Defending Stephen Jay Gould's Crusade against Biological Determinism

06/24/11 I used to be tough on Stephen Jay Gould, the great evolutionary biologist, who died in 2002. I found him self-righteous and pompous, in person and on the page. In an August 1995 profile of him for Scientific American I summed up his worldview, which emphasizes the role of randomness, or "contingency," in shaping life, as "shit happens." [More]

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ScienceBlog: Finding Good Information On The Internet

07/17/11 Intellpuke: This scenceblog was written by Kevin McCluney and posted on Scientific American's website edition for Saturday, July 16, 2011. McCluney is a postdoctoral research associate in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, also receiving his PhD in biology from this institution in 2010. McCluney conducts research on rivers and streamside animal communities and how water ...

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The Case for Parallel Universe

07/19/11 Editor's note: In the August issue of Scientific American, cosmologist George Ellis describes why he's skeptical about the concept of parallel universes. Here, multiverse proponent multiverse proponents Alexander Vilenkin and Max Tegmark offer counterpoints, explaining why the multiverse would account for so many features of our universe--and how it might be tested.   [More]

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