Isotropic is …
... my personal blog.
Unless otherwise indicated, anything I write here is simply my personal, probably ill-formed, opinion and does not represent the views, beliefs, positions, or opinions of any other person or entity.
Tag Archives: science
25 Aug 2009
Is the sky falling?
How many of the 12 questions in The Science Knowledge Quiz can you get right? Go ahead and try it now — it’s quick and easy.
For more detailed and statistically sound analysis, check out Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, which I posted about last year. It states “[...] many Americans do not [...]
13 Jan 2009
What is science?
Matt Springer poses that question and suggests a concise answer:
Science is the testing of ideas.
This is subject to ever-increasing refinement (or contention), as you can see from his post and its comments. You might consider the “scientific method” as the first-level refinement:
observe
hypothesize
predict
test
That’s basically the inner loop of the scientific method. You define a [...]
17 Apr 2008
Implicative Indicia
The statistics at Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 are disturbing. Here are some sample questions, and the percentage of correct answers (1864 adults, in 2006):
45% – Lasers work by focusing sound waves. (False)
56% – Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria. (False)
76% – Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun [...]
