Tag Archives: history
Cooperative distrust
Is there a doctrine or manifesto of cooperative distrust? Because I think that’s what we need today, in the face of reams of government data — almost all of it, in fact — that is untrustworthy, and the only way … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged cooperative distrust, democracy, history, institutional memory, journalism, memory, skepticism
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The Government Project
Considering how much the Government of India has missed anticipating – the rise of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the crippling medical oxygen shortage, the circulation of new variants of concern – I have been wondering about why we … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged black holes, City of a Thousand Planets, COVID-19 in India, COVID-19 pandemic, history, India oxygen shortage, medical oxygen, spacetime continuum
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Looking for gemstones in the gutter
Just the other day, I’d mentioned to a friend that Steven Pinker was one of those rare people whose ideas couldn’t be appreciated by proxy, such as through the opinions of other authority figures, but had to be processed individually. … Continue reading
Posted in Life notes, Op-eds
Tagged cherry-picking, Culture, Enlightenment Now, George Monbiot, history, Jerry Coyne, moral authority, ontology, Pharyngula, PZ Myers, scientism, sociology, Steven Pinker, Why evolution is true
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The raison d’être of a science journalist, courtesy Hobsbawm
‘Age of Extremes’ offers a carefully considered picture of modern science and its philosophical roots Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 20th century, Age of Extremes, authority, common sense, Eric Hobsbawm, history, morality, natural science, science journalism, specialisation
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Some notes on empiricism, etc.
The Wire published a story about the ‘atoms of Acharya Kanad‘ (background here; tl;dr: Folks at a university in Gujarat claimed an ancient Indian sage had put forth the theory of atoms centuries before John Dalton showed up). The story in … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Acharya Kanad, aesthetics, Alfred Shapere, dichotomy, empiricism, epistemology, formal science, Frank Wilczek, Hilary Putnam, history, knowledge, naturalness, nature science, Philosophy of Science, rationalism, sense experience, Social Sciences, string theory, time crystals
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No country for new journalism
Through an oped in Nieman Lab, Ken Doctor makes a timely case for explanatory – or explainer – journalism being far from a passing fad. Across the many factors that he argues contribute to its rise and persistence in western markets, there is evidence that he believes explainer journalism’s historical basis is more relevant than its technological one, most simply by virtue of having been necessitated by traditional journalism no longer connecting the dots well enough. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged business models, explainers, history, India, journalism, mainstream media, news, purchasing power, regional media, regionalism, technology, The Hindu, The New York Times, Upshot
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A Periodic Table of history lessons
This is pretty cool. Twitter user @jamiebgall tweeted this picture he’d made of the Periodic Table, showing each element alongside the nationality of its discoverer. It’s so simple, yet it says a lot about different countries’ scientific programs and, if … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged chemisty, Gesselschaft fur Schwerionenforschung, Henry Cavendish, history, Lord Rayleigh, Periodic Table, UNILAC, William Ramsay
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The common tragedy
I have never been able to fathom poetry. Not because it’s unensnarable—which it annoyingly is—but because it never seems to touch upon that all-encompassing nerve of human endeavour supposedly running through our blood, transcending cultures and time and space. Is … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged emotions, history, people, poetry, self-doubt
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A clock without a craftsman
Curiosity can be devastating on the pocket. Curiosity without complete awareness has the likelihood of turning fatal. At first, for example, there was nothing. Then, there was a book called The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Vol. 3) (Rs. 214) in class … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged curiosity, dialectic, discovery, ebooks, epistemology, history, narrative, philosophy
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