knowledge is power - Fresh Lime Soda

The passive is political

Oct 1, 2020 4 min read

If Saruman is the stupid shit people say, I have often found Grima Wormtongue is the use of the passive voice. To the uninitiated: Wormtongue was a slimy fellow on Saruman's side in The Lord of th…

Science journalism, expertise and common sense

Mar 30, 2020 4 min read

Op-eds Scicomm Science ad hominem authoritarianism CDDEP cherry-picking common sense complexity coronavirus COVID-19 epistemology expertise knowledge is power novel coronavirus Ramanan Laxminarayan science journalism Times of India

On March 27, the Johns Hopkins University said an article published on the website of the Centre For Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP), a Washington-based think tank, had used its logo wi…

Something worse than a flat-Earth society

May 11, 2018 3 min read

Scicomm flat earth society knowledge is power Michael Foucault Ramar Pillai

Read two interesting articles this morning: An editorial in the Indian Express about how India is the "land of the gullible", where even the "mere trappings of science suffice to tanta…