My Stevens colleague Alex Wellerstein, an historian of science, has become a go-to expert on nuclear weapons, published in The New Yorker, Washington Post and elsewhere.
Posts published in “Scientific Curmudgeon”
As a science journalist, I try to raise questions about science and technology, which dominate our era. I try to do the same thing as director of the Center for Science Writings, which I started a dozen years ago here at Stevens.
Remember Irene? It was a hurricane that wreaked havoc along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. in 2011. Some environmental activists, notably Bill McKibben, blamed Irene on human-induced global warming, whereas others denounced that attribution as scientifically premature.
In 1990, geneticist William French Anderson injected cells with altered genes into a four-year-old girl with severe immunodeficiency disorder. This was the first sanctioned test of gene therapy, in which genetic material is used to treat or prevent disease.
Last month, I was trying to enjoy the final weeks of my summer vacation when a ruckus I couldn’t ignore erupted in the tech world.
Utopia gets a bad rap. If someone calls you or your idea “utopian,” they usually mean it as an insult, a synonym for naïve and unrealistic.
Why do freshmen at Stevens, most of whom plan to major in engineering, have to read Plato and Descartes? Let me generalize that question: In an age dominated by science and engineering, what is the point of philosophy?
My last five columns explored philosophy’s purpose. The series was provoked, in part, by the claim of physicist Stephen Hawking that science has rendered philosophy obsolete as a truth-seeking method.
This is the fifth and—I promise–last in a series of posts on philosophy’s purpose.
When I teach philosophy at Stevens, I prime the pump by asking, What is philosophy for?
This is the fourth in a series of posts on philosophy.
Last year, struggling to understand an especially dense philosophical paper, I was reminded of my youthful efforts to decode poets like Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens.