Do we follow rigorous scientific protocol when reporting our work to our peers? Or do we fall into the sort of traps that the scientific method is supposed to help us avoid? Would Karl Popper be proud of, or pissed off at us? An interesting study has just been published by Barto & Rillig (2012) in Oikos, analysing the writing and citing habits of...

There’s a feeling amongst some scientists that we aren’t all pulling our weight: some go for glory without necessarily putting in the effort in more mundane tasks of day to day science. I’m talking about peer review, the fundamental system of checks and filters that allows science to separate itself from pseudoscience, or other nefarious pastimes.The...

TOE = Theory of Evolution (through differential descent with modification). 2LOT = the Second Law of Thermodynamics.Just a quick scribble to pimp a post over at Good Math, Bad Math on the common and spurious argument often put forward by creationists (and easily refuted by anyone with the ability to think without drooling) that generally goes something...

The Burzynski Research Institute in Houston, Texas, has been hitting the blog headlines recently. This clinic runs trials investigating alternative cancer treatments, with unproven effects after 30 years of investigation.Their PR machine appears to have backfired, with a certain Marc Stephens shooting off a raft of threatening, unspecific defamation/libel...

I’ve entered the final year of my current contract. This has put a certain fear into me, that acts as a serious motivation to tinker with, write up and push out manuscripts as part of the never ending cycle of money grabbing grant and job applications. But it also keeps me awake at night, worrying about all the “what if’s” of where the next contract...

Fair fa’, yer honest, sonsie face… Great puddin’ o’ the website race, Aboon them a’, ye tak yer place,Britannica or Ask Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace As lang’s my ethernet cable.All of which was inspired by some checking I was doing for an injury I sustained last week playing football, which reared up agin again last night on my rushed comeback. It is...