From Aeon, great theories can spend decades waiting for verification, but failed theories do too — is there any way to tell them apart? Vial and error: Benjamin Breen on how science’s wonders are oft built on blunders. From Nature, Regina Nuzzo on how scientists fool themselves and how they can stop: Humans are remarkably good at self-deception — but growing concern about reproducibility is driving many researchers to seek ways to fight their own worst instincts; and Megan Scudellari on the science myths that will not die: False beliefs and wishful thinking about the human experience are common — they are hurting people and holding back science. A study suggests elite scientists can hold back science. Is cold fusion truly impossible, or is it just that no respectable scientist can risk their reputation working on it? Huw Price on the cold fusion horizon.
Marilena Danelon (Queen’s): Ignorance Production and Corporate Science. John Timmer on how to deal with science denialists: People don’t accept scientific information for a lot of different reasons. Stefaan Blancke on why people oppose GMOs even though science says they are safe. Phoebe Maltz Bovy on the decline of pseudoscience: Now that “natural” living has gone mainstream, its days are numbered. Jesse Singal on how Alice Dreger’s Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science is one of the most important social-science books of 2015 because of how thoroughly it punctures liberal smugness about science. From The Edge, responses to the Annual Question 2016: What do you consider the most interesting recent scientific news and what makes it important?
