Math Drudge

Fundamental, wide-ranging and curious research is the basis of a country’s development. Cuts to CSIRO won’t help. CarbonNYC/Flickr

Like many scientists, I was apprehensive in advance about the Abbott government’s approach to science policy. Would it be pragmatic but fact-based or would it be ideological and politically driven?

Sadly it has only taken two months to discover that it is the latter.

As a relatively recent immigrant (2008), who has chaired the precursor to Compute Canada (the national high performance computing organisation), NATO’s Physical Sciences and Engineering Technology Panel, and the National Research Council of Canada information institute (CISTI)

Continue reading Australia needs fundamental research to build a great country

One of the most perplexing side-effects of the Information Age is the means it unfortunately grants to many pseudo-scientific and science-denial movements to gain foothold and mutually strengthen numbers. Gone are the days when everyone would read or listen to common, well-researched, professionally written news.

Nowadays, everyone can withdraw into a self-imposed cocoon of “personalized” (and often erroneous) information. This includes big players such as Fox News — as Americans, Brits, and Australians hostage to the Murdoch empire know only too well. In reaction, liberals rely on their own reinforcement via MSNBC and similar venues.

Recently American palaeontologist Donald Prothero

Continue reading When skepticism becomes denial: The unholy alliance between science denial movements