Monday 30 August 2010

Modern Science Map

500 Years of Science, Reason & Critical Thinking via the medium of gross over simplification, dodgy demarcation, glaring omission and a very tiny font.

The map of modern science was created to celebrate the achievements of the scientific method through the age of reason, the enlightenment and modernity.
Despite many of the scientific disciplines mapped having more ancient origins, I have restricted the map to modern science starting from the 16th century scientific revolution.

The map primarily includes modern scientists who have made significant advances to our understanding of the world, however I have also included many present day scientists who fuel a passion for, and advances in, science through communication and science popularisation.

Click the image below to open Version 2.1 of my html Science Map, you will then be able to pan around the map and click on the scientists for more information.



Postscript (4th Sept 2010):


As I mentioned in the comments field myself, many thanks for all the comments and suggestions for improvements.

I must confess it is a little perverse that a jumped up IT consultant should wield the casting vote on which scientists get on my map. So whilst I have endeavoured to make it the best and most relevant list I can, it is still however my personal, and admittedly rather arbitrary selection.

I have now up issued the map to version 1.0 as I am now reasonably confident I have included most of the key scientists of this period. I do however accept that I could make further improvements. For example I'm considering splitting computing from mathematics and I have had some sensible suggestion for reorganising and splitting the chemistry and micro-biology lines.

In the mean time, thanks for all the comments, tweets and links, and if you could link back to this original post rather than just posting a static snapshot that will go out of date, that would be most appreciated.

Thanks
Crispian

Thursday 12 August 2010

The scientific formula for the perfect nonsense scientific formula

We’re all familiar with the pseudo scientific formulas beloved of the media when attempting to add an air of scientific credibility to a crackpot idea or marketing campaign.

These crimes against logic are not peculiar to the Daily Mail either, I’ve seen formulas for the perfect handshake, the perfect penalty kick, the perfect hourglass figure, how to make the perfect cup of tea, the most depressing day of the year and even how to park your car perfectly touted by numerous main stream media sources.

So I thought I’d help them out by writing a scientific formula for creating the perfect nonsense scientific formula.

Here you go:
Where:

Ce = Celebrity (Wherever possible ensure your formula is either relevant to or endorsed by a celebrity

l = Celebrity Status (Obviously your formula is more potent with an A-List celebrity, but take whatever you can get)

tp = Topicality (publish your formula to coincide with a relevant time of year, prominent event, associated news item, disaster or holiday season)

cr = Credibility of the scientist you can cajole into knocking up your nonsense formula

bs = associated nonsense

Wednesday 4 August 2010

comparetheideology.com

My world-view is up for renewal next month.

As an open minded skeptic I thought that rather than just blindly re-subscribing to rationalism for another 12 months, I’d use one of those newfangled world-view comparison websites, just to make sure I couldn’t get a better deal on my ideology.

Here are the results:

Simples.