Greta Thunberg is one of those hard-to-pin-down thinkers whose ideas are widespread and influential without being well-defined. Like Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, and Russell Brand. Of course, she has written them down. In a book, published by Penguin Science. With an average of six lines of writing on each page. Like a Noddy book, though without … Continue reading →

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is a non-governmental organisation devoted to “Strengthening communities and democracy by disrupting identity-based hate and dangerous misinformation in digital spaces.”It’s British based (despite the spelling of its name) and, since the setting up of its website blog in May, has been largely concerned with countering mis-information on the coronavirus … Continue reading →

“Hooray for the Hols!”cried Greta, tossing her plaits joyfully over her shoulders: “No more Latin, no more Greek, / No more freezing my arse off sitting on a cold pavement holding a placard reading Klimastreik!” (It sounded better in Swedish, of course.) There were five of them. Greta, just seventeen, was the youngest. Then came the … Continue reading →

How to link the panic in pandemic with the climate crisis? The Guardian (who else?) shows the way: Pandemic shows climate has never been treated as crisis, say scientists. Letter also signed by Greta Thunberg urges EU leaders to act immediately on global heating Greta Thunberg and some of the world’s leading climate scientists have written to EU leaders … Continue reading →

Have you heard of Davos? I had, vaguely. I thought it was a group of rich and powerful people who got together once a year to chat and network and invite some of the more interesting members of the lower orders – ex-prime ministers and presidents, Swedish schoolgirls – to come and entertain them with … Continue reading →

Time was when a popular history of our modern world would begin: “In Sarajevo, a fatal shot from a Serbian nationalist rang out, killing the Archduke Ferdinand…” Future histories of the 21stcentury will no doubt open with: “In a Wuhan wet market, a bat shat on a pangolin..” No, really. It’s been reported from the … Continue reading →

Lewandowsky has a new article out in Nature Human Behaviour co-authored with Cass Sunstein, [the Artful Nudger] lead author Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, post-doctoral fellow at the Berlin Center for Adaptive Rationality, (no, really) and the Center’s director Ralph Hertwig. Authors Stephan Lewandowsky and Ralph Hertwig thank the Volkswagen Foundation for their support (presumably financial, and not merely automotive.) It’s … Continue reading →

In a comment on another post I mentioned this article in which the Observer’s science editor reports on a new piece of insanity published in the Lancet. As so often, the insane nonsense we’re being fed is only revealed for what it is when it’s in a scientific article taken apart by other scientists. It’s … Continue reading →

Coronavirus: What is the R number and how is it calculated? By James Gallagher Health and science correspondent 18 May 2020 … scientists work backwards. Using data – such as the number of people dying, admitted to hospital or testing positive for the virus – allows you to estimate how easily the virus is spreading. Generally this … Continue reading →

The Lancet, like the British Medical Journal, has been publishing fake news for years about climate change. [They also published a fake article about deaths caused in the second Iraq war. That one interested me because my political opinions would have naturally led me to lend credence to their absurdly exaggerated figures, yet somehow I … Continue reading →