Retraction of major research on eating: a failure in scientific methodology, or a corrective in the process?

Theory of Knowledge banner

Shock waves in the human sciences! Six more of Brian Wansink’s published papers are being retracted, Cornell University announced September 20 , bringing the total to 13, and the professor has resigned in disgrace.  It is not just scientific peers who are affected as Brian Wansink’s flawed methodology is exposed and his papers are withdrawn from journals. Millions of ordinary […]

Read more

Do Nobel prizes distort public understanding of scientific knowledge?

Theory of Knowledge banner

“Absurd.” “Archaic.” These are surely not descriptions most of us would apply to the world’s most celebrated prize in science. The Nobel Prize, conferring millions of Swedish krone (more than a million American dollars) and everlasting fame upon its recipients, honours the year’s highest achievements in knowledge. Yet even as it grips our imaginations, could […]

Read more

Sharing knowledge – effectively!

Theory of Knowledge banner

“Alone we go fast, together we go far.” So goes the proverb quoted by a leading neuroscientist involved in a major new project bringing together 21 labs in Europe and the United States for research on the brain. The international team aims to discover “where, when, and how neurons in the brain take information from the outside world, make sense of it, and work out how to respond.” What’s interesting for the Theory of […]

Read more

Getting it wrong, getting it right, and generating knowledge questions: “The Forgotten History of Autism”.

Theory of Knowledge banner

Rarely does a 14-minute talk hit so many ideas we explore in Theory of Knowledge or treat them so engagingly. In his 2015 TED talk “The forgotten history of autism”, Steve Silberman hands us a splendid case study of failures and successes in the pursuit of knowledge, and the features that distinguished them. He treats central concepts such as classification (of conditions, […]

Read more

Reliability in psychological science: methodology in crisis?

Theory of Knowledge banner

“Scientific truth is a moving target,” wrote the editors of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) a decade ago. “But is it inevitable, as John Ioannidis argues …that the majority of findings are actually false?” In the decade since the editors posed this question, the psychological sciences have been shaken by further challenges to their credibility, including some widely reported controversies. It was August of this […]

Read more