Shawn Otto’s “The War on Science”

Shawn Otto has written a new book on science denialism, entitled The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About it.

Otto argues that modern science is under attack from three directions: (a) the academic left, which has asserted that science has no claim to objective truth, (b) the religious right, which has fought evolution and more under the banner of biblical literalism, and (c) the industrial world, which has fought scientific findings in the area of health and environmental protection.

Otto observes that science denialism is rooted, surprisingly enough, in the academic left.

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Why science needs the humanities

Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) awe-struck at a galaxy in “Contact”

Introduction

Earlier this year, Kentucky governor Matt Bevin declared that state colleges and universities should educate more electrical engineers and fewer French literature majors: “All the people in the world that want to study French literature can do so, they are just not going to be subsidized by the taxpayer.”

Other politicians have sounded a similar refrain. Governor Patrick McCroy of North Carolina suggested basing funding on post-graduate employment rather than enrollment, or, as he put it rather crudely, “It’s not based on butts in seats but on

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Jonathan Borwein dies at 65

It is my sad duty to report that our colleague Jonathan Borwein, Laureate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Newcastle, Australia, has passed away at the age of 65. He is survived by his wife Judith and three daughters. For details on his funeral and for making donations to a scholarship fund in his name, see the obituary below.

Jonathan M. Borwein

What can one say about Jon’s professional accomplishments? Adjectives such as “profound,” “vast” and “far-ranging” don’t really do justice to his work, the sheer volume of which is astounding: 388 published journal articles, plus another 103

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Welcome to the Math Scholar blog

Readers are welcome to the Math Scholar blog.

For over seven years, noted mathematician Jonathan M. Borwein and the present editor published essays, news items, quotations and book reviews to our Math drudge blog (236 posts in total). Our posts have ranged from notices of new mathematical discoveries to exploring the meaning of recent discoveries in physics, biology and computer science.

Sadly, Jonathan Borwein passed away on 2 August 2016. As the editor wrote the day of his passing,

Jon’s passing is an incalculable loss to the field of mathematics in general, and to experimental mathematics in particular. Jon is

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