Flashcards! Science Needs Fiction

Flashcards! Science Needs Fiction

Sci­ence fic­tion is not valu­able because it pre­dicts the future. It is valu­able because it trains the mind. It gives us a way to prac­tice think­ing about sys­tems before we build them, and to prac­tice car­ing about con­se­quences before con­se­quences have real names.

Flashcards Friday! How to Talk to Someone Who Doesn’t Trust Science

Flashcards Friday! How to Talk to Someone Who Doesn’t Trust Science

It’s Flash­cards Fri­day, and today I want to talk about some­thing that mat­ters as much as any exper­i­ment: how we talk to peo­ple who do not trust sci­ence. Not how to win an argu­ment. Not how to humil­i­ate some­one with a fact. How to build a bridge. Because sci­ence does not spread by vol­ume. It spreads when peo­ple feel safe

Read More

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 … 

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

Read More

FLASHCARDS! Protecting Our Oceans

FLASHCARDS! Protecting Our Oceans

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS Wel­come to Flash­cards Fri­days on MATH! SCIENCE! HISTORY!. I’m Gabrielle Bir­chak and today we’re tack­ling a sub­ject that’s both urgent and empow­er­ing. How each of us can play a part in con­serv­ing our oceans. The ocean cov­ers more than 70% of the earth­’s sur­face. It pro­duces over half of the oxy­gen we breathe and sup­ports a rich web

Read More

Queer Nature

Queer Nature

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS We’re often told that nature is all about sur­vival of the fittest, repro­duc­tion, and het­ero­sex­u­al pairs. But what if nature has always been far queer­er than we’ve been taught? Today, I’m going to take you on a glob­al jour­ney through the world of sci­ence, from the ear­li­est obser­va­tions to cut­t­ing-edge research, to explore queer­ness in nature: from same-sex

Read More