The Evolution of Elon Musk: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
As someone who considers themselves up-to-date with the latest news and trends on everything design and innovation, I was taken aback when I saw a Facebook post back in December. My friend was calling out Elon Musk for being a jerk (and no it wasn’t one of the those Facebook friends that rants about everything). He was referring to a Twitter battle between Musk and Jarrett Walker, a public transit policy consultant with a PhD in humanities. Their Twitter feud began because of Elon’s comments at an AI Conference. Musk had called out public transportation for being a “pain in the...
Gerald Massey - Chartist, Poet, Radical and Freethinker
Norwood has more than its share of famous people, but there will always be some who escape notice for one reason or another. Until now Gerald Massey is one who, in spite of living in South Norwood for many years (and dying there), has not attracted attention. He was born in a poor (some would say poverty-stricken) family in Tring in 1828. His father, William, was an illiterate labourer but his mother, Mary, had managed to acquire basic literacy. As a child he was sent to work in Tring Silk Mill in conditions that today would be unacceptable to an adult, but at the time were acce...
Glenn T. Seaborg; discoveries; and the capital of knowledge
A giant of chemistry departed a decade ago the importance of whose oeuvre extends much beyond anniversaries; yet 10 years from his passing away provides a nice opportunity to make a special remembrance of him. He was born in a little mining town Ishpeming in Northern Michigan 1912, where his father was a machinist, which Seaborg thought was as close to science as somebody could be in that environment. His entire family was Swedish and Swedish was the first language Seaborg learned to speak. In 1951, he started his Nobel address in his mother tongue. He shared the chemistry award with E...
Stephen Jay Gould on Marx, Kuhn and Punk Meek
In a recent post, I discuss how my dislike of a scientist complicates my judgment of his or her work. I call this complication “the Gould effect,” because it came into play when I interviewed Stephen Jay Gould in 1995. I profiled Gould, who died in 2002, in Scientific American in 1995 and at greater length in my book The End of Science, which was re-published this year. Below is an edited version of the latter profile, titled “Gould’s Contingency Plan.” – John Horgan...
The anatomist Andreas Vesalius at 500 years old
December 31, 2014 marked 500 years since the birth of Andreas Vesalius. Praised by contemporaries and lauded by generations since as the most important anatomist in western history, he fundamentally reshaped the discipline, made numerous anatomical discoveries, and most importantly, advanced the trajectory of modern medicine by rejecting textual dependence in favor of personal observation. This article, commemorating Andreas Vesalius and his accomplishments on the 500th anniversary of his birth, will first provide a brief biography of the man. It then discusses his role as the “Father ...
