Benjamin Banneker, the Black Authority that Shaped DC

Benjamin Banneker, the Black Authority that Shaped DC

The nation spoke in the lan­guage of lib­er­ty, but it had been built to deny lib­er­ty. It praised rea­son, but it fenced rea­son off by race. Yet here was a self-taught Black astronomer doing pre­cise fed­er­al work for the cap­i­tal of the Unit­ed States.

Hobbes v. Boyle: Who Decides Scientific Facts

Hobbes v. Boyle: Who Decides Scientific Facts

In the 1600s, philoso­pher Thomas Hobbes and exper­i­men­tal sci­en­tist Robert Boyle clashed over a strange new machine, the air pump, and a dan­ger­ous ques­tion: when should soci­ety trust sci­en­tif­ic claims, and who gets to decide? Their dis­agree­ment wasn’t just about experiments … 

The Sun Dagger: How Ancient Puebloans Made Calendars from Sunlight

The Sun Dagger: How Ancient Puebloans Made Calendars from Sunlight

Before cal­en­dars were print­ed, before clocks ticked, and before num­bers were writ­ten, humans looked up. We looked up at the sky not just to admire the beau­ty of the stars and celes­tial bod­ies, but also to pre­dict the best times for plant­i­ng and har­vest­ing crops. So stargaz­ing was not just an enjoy­able endeav­or; it was a method of sur­vival. In

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FLASHCARDS! Imagination Is the Engine of Science.

FLASHCARDS! Imagination Is the Engine of Science.

TRANSCRIPTS Wel­come to Flash­cards Fri­days! If you had a chance to lis­ten to Tuesday’s episode, I inter­viewed the the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist Dr. Ronald Mal­lett, who shares how a moment of heart­break in his child­hood became the foun­da­tion for his entire sci­en­tif­ic career. It’s an inspir­ing inter­view, and I hope you lis­ten to it. Today I’m fol­low­ing up on his con­clud­ing state­ment, and

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Science Under Siege: America’s War on Knowledge

Science Under Siege: America’s War on Knowledge

Right now, sci­ence in the Unit­ed States is under attack. It is not just being debat­ed, it is being attacked and dimin­ished at the hands of our cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion. False lies are being pro­mot­ed while igno­rance is being cel­e­brat­ed. And his­to­ry has shown us time and time again that when fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion are dis­man­tled and pro­hib­it­ed, it leads

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