Tag Archives: pseudoscience
“Enough science.”
Edit, 6.04 pm, December 15, 2020: A reader pointed out to me that The Guardian may in fact have been joking, and it has been known to be flippant on occasion. If this is really the case, I pronounce myself … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged arts, astrology, capitalism, democracy, empowerment, humanities, pseudoscience, The Guardian
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Ayurveda is not a science – but what does that mean?
This post has benefited immensely with inputs from Om Prasad. Calling something ‘not a science’ has become a pejorative, an insult. You say Ayurveda is not a science and suddenly, its loudest supporters demand to know what the problem is, … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged allopathy, authoritarianism, Ayurveda, bhakts, Bharatiya Janata Party, far right, hospital care, Imre Lakatos, Karl Popper, knowledge systems, modern science, nationalism, Paul Feyerabend, pseudoscience, reason for state, social science, state, Thomas Kuhn, view from nowhere, welfare, welfare state, welfarism
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Journalistic entropy
Say you need to store a square image 1,000 pixels wide to a side with the smallest filesize (setting aside compression techniques). The image begins with the colour #009900 on the left side and, as you move towards the right, … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged conspiracy theories, coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, entropy, fact-checking, false balance, health journalism, image compression, Indian Council of Medical Research, information theory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Priyanka Pulla, pseudoscience, science journalism, thermodynamics, Washington Post
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The life and death of ‘Chemical Nova’
You know how people pretend to win an Oscar or a Nobel Prize, right? Many years ago, I used to pretend to be the author of a fictitious but, blissfully unmindful of its fictitiousness, award-winning series of articles entitled Chemical … Continue reading
Posted in Life notes, Science
Tagged aachaaram, Bharatiya Janata Party, Brahminism, caste apartheid, casteism, chemical reagents, class apartheid, hand washing, Hema Malini, Kent, manual scavenging, pseudoscience, running water, soap, untouchability
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Nitin Gadkari, tomato chutney and blood
There is a famous comedy scene in Tamil cinema, starring the actors Vadivelu and ‘Bonda’ Mani. Those who understand Tamil should skip this awkward retelling – intended for non-Tamil speakers, to the video below and the post after. Vadivelu has … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged Bertrand Russell, Bonda Mani, coronavirus pandemic, false balance, journalism, nationalism, NDTV, Nitin Gadkari, novel coronavirus, Prakash Javadekar, press freedom, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, pseudoscience, scientism, tomato chutney, Vadivelu, Western science
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‘Hunters’, sci-fi and pseudoscience
One of the ways in which pseudoscience is connected to authoritarian governments is through its newfound purpose and duty to supply an alternate intellectual tradition that subsumes science as well as culminates in the identitarian superiority of a race, culture … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Scicomm, Science
Tagged Adolf Hitler, Bharatiya Janata Party, civil aviation, Delhi riots, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, electricity, ethnic cleansing, Hindutva, Hunters, identity politics, John Forster, Nazism, occult, provincialism, pseudoscience, sci-fi, science fiction, technology, The Coming Race, Vril
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Mad Mike: Foolish Road
On Sunday, an American thrill-seeker named Mike Hughes died after attempting to launch himself to an altitude of 5,000 feet on a homemade steam-powered rocket. A video of the accident is available because a crew of the Science Channel filmed … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged Earth curvature, false balance, flat Earth, flat earth society, flat Earthers, Karman line, Mike Hughes, pseudoscience, Science Channel, upper atmosphere
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A trumpet for Ramdev
The Print published an article entitled ‘Ramdev’s Patanjali does a ‘first’, its Sanskrit paper makes it to international journal’ on February 5, 2020. Excerpt: In a first, international science journal MDPI has published a research paper in the Sanskrit language. … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged Acharya Balkrishna, Ayurveda, FMCG, FSSAI, MDPI, objectivity, peer review, pseudoscience, psoriasis, science journalism, scientific publishing, The Print, Withania somnifera
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A sympathetic science
If you feel the need to respond, please first make sure you have read the post in full. I posted the following tweet a short while ago: With reference to this: Which in turn was with reference to this: But … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds, Science
Tagged human condition, Kiran Bedi, NASA, pseudoscience, science communication, scientism, sympathy
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The rationalists’ eclipse
The annular solar eclipse over South India on December 26 provided sufficient cause for casual and/or inchoate rationalism to make a rare public appearance – rarer than the average person who had decided to stay indoors for the duration of … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged Against Method, annular solar eclipse, BR Ambedkar, Caliban and the Witch, capitalism, myth, Paul Feyerabend, Periyar, pseudoscience, rationalism, science communication, scientism, solar eclipse, superstitions, superstitious beliefs, Sylvia Federici
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