4
POPSGeniuses of Science Next year, we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and the 150th of the publication of his 'On The Origin of Species', which revolutionised our understanding of biology. Approximately 1,000 years before the British naturalist published his theory of evolution, a scientist working in Baghdad was thinking along similar lines. Although the Muslim world is often now seen as ill-equipped for scientific discovery, we can look back to Baghdad and see the origins of the modern scientific method, the world's first physicist and the world's first chemist; advances in surgery and anatomy, the birth of geology and anthropology; not to mention remarkable feats of engineering. (DT)
3
POPSLies, damn lies and twaddle In recent years, thousands of bizarre conjectures have been endorsed by leading publishers, taught in universities, plugged in newspapers, quoted by politicians and circulated in cyberspace. This is counterknowledge: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking. Ideas that once flourished only on the fringes are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc in the developing world.
Newest Clips
see Newest Clips
8
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update