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The battle for Darwin’s soul
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1 comment on The battle for Darwin’s soulDarwin was much influenced first by the gloomy T R Malthus and then championed by the pugnacious T H Huxley. Colin Tudge suggests that if only Darwin had known the Russian naturalist and activist Peter Kropotkin the world might now be a very different place Two of the most influential books published in the 19th…
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The Science of Ice Cream
Is cookery an Art or a Science? Ice cream making is very much at the Science end of the spectrum as a new generation of gelato makers attest.
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So many goodly creatures
What is Biodiversity? Who needs it? And why bother? A series of essays on the website which could turn into a rather nice book. “How many goodly creatures are there here!” Miranda from The Tempest (V.i 184-187) It is fashionable to care about the natural world – or at least to pretend that we…
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The world beneath our feet
Colin Tudge reflects upon Bruce Ball’s latest book, Healing Soil Truly the things we take for granted – like the Earth, and indeed life — are the most wondrous. Nothing is more taken for granted — and routinely abused — than soil; and yet, as Bruce Ball illustrates in his latest book, Healing Soil, the…
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Who are the real friends of science?
Science is indeed wondrous but it has limitations – which, as Sir Paul Nurse demonstrated in a popular and doubtless influential article published in 2021, are not always recognized by some of its most adept practitioners.
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What will be the message of British Science Week?
British Science Week is celebrating science – which indeed we ought to do. But, says Colin Tudge, we must discuss the caveats too.
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Just to stir the pot a bit more: the concept of “keystone genes”
Colin Tudge reflects on a new bill before parliament that aims to ease the passage of gene editing – and on research from Switzerland that shows once more that nature is not as controllable as some would like.
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GMOs: Seven obvious questions in search of straightforward answers
The commercial-political-scientific momentum is nudging us step by step towards a world of GM crops and livestock. Yet the fundamental questions remain unanswered. Does GM really solve problems that need solving? Is it really intended to save the world, or to maximize short-term wealth and centralize control?