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Dec
20
On Scientific Consensus
Filed Under climate change, environment, science | 5 Comments
An interesting read from the NY Times’ Andrew Revkin on the concept of “scientific consensus“:
To many scientists and students of scientific history, there really is no such thing as a consensus. There is a preponderant view at any one point in time, but it is largely defined by disagreement, not agreement. Someone comes up with a new framing for how the world works and tests that conception (where possible) through experimentation, observation, analysis and (for complex phenomena without comparable control cases) simulation.
Dec
18
A “supermassive” black hole is violently “blasting” a nearby galaxy with a jet of radiation, reports the Washington Post.
“What we’ve identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire,” said Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. He said any planets orbiting the stars of the smaller galaxy would be dramatically affected, and any life forms would likely die as the jet’s radiation transformed the planets’ atmosphere.
