Science and Technology
Food for Thought
Our best essays on food and eating from the past forty-six years! From a food anthropologist’s early love affair with Chinese cuisine to the farmers’ protests in India, the pieces in this list consider food from political, cultural, and economic perspectives.
The Feminist Past History Can’t Give Us
Recent efforts to commemorate Laura Bassi—a pioneering physicist in eighteenth-century Italy—often say more about us than the world of women in science.
AI Can Still Be Redirected
Final response: It is not too late to put technology to work to create jobs and opportunities and to support individual freedom and democracy.
COVID and the Climate Crisis Can’t Be Separated
—and nor can our health and the health of animals. An earth day reading list.
Women Who Fly: Nona Hendryx and Afrofuturist Histories
A Sun Ra tribute concert by a member of the pathbreaking pop group Labelle leads to reflections on how Black women artists and scientists have often been at the vanguard of their disciplines—though most are still awaiting due recognition.
Why Democracy Needs Privacy
The more someone knows about us, the more they can influence us. We can wield democratic power only if our privacy is protected.
From the Editor: Thinking in a Pandemic
COVID-19 is not just a public health crisis. It is also a crisis of public reason.
How a Popular Medical Device Encodes Racial Bias
Pulse oximeters give biased results for people with darker skin. The consequences could be serious.
The Shape of Epidemics
Epidemic waves serve not just to predict but also to persuade. Their special blend of mathematical and moral messaging will shape the future of the pandemic.
Will Evidence-Based Medicine Survive COVID-19?
The UK government’s ultra-cautious approach to “evidence-based” policy has helped cast doubt on public health interventions. The definition of good medical and public health practice must be urgently updated.
The Totality of the Evidence
As policymakers debate the right response to COVID-19, they must take seriously the harms of pandemic policies, not just their benefits.
Good Science Is Good Science
For the sake of both science and action in the COVID-19 pandemic, we need collaboration among specialists, not sects.
Models v. Evidence
COVID-19 has revealed a contest between two competing philosophies of scientific knowledge. To manage the crisis, we must draw on both.
Hydroxychloroquine and the Political Polarization of Science
How a drug became an object lesson in political tribalism.
As Telemedicine Surges, Will Community Health Suffer?
Early advocates thought it could provide equal access to high-quality care. But private investment has increasingly crowded out public service.
New Pathogen, Old Politics
We should be wary of simplistic uses of history, but we can learn from the logic of social responses.
What Makes Science Trustworthy
The “scientific method” of high school textbooks does not exist. But there are scientific methods.
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