Sian Wilcox on failure: science’s greatest achievement. When most people think of science, they recall news articles detailing logical and coherent stories that reach a satisfying conclusion. Each neatly packaged piece of research is then further condensed into an eye-catching title that showcases the main finding. Nevertheless, this presentation of science does not recognise the…
Charlotte Green asks which pharmaceuticals are worth developing. When people learn that I study biochemistry, a common joke is whether I’ll find a cure for cancer. As I enter my final year, my mum still thinks it should be my goal. I sometimes wonder why it’s a cure for cancer she wants, rather than dementia,…
Gideon Bernstein wonders if we will ever understand consciousness. Descartes famously proclaimed that his consciousness was the only thing he could be sure of. Yet despite the monumental advances of modern psychology, an explanation of how consciousness arises still eludes us. But will it eventually fall to the incoming tide of knowledge, as so many…
Aditya Ghosh and Sea-Yun Pius Joung explore an unlikely source for ethical guidance. In Ethics, a central problem is what Nietzsche coined as the death of God. ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him’. Unlike the triumphalist tone that New Atheists have framed this in, the original formulation was one of…
