a crucial time for the dominant theory, known as the Standard Model.

    The Standard Model has been to modern particle physics rather what the periodic table was to 19th century chemistry. It served both to organise the known entities systematically, and as an impetus to fill in the holes in our knowledge. The Standard Model can claim to have predicted the existence of … Read More

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