Last week we had a little “accident” at my university. Due to a misstep somewhere, some biology graduate students got their Covid-19 vaccinations before healthcare workers at the hospital. These students had nothing to do with clinical research, but apparently got their jab tickets because they are, like me, part of the Biological Science Division, … Continue reading What’s the order of vaccination?: A discussion featuring ethicists, scientists and epidemiologists

Oy, my kishkas! Science historian Nathaniel Comfort has now emitted at least 65 tweets either doing down Pinker for Steve’s one tweet criticizing Comfort’s dreadful Nature article, or promoting Comfort’s own article. This includes a series of 25 tweets that duplicate what Comfort said on his own website about Pinker.  Talk about overkill! Having read … Continue reading Nathaniel Comfort redux: Science doesn’t progress (or does it?)

Barring unforseen circumstances, this will be the last post I put up about Siddhartha Mukherjee’s misleading article about epigenetics and The New Yorker (see my posts on it here and here). First, on the website of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, Mukherjee has written a rebuttal, which is not really directed at the posts on this … Continue reading L’Affaire Mukherjee: the last word

This was inevitable, and talk about slippery slopes! I can see where some “slippery slope” argument are fallacious, like those who oppose assisted suicide for terminal patients on the grounds that it will lead to government genocide, but the Argument from Statues seems to be unstoppable. It started with the removal of Confederate statues and … Continue reading Next statues to come down: Gandhi, Columbus, and maybe Lord Nelson

Abstract: This is a two part-post about a science piece on gene regulation that just appeared in the New Yorker. Today I give quotes from scientists criticizing that piece; tomorrow I’ll present a semi-formal critique of the piece by two experts in the field. ________ Yesterday I gave readers an assignment: read the new New Yorker piece by … Continue reading The New Yorker screws up big time with science: researchers criticize the Mukherjee piece on epigenetics

Trigger warning: Long science post! Yesterday I provided a bunch of scientists’ reactions—and these were big names in the field of gene regulation—to Siddhartha Mukherjee’s ill-informed piece in The New Yorker, “Same but different” (subtitle: “How epigenetics can blur the line between nature and nurture”). Today, in part 2, I provide a sentence-by-sentence analysis and reaction … Continue reading Researchers criticize the Mukherjee piece on epigenetics: Part 2