I’m a man slowly sliding into the old age. Being a scientist (a simple science worker), this means that for decades I’ve become familiar with the uncomfortable feeling of struggling to adapt to a constant, quick change of everything. In the very beginning of my career, still an undergrad, I joined a lab where my […]
If there is one worrisome fact about science here and now, it is this: the possibility that a huge amount of publications is to be retracted due to falsified or duplicated data. The phenomenon is not new, there have been more than a few reports sounding the alarm on precisely this problem, and there is […]
Juvenile delinquency is a serious and common problem but not hopeless: it has been on the decline for a number of years, yet, juvenile courts continue to assess millions of cases per year. There are times when this subject seems hopeless such as when we read about a horrendous crime committed by a minor. The […]
Researchers do not know what influences have the stereotypical images of scientists, if any, on children’s perception of science. The most common technique for assessing children’s perceptions of scientists is the Draw-a-Scientist Test (DAST). David Wade Chambers firstly proposed it in 1983, and its main aim was to identify at what age the stereotypic image […]
In an open letter to the faculty of Harvard University sent in April 2012, the Library’s Faculty Advisory Council warned that the library of the most world famous university, the richest university, and for many the best university, faced a severe crisis. It was a subscription crisis caused, according to this library council, «by efforts […]
There is a theory in criminology that says that if a broken window in a building is left unrepaired, that building will soon have all its other windows broken. The rationale behind it is that signs of urban disorder and untended public spaces elicit antisocial behaviour. The idea is reminiscent of the concept of “criticality” […]
When I buy in a market I only deal with myself regardless of whether the market is competitive or in the hands of a monopoly. Given the price, I choose how much to buy. In an auction to get a Government project a firm has to anticipate what the other firms are bidding, but and […]
Some decades ago, the American social scientist Donald T. Campbell imagined interdisciplinary research as a fish-scale structure according to which scholars should make an effort to create links between disciplines, spanning areas ignored by others, in an overlapping pattern aiming to cover the entire web of knowledge. He suggested that scholars should overcome the “ethnocentrism […]
Scientific progress has undoubtedly being fed by singular individuals. Those who have pushed the boundaries driven by endless curiosity aiming to understand how the world surrounding us works. Mankind regards Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin or Marie Curie (among others) as unique minds that have contributed to shape the understanding of the world we live on […]
Author: Jaume Navarro received his PhD in history of science from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (1998). He has been a researcher at the universities of Cambridge, Imperial College (London) and the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin). Currently he is an Ikerbasque Research Professor and a member of the Praxis Group at the Faculty […]
