Author Archives: Stephen

From interviews that were published last week by the Financial Times and The Guardian, I get the sense that the new President of the Royal Society, Professor Sir Paul Nurse, is almost as sick of the Musk affair as I … Continue reading →

I read recently – I can’t remember where – that people who say “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like” actually do know quite a bit about art. More than average at any rate. I … Continue reading →

My annual selection of favourites from the photographs I took in the past year is now available on Flickr. Do people still use Flickr? I have broken my usual rule of not including family photos because of the very exceptional … Continue reading →

Ironically, in the week when my co-authors and I are publishing a paper proposing framework to tackle the reluctance of researchers to publish negative results, one of the most important null results of recent times – the lack of any credible link … Continue reading →

Four months after my open letter calling on the Royal Society to take action over Elon Musk FRS’s breaches of their code of conduct had attracted thousands of signatures from the scientific community, but only a very muted response from that most … Continue reading →

Update (17:00 03 Mar): all members of the UK or international scientific community were invited to indicate their support by signing the letter. The opportunity to do so closed at 17:00 UK time on 03 March. The final tally of … Continue reading →

There is an air of defeatism in progressive circles today, the day Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term as President of the United States of America. Some of the reasons behind this sense of frustration and … Continue reading →