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The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines

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Brian Deer

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“By the mid-1980s, [Stephen Jay Gould] had emerged as a major public figure, using his background as a paleontologist to dive into controversies with radical stances on the ways new species emerge and how evolutionary change comes about. His [popular history of life] college class was composed of around six hundred students who, taking it as a distributional requirement, were unlikely to become science majors. This audience proved an ideal focal group for Gould to try out his new theories and presentations. Every Tuesday and Thursday in the fall he held forth, lecturing with dramatic flourish to undergraduates who either sat rapt in the front rows or sprawled sleeping in the rear ones.”

EvolutionPopular ScienceMotivated ReasoningStephen Jay Gould
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“...We are long overdue for an update to the empirical scientific evidence that, despite our racial differences, demonstrates humankind’s overarching shared foundations as biological, cultural, and social beings. Awareness of the fascinating research unfolding in the arena of nature–nurture and the human condition promises to be a step in that direction.”

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“Popular-science news about quantum mechanics is to me as baffling as it is frustrating. Hand me an equation, and I can deal with it. But if you tell me that quantum mechanics allows one to separate a cat from its grin or that an experiment shows "an irreconcilable mismatch between the friends and the Wigners," I'll back out of the room quietly before anyone demands I explain this mess. I have suffered through countless well-intended introductions to quantum mechanics featuring quantum shoes, quantum coins, quantum boxes, and entire zoos of quantum animals that went in and out of those boxes. If you actually understand those explanations, I salute you, because if I hadn't known already how quantum mechanics works, I still wouldn't know.”

Quantum MechanicsAnalogyPopular Science
Book:Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions
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“Based on the parts of this... this scene that are not covered in refuse, and the drawings you have done for me, I know you are an artist with talent. Maybe I have old-fashioned views, but I simply don't understand why you would spend your time creating something like this." He shrugged his shoulders. "The sort of art I am used to seeing is more..." I raised an eyebrow. "More what?" He bit his lip, as though searching for the right words. "Pleasant to look at, I suppose." He shrugged again. "Scenes from nature. Little girls wearing filly white dresses and playing beside riverbanks. Bowls of fruit." "This piece shows a beach and a lake," I pointed out. "It's a scene from nature." "But it's covered in refuse." I nodded. "My art combines objects I find with images I paint. Sometimes what I find and incorporate is literal trash. But I also feel that my art is more than just trash. It's meaningful. These pieces aren't just flat, lifeless images on canvas. They say something." "Oh." He came even closer to the landscapes, kneeling so he could peer at them up close. "And what does your art... say?" His nose was just a few inches from an old McDonald's Quarter Pounder wrapper I'd laminated to the canvas so it looked like it was rising out of Lake Michigan. I'd meant for it to represent capitalism's crushing stranglehold on the natural world. Also, it just sort of looked cool. But I decided to give him a broader explanation. "I want to create something memorable with my art. Something lasting. I want to give people who see my works an experience that won't fade away. Something that will stay with them long after they see it." He frowned skeptically. "And you accomplish that by displaying ephemera others throw away?" I was about to counter by telling him that even the prettiest painting in the fanciest museum faded from memory once the patrons went home. That by using things other people throw away, I took the ephemeral and make it permanent in a way no pretty watercolor ever could.”

RecycledAssemblageEphemeraUpcyclingArtistic ViewDifferent Opinion
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