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University of Chicago demystifies science with annual festival
The fifth annual South Side Science Festival brought thousands to the campus for hands-on science experience and a day of curiosity.
University of Chicago demystifies science with annual festival
The fifth annual South Side Science Festival brought thousands to the campus for hands-on science experience and a day of curiosity.
Ray J suffers cardiac health scare, hospitalized for second time
Ray J remains hospitalized after experiencing another medical emergency – this time in the middle of a livestream.
Corey Day On Pole at Las Vegas; Full Focused Health 302 Starting Lineup
Corey Day may have seen his championship outlook become cloudier after a run-in with William Sawalich a few weeks ago, but on Saturday, the Hendrick Motorsports driver secured a significant track position advantage ahead of Saturday night’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Day took his second career […] The post Corey Day On Pole at Las Vegas; Full Focused Health 302 Starting Lineup appeared first on TobyChristie.com.
Zach Bryan defies Gillette Stadium's Macklemore ban with politically charged shirt
Country singer Zach Bryan’s latest political fashion statement might add more fuel to the ongoing Ed Sheeran-Macklemore tour drama.
The Amazing Work By Valve's Timur Kristóf On Improving Old AMD GPUs On Linux
Over the past year Timur Kristóf of Valve's Linux graphics driver team has made multiple very nice improvements to the AMDGPU kernel driver for enhancing support for old (GCN 1.0/1.1 era from a decade ago) graphics cards so that they can better handle Linux gaming and other tasks
Health department to host free event for families
DOBSON — Being healthy doesn’t need to be boring, which is the aim behind an event planned next Thursday in Dobson.
LETTER: Thompson puts people before politics in response to MIDA concerns
Rep. Jason Thompson’s billboard on Logan’s Main Street shows the legislator with his family and reads “people before politics” in bold letters. This was demonstrated by Rep. Thompson’s rapid-fire response
Ray J rushed to hospital again after medical emergency mid-livestream
Ray J remains hospitalized after experiencing another medical emergency – this time in the middle of a livestream.
Women's Fund to honor four with Dream, Achieve, Inspire awards
NEW HARTFORD — The Women’s Fund of Herkimer and Oneida Counties is celebrating its work supporting women and girls with a dinner at the Yahnundasis Golf Club, 8639 Seneca Turnpike,
Luvs Is Helping Parents With Affordable Diapers That Actually Work
CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 3, 2026--
Olympiacos Eye Contract Renewal for Midfielder Amid Juventus Interest
Olympiacos are moving swiftly to secure Santiago Hezze's future, fighting off European heavyweights Juventus and Villarreal following his pivotal role in their historic continental and domestic success.
Luukkonen gets the net for the home opener
| WGR Sports Radio Buffalo
A gut punch in Ohio: Nearly 1,400 laid off at truck factory just days before Trump rally
President Donald Trump is trying to rally voters in the Dayton, Ohio, area on Saturday. But days ago, 1,400 workers were laid off from a truck factory there.
Mt. Joy plays Madison for student mental health awareness
Mt. Joy performed for UW-Madison students on Thursday as a part of Future Friends, a campus-centric mental health nonprofit.
A real Marine's search for forgiveness became the movie 'Atonement'
NEW YORK − In 2012, filmmaker Reed Van Dyk was doing some Sunday morning reading when he stumbled on a 2012 New Yorker article by Dexter Filkins entitled “Atonement.”
Taylor Swift debuts new curly hairstyle after career milestones
Taylor Swift has once again switched up her "Style."
Christy Carlson Romano opens up about being shot in the face
Christy Carlson Romano is ready for the next chapter of her life, but at one point, her story was nearly cut short.
Taylor Swift debuts new hairstyle after career milestones
Taylor Swift has once again switched up her "Style."
Cleveland Guardians Finalize ALDS Roster, Game 1 Starting Lineup
The Cleveland Guardians announce their ALDS roster and who will start Game 1 against the Chicago White Sox.
Dodgers notes: Attention to detail, Russell Martin, Zach Ehrhard
It’s the start of the Dodgers postseason on Saturday, but here are some related and adjacent stories that aren’t necessarily about the National League Division Series. Andy McCullough at The Athletic wrote about the Dodgers’ place in baseball heading into the postseason, and their role as the main antagonist for many about two months before […]
Christy Carlson Romano opens up about 2025 shotgun blast to the face
Christy Carlson Romano is ready for the next chapter of her life, but at one point, her story was nearly cut short.
Badenoch returns to Conservative conference much stronger than a year ago
Approval ratings for Tory leader and her party have crept up as she has asserted her style and authority but big challenges lie ahead
‘Fraile Forms’ opens Saturday at PUNCH gallery
PUNCH in Thorp presents “Fraile Forms” by artist June T. Sanders in October.
Pat Murphy identifies Brewers’ biggest challenge before Padres NLDS
The Milwaukee Brewers will meet the San Diego Padres in the NLDS after Milwaukee posted the best overall record in MLB during the regular season. San Diego enters the series after finishing the year on a strong note and knocking out the Chicago Cubs in the Wild Card round. A major part of the Padres’ [...]
Two Democrats Competing to Replace Pelosi, Live Onstage
The two candidates vying to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Congress faced off in a live onstage debate at KQED on Oct. 1, moderated by Political Breakdown co-hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli. City Supervisor Connie Chan and State Senator Scott Wiener presented their visions for the future
AROUND THE LAKES: Geneva Theatre Guild announces 49th season
GENEVA — The Geneva Theatre Guild has announced its 49th season, a dynamic year of theater that celebrates local talent, classic storytelling, and the Guild’s long tradition of community‐driven artistry.
White Sox vs. Guardians: Two Keys to Winning the ALDS
The White Sox face a familiar rival in Cleveland as they look to keep their magical postseason run alive and advance to the ALCS. Here’s how they can do it.
Theaster Gates bets on fine china
The famed, Chicago-based artist's career is taking a new direction with the purchase of Pickard China, the sole remaining maker of fine china in the United States.
Workers say safety changes at Ward 86 are just scratching the surface
UCSF workers at other sites concerned about safety as well.
UW College of Business career fair connects students with employers
The University of Wyoming College of Business recently hosted its annual career fair and Meet the Firms events in the Jonah Bank Atrium, bringing employers from across Wyoming and the
Let’s thank the politician who helped drive the Freedom Caucus out of power
I know it’s way too early for a Thanksgiving column. Halloween is still more than a month away.
Cubs Handed Strong Seiya Suzuki Free Agency Prediction
The Chicago Cubs crashed out in the Wild Card Series against the San Diego Padres and now face major offseason decisions, including whether to re-sign Seiya Suzuki.Suzuki hit .270 with 147 hits, 26 home runs, 86 RBIs, and 96 runs scored this season for Chicago, per StatMuse. Meanwhile, in the two Wild Card games against […] The post Cubs Handed Strong Seiya Suzuki Free Agency Prediction appeared first on HEAVY.
Ranchester artist’s work now in all 50 states
Two weeks ago, Katie Coyne realized her online store hit a milestone — she had shipped orders to customers in 48 states. The only two remaining states were New Jersey and Rhode Island. Suddenly, she had a mission.
HIGHLIGHTS: Arizona Compass Prep vs. Odessa
ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – The Arizona Compass Prep Dragons spoiled the Odessa Bronchos’ homecoming as the Dragons won 31-27. With the loss, the Bronchos drop to 2-4, and next week they kick off district play at home against Midland. Watch the video above for the highlights.
Business Briefs for Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026
This week's digest of area business announcements, milestones and news.
What a can of Chef Boyardee taught me about politics...
Four years ago, I asked then-Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney a question about inflation during a video interview. I had no idea that his answer would become the most widely seen moment in Halston Media history. Maloney recalled that when money...
Smaller walnut crop may be good news
USDA announced Oct. 1 that 2026 California walnut production is forecast at 680,000 tons, down 16% from the 2025 production of 809,000 tons. The preliminary estimate of producing bearing acres
Business booming over White Sox postseason excitement
The start of the American League Division Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians is getting closer and excitement is growing.
Veteran Blackhawks Blueliner Gets Brutally Honest on Team’s Struggles
The Chicago Blackhawks 2026-2027 season has gotten off to a brutal start as the team finds themselves 0-2 right off the bat. Their season opener on Tuesday versus the Vegas Golden Knights featured a 5-2 loss. They followed that up by being shutout 6-0 at the hands of the Utah Mammoth on Thursday night. This […] The post Veteran Blackhawks Blueliner Gets Brutally Honest on Team’s Struggles appeared first on HEAVY.
WINK News to host Medicare Help Center as 50,000 Lee Health patients face insurance changes
WINK Investigates is hosting a special event to help answer pressing questions from the community.
Michael Douglas reveals secret Kathleen Turner affair after 40 years
Michael Douglas has dropped a bombshell revelation about his history with Kathleen Turner.
Carbondale business community preps for busy month
CARBONDALE — With SIU students in town, alumni coming to visit and the fall atmosphere finally rolling in, October is a big month for business in Carbondale.
Dragon Lights Reno | Giant Lanterns, Dinosaurs & Interactive Family Fun
Dragon Lights is back in Reno with an all-new nighttime experience! Yu Tong Chen, Event Manager for Dragon Lights, joins Sarah Johns at the Wilbur D. May Arboretum for a
Doobie Brother Michael McDonald meets son he gave up at 14
Doobie Brothers singer and keyboard player Michael McDonald was reunited with the son he gave up for adoption nearly 60 years ago. In the process, the Grammy Award-winning “Yah Mo
Potential measles exposure on a train in Minot | Health and Human Services North Dakota
BISMARCK, ND (Oct. 2, 2026) – A passenger with measles traveled on Amtrak's westbound Empire Builder, which departed Chicago on Sept. 23 and arrived in Minot the morning of Sept. 24. This created a potential exposure risk for passengers and anyone at the station while the train was scheduled to be in Minot from approximately 9:06 to 9:51 a.m. CT. The passenger reported getting off the train to use the restroom at the Minot station at approximately 9:30 a.m.Anyone who was at the Amtrak station in Minot while this train was stopped, as well as passengers who were traveling on this train, may have been exposed to measles. Individuals who may have been exposed and have received at least one dose of measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine or previously had measles (likely those born before 1957) do not need to quarantine but should monitor for symptoms for 21 days after exposure. Individuals who have not received a dose of the MMR vaccine should quarantine (stay home) and monitor for symptoms for 21 days following exposure.
When to stream 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' for free
'Tis the season to tune into a "Peanuts" holiday special.
Pac-12 Announces Gonzaga Women's Basketball Schedule
SPOKANE, Wash. – The Pac-12 Conference announced the 2026-27 women's basketball conference schedule, with Gonzaga set to play a 16-game league slate in its first season as a member of
Chicago expanding mental health crisis response program to double available hours
22 arcade machines stolen from Fort Myers business, suspect arrested
A man is now in custody after 22 arcade gaming machines worth around $95,000 were stolen from a Fort Myers business, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.
Jets at Bears: 3 Props to Play
Its the Chicago Bears vs the New York Jets at Soldier Field. Here are 3 props featuring Cole Kmet, Luther Burden, and Braelon Allen.
Tyra Banks does not enjoy ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ 25 years later: ‘Not even a little bit’
Tyra Banks tells EW she does not look back fondly on making ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ nearly 25 years ago, adding that an agent wanted her to have ‘Halloween H20’ star Josh Hartnett’s career.
The multiplier effect: Wilmington film boosts local business during ‘One Tree Hill’ convention
WILMINGTON — Thousands of fans pilgrimaged to Wilmington almost two weeks ago to celebrate a show that wrapped filming in the city more than a decade ago. Some local businesses felt the boost.
Ed Sheeran, Macklemore fallout shouldn't be personalized, Bono says
U2 frontman Bono has weighed in on the ongoing controversy involving Ed Sheeran after Macklemore was removed from the singer's tour when venues objected to the rapper's pro-Palestinian remarks.
New ADL Initiative Details Exclusion of Jews, Israelis From Art, Entertainment, Publishing
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Thursday released a new initiative that details the exclusion and suppression of Jewish and Israeli…
Richard Hightower on Sam Roush's struggles on Bears special teams
Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower reacted to rookie tight end Sam Roush's struggles on special teams this season.
Tales of bones at Science Café
Davis Science Café is back Wednesday, Oct. 14, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at G Street WunderBar, 228 G St. in downtown Davis.
Mondavi sets trio of shows in early October
The Mondavi Center will be busy during the coming week, hosting three performances in Jackson Hall.
Chicago expanding program meant to help those experiencing mental health crises
Chicago is expanding the Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement program, which helps people experiencing mental health crises.
Dems demanding Venezuela brief face State Dept fury as senators leave town without answers
Senate Democrats challenge the legality of a Pentagon equity stake in Venezuelan oil company NABEP, but the State Department fires back sharply.
Studying Science in an Anti-Scientific Time
This Chronicle Review Deep Cut was first published in 2025. By Julianne Werlin Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe The last two decades have not been kind to science studies. Already bruised and battered by the “science wars” of the 1990s, by the 2000s sociologists of science — who had long argued that science had to be understood in its human context — were encountering the funhouse-mirror version of their own views in right-wing critiques of climate scientists. It was enough to give some prominent scholars pause. “Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies?” asked Bruno Latour, the most famous sociologist of science in the world, in 2003. “Should we apologize for having been wrong all along? Or should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do a bit of soul-searching here: What were we really after when we were so intent on showing the social construction of scientific facts?” In response, Latour proposed a change of method and attitude. Science studies, now chastened and contrite, would no longer seek to strip facts of their authority, but to enrich and enhance them. What this meant in practice was never fully clear. But his diagnosis of problems resonated, even if his solutions did not. Latour’s exercise in public hand-wringing signaled a shift in mood. By 2016, with the first election of Donald Trump, the idea that skepticism of science was a right-wing position, not a left-wing one, had become a commonplace, discussed eagerly in The New York Times. For liberals, vaccine denial during the Covid era and Trump’s second-term attacks on the funding of scientific research, covered extensively in these pages, added a new urgency to the defense of science on both practical and principled grounds. There was little appetite for a sociology or philosophy of science that emphasized the messiness and missteps of the scientific process rather than its integrity and triumphs. The distinguished historian of science Peter Dear’s new book, The World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Science (Princeton University Press, 2025), which seeks to tell the story of 18th- and 19th-century science for a general public, may seem comfortably remote from these bitter contests. In its 16 short chapters, Dear draws swift, sure sketches of major discoveries from Newton to Einstein, ably guiding the reader through debates on stellar nebulae, animal taxonomy, atomic chemistry, evolution, and other flashpoints in the history of science. But though a work of history, Dear’s book must still negotiate our polarized present. In a blurb on its back cover, the historian of biology Lynn K. Nyhart alludes to the “present moment, when scientific knowledge is being swamped by misinformation and its institutions are under siege.” Dear himself, in his conclusion, refers to the “yard signs” and “bumper stickers” that proclaim “Science Is Real.” One antidote to both anti-science propaganda and to reductive slogans in science’s defense is a robust history and philosophy of science: exactly what Dear’s scholarship has long offered. But his new book illustrates how difficult such work has become. Dear, an emeritus professor of history at Cornell University, is best known as a creative and philosophically minded historian of the Scientific Revolution. His edited volume The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument (1991) analyzed the rhetoric of Galileo’s thought experiments to brilliant effect. Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (1995) was a major contribution to the analysis of scientific experiments in early modern Europe and beyond, while Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700 (2001), now in its third edition, remains one of the best overviews of the profound epistemological upheavals of 16th- and 17th-century science. But Dear has also ventured into later periods. Nearly two decades ago, in The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World (2006), he turned to the 18th and 19th centuries to sketch a history and theory of scientific knowledge. Aimed at a generalist audience, Dear’s simple prose belied serious philosophical ambitions. Science, Dear argued, has two aspects: “natural philosophy,” the quest to understand the true nature of the universe, and “instrumentality,” the applied skills and technologies that allow us to manipulate the world for human advantage. Both strands are ancient, but the innovation of the phenomenon we call “science” was to yoke them together. As Francis Bacon wrote, “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known, the effect cannot be produced,” an insight typically abridged to “knowledge is power.” Or, in Bertrand Russell’s characteristically blunt phrase, science has two functions, “1. to enable us to know things, and 2., to enable us to do things.” So far, so conventional. But Dear took issue with this familiar story in one respect. Bacon’s formula implied that theory and practice could be fused in a single method. In fact, Dear argued, the quest to understand nature and the desire to manipulate it were coupled only loosely. They could come together, but they could also pull apart. Focusing on natural philosophy, the “knowing” half of the scientific circle, he used a series of case studies from cosmology, taxonomy, chemistry, electromagnetism, and quantum theory to show how theories changed over time, in dialogue with practice, but never reducible to it. Take the case of matter, the basic substrate of the physical world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists not only disagreed about what it was, but also about how well it could be known. In 1789, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier dismissed speculation about the atomic composition of chemicals as “discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature,” as he sought to orient chemistry away from philosophical abstraction and toward laboratory results. But in the 19th century, atoms returned with a vengeance in the atomic chemistry of John Dalton, who wanted to explain the underlying structure of nature. It was not just that Dalton and Lavoisier had a different set of experimental results, or even a different theory, Dear showed. What counted as an explanation had changed. In arguing that scientific theories depended on their intelligibility to human beings with complex arrays of beliefs and commitments, Dear was in sympathy with science studies. Key figures such as the sociologist Steven Shapin emphasized the importance of psychological mechanisms like trust in the formation and acceptance of scientific ideas. But in focusing on the scientific pursuit of knowledge, not its politics or economics, Dear resisted the more cynical perspective of some of his colleagues. The Intelligibility of Nature strikes a very different note than Shapin’s collection of a few years later, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as If It Was Produced by People With Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority (2010), to name just one example. Walking a very fine line, Dear depicted science as driven at once by complex social dynamics and by the intellectual power of real discoveries. It was a testament not only to his own acumen but also to the vitality of the field that he was able to do so. Nearly two decades later, The World as We Know It returns to the questions broached in The Intelligibility of Nature. Like Dear’s earlier study, it begins with the Newtonian cosmos and ends with debates between Einstein and Bohr on quantum physics. Beyond its terminal figures, many of the same characters appear in both studies, including the naturalists John Ray and the Comte de Buffon; the chemists Étienne François Geoffroy, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton; as well as Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday, among others. Its subject is nearly identical: As in The Intelligibility of Nature, The World as We Know It considers natural philosophy as opposed to instrumentality, here defined as the “desire to create a picture of what the world is really like — the world as God knows it — rather than simply having instrumental or operational control over it.” The two books also overlap in insights — and sometimes even in language. The reader who has learned in The Intelligibility of Nature that Buffon’s method of classifying animals “reflected his belief in the importance of the senses and empiricism in learning about nature (a doctrine associated with Newton and the philosopher John Locke)” will experience a sense of déjà vu on reading, in The World as We Know It, that the classification “reflects Buffon’s commitment to the epistemological stance of Newton and his philosophical underlaborer John Locke, who stressed the role of the senses in creating natural knowledge.” Later in the passage, we read that, “because of its stress on understanding the ways of life of animals in their environments, Buffon’s approach could almost be labeled (anachronistically) as ‘ecological.’” And again, “an anachronistic way of putting it would be to say that Buffon recommends an ecological mode of understanding.” Likewise, in The Intelligibility of Nature we read of Dalton that he was initially drawn to meteorology, and that: He did a bit of experimental work on these things, especially having to do with the water-holding capacity of gases, but his real interest lay in understanding what, at an underlying natural-philosophical level, was really going on physically.” Whereas, in The World as We Know It: He did experimental work on these things, especially concerning the water-holding capacity of gases — although not at a very refined level quantitatively — but he was continually trying to develop a theoretical conception of what was happening physically. The final full chapter of each book closes on the same resigned note. Intelligibility: These days, most serious work on the natural philosophical underpinnings and implications of quantum mechanics is performed not by physicists but by philosophers of science. Among scientific practitioners themselves, Bohr’s attempt to use instrumentality as sufficient grounds for a respectable science has met with a high degree of success. And again, in The World as We Know It: Bohr’s and Einstein’s concerns are now questions that are mostly discussed by philosophers of science rather than by physicists themselves. The marginalization of these sorts of questions amounts to the demise of natural philosophy, at least in physics, in the 20th century. Quantum mechanics “works,” and that’s good enough for most scientists who encounter it. Examples could be multiplied. When handling the same subject matter, some echoes are inevitable. Scholars should not feel that because they have written “Isaac Newton died in 1727” in one book, in the next they must describe him as perishing, expiring, or meeting his maker. But the repetitions of language and arguments (not to mention six reproduced images) threaded throughout The World as We Know It are more extensive than that. They should have been caught by Princeton University Press or its reviewers, and revised. Because the two books have so much in common, it is easy to see where they diverge. The World as We Know It is a less theoretical work than its predecessor. The sociology of knowledge that organized The Intelligibility of Nature has been reduced in scale and folded into readings and examples. The taut interplay between history and theory, which gave the earlier study so much interest, is there, but it is subtle. In the earlier book, the case studies demonstrated theoretical claims about the character and development of science. In the later work, each narrative of discovery is an end in itself. Insights emerge from the history, but they do not control the organization of the study. With the theory muted, it can be hard to understand the logic uniting Dear’s sprawling history of more than two centuries of scientific knowledge. The 16 brisk chapters cover an enormous amount of material. But the closer the volume edges to comprehensiveness, the more obvious the missing elements become. A chapter on “Institutions and Pedagogy,” describing the birth of the research university, illustrates the problem. Inserted roughly halfway through the book, the unnumbered chapter is designed as an “entr’acte,” in acknowledgement that it does not fit the study’s organization around scientific discoveries. Yet as Dear is well aware, no general history of the development of modern science can bracket its 19th-century institutionalization and professionalization. It was the 19th-century university, after all, that gave us the “scientist,” a term coined by the Cambridge philosopher William Whewell. Dear’s history of scientific discoveries implies a wider social and institutional history, but it remains largely subterranean, only occasionally extruded under the pressure of the narrative. It must be said that the balance is not all on the side of the earlier study. There are some advantages to the more historical, less theoretical organization of The World as We Know It. Dear’s accounts of paradigm shifts are remarkably lucid, no small accomplishment given that they span fields and centuries. He makes excellent use of the wealth of new scholarship on Darwin and his influences, to which he has himself contributed. It is satisfying to see puzzle pieces from Buffon’s natural history, Georges Cuvier’s animal taxonomy, Thomas Robert Malthus’s demography, and Charles Lyell’s geology recombined seamlessly in the Darwinian jigsaw. Likewise, Dear’s discussion of stellar nebulae, divided between chapters two and 15, shows vividly how Newton, Kant, Herschel, and Hubble reimagined insights and observations as they sought to discover whether the diffuse light that filtered through early telescopes was a glowing, gaseous substance or discrete but distant stars. Yet despite such pleasures, the book remains a more modest work than The Intelligibility of Nature. Dear has clearly not changed his views about the history of science. But in the two decades that have elapsed, the discipline and the world around it have changed, making it harder to write a sociologically and philosophically ambitious history of science for the general reader. That is a shame, because in the age of Silicon Valley and biotechnology, both the reciprocity and the tensions Dear identified between the epistemological and instrumental ambitions of science are more evident than ever. In recent years, some of the most exciting new books on the history of science in early modernity have focused precisely on this pressure point. Important studies such as Pamela H. Smith’s From Lived Experience to the Written Word (2022), James Poskett’s Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science (2022), and Vera Keller’s The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge (2023) all shed new light on how early modern science negotiated the relationship between its instrumental and epistemological ambitions, or in Russell’s phrase, knowing and doing. There is every opportunity for a philosophically informed approach to draw new insights from this wealth of material. Dear, unfortunately, has not done so in The World as We Know It. But for future scholars of the history of science, his body of work over nearly four decades may provide just the model. Julianne Werlin is an associate professor of English at Duke University. Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe
Scientists search for answers as baby whales wash up dead in Argentina
Scientists in Argentina are trying to find out why unusually high numbers of baby whales are washing up dead along the Patagonian coast
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 911 mental health response teams see uptick, CPD help
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s campaign promise of rolling out a non-police mental health response team is at the center of a new media blitz by his administration.
'This Morning' show host hospitalized after on-air health scare
Alison Hammond, host of the British morning show "This Morning," was hospitalized after she appeared to have a health scare during a live broadcast.
Paramount, Warner Bros. will be named Skydance after merger
David Ellison said the merged Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance — the moniker he picked nearly two decades ago when the tech scion began building his
Moving back the clock: Did animal life begin 200 million years earlier than we thought?
In a new study, a research group including Yale paleontologist Derek Briggs suggests animals may have appeared on Earth as early as 800 to 700 million years ago.
Bishop’s computer science chair says AI is eliminating ‘grunt work’ and reshaping digital jobs
Dr. Russell Butler, chair of Bishop’s University’s Department of Computer Science, says artificial intelligence is increasingly taking over routine digital “grunt work,” changing the skills students and workers may need in the years ahead. Photo courtesy of Bishop’s University. Click here to read our platform! Get local news like this every morning. Subscribe free below. Subscribe Pulse Newsroom Artificial intelligence is already taking over some of the routine digital work once performed by entry-level employees, according to Bishop’s University Computer Science chair Dr. Russell Butler — a shift he believes will make expertise, judgement and the ability to evaluate AI-generated work increasingly important. Butler described the change as automation reaching what he calls the “bottom of the cognitive pyramid” during an interview with The Pulse about AI, university education and the future of digital work. His argument is not that humans are disappearing from the workplace. Instead, he sees their role changing as AI becomes capable of handling more of the repetitive tasks involved in computer-based work. “Everything’s converging on just AI basically doing all the grunt work,” Butler said. The bottom of the cognitive pyramid Butler is from Lennoxville, completed his undergraduate studies at Bishop’s and later earned his PhD at the Université de Sherbrooke. He joined Bishop’s in 2019 and now chairs its Department of Computer Science. He uses AI in research, teaching and other creative work, and said the technology is increasingly capable of handling routine digital tasks that once required substantial human time. “You’ve got the grunt work, like moving things around in Excel, doing basic programming tasks,” Butler said. “That’s like the bottom grunt work that the entry-level worker would have done two or three years ago.” Butler went further, saying in his view that much of this type of work has already been absorbed by AI tools. He connected that change to a shift he sees taking place in computer science, where entry-level roles have declined while experienced workers can use AI to increase what they can produce. “A senior developer now has access to essentially an unlimited amount of junior developers on demand,” Butler said. He was describing AI systems metaphorically, not literal employees. His point was that one experienced developer can now ask AI tools to produce code or other technical work that might previously have been assigned to more junior workers. That raises a broader question for universities and employers. If some of the simpler work traditionally given to newcomers can now be done by machines, how do people gain the experience needed to become senior workers themselves? Students doing work that once required years of programming Butler said he is already seeing the change inside his classroom. He created a Bishop’s course called CS208, Coding in Plain English, to show students — including those without traditional programming backgrounds — what they can accomplish using AI. Some come from disciplines such as psychology or neuroscience with no previous programming experience. “What I’m finding is that students who have zero programming experience, they come in from another discipline like psychology or neuroscience or something, they are now able to get up and running with real data sets,” Butler said. Butler’s own doctoral work involved neuroimaging, and he said he has assigned students work he considers comparable to the kinds of analysis he performed during his PhD. He described giving students a real dataset, an expected result and instructions to use AI to complete the analysis. Butler said those students have been able to carry out work at a level he associates with tasks he once performed after years of programming experience. That does not mean a student using AI instantly acquires the same knowledge as an experienced computer scientist. But Butler sees it as evidence that AI can dramatically lower the technical barrier between having a problem to solve and producing a working result. The role of the person using the system then changes. They need to know what to ask for, understand enough about the subject to judge the answer and take responsibility for what is ultimately produced. What about AI hallucinations? One persistent concern surrounding generative AI is hallucination — when a system produces information that sounds convincing but is false or unsupported. Butler said that problem has improved substantially in newer systems and is not as severe as it was with earlier models. He pointed in particular to newer AI systems’ ability to search the web, consult scientific databases and return source links rather than simply generating a citation from their internal model. Butler nevertheless said users should verify what AI produces. “You should verify,” he said while discussing citations generated with AI. His position is that hallucinations have become less common in the systems he uses, not that incorrect AI output is impossible. Human checking remains part of the process. Hours of work compressed Butler offered another example from his administrative work at Bishop’s. The university has been comparing CEGEP courses with first-year Bishop’s courses to determine where students may qualify for advanced standing. Traditionally, Butler said, that means reviewing two sets of course descriptions and manually matching one institution’s courses with another’s. As department chair, that could require hours of reading and comparison. He said AI can now be given both sets of material and asked to generate an initial mapping automatically. “It saves me hours and hours of work,” Butler said. Butler said the AI-generated mapping can also produce a better result than he would produce himself. He sees similar opportunities in businesses. A company may receive specifications, drawings, emails or other digital material from customers and then have employees convert that information into an internal format before anything can be manufactured or delivered. AI can increasingly perform parts of that intermediate processing. In Butler’s view, the employee does not necessarily disappear. Instead, the job becomes more about checking the result. “The human is still there,” he said. Judgement could become more valuable That change is central to Butler’s view of where digital work may be headed. If AI can produce a first draft, write basic code, compare documents or process large amounts of information, he argues that knowledge and judgement become increasingly important. “The real scarce resource going forward is going to be domain knowledge, expertise, and… credentials, authority, the ability to work with other people,” Butler said. He is therefore encouraging students not only to learn AI tools but also to broaden their education. He mentioned acting, fine art and photography as examples of courses that can help develop what he described as taste and intuition — the ability to recognize what is good, what is not and what should be changed. “And that’s the skill that they need now because the grunt work has been automated and now it’s about evaluating what the AI produces and telling it how to improve or expand the output,” Butler said. That does not remove the need for technical knowledge. Butler’s argument is that the emphasis may shift away from manually completing every step of a task and toward directing, checking and improving work produced with AI assistance. He also stressed that humans remain responsible for final decisions. “At the end of the day, the human has to make the final call,” Butler said, pointing to the question of accountability. Physical work may be different Butler draws a distinction between digital work and jobs requiring people to manipulate the physical world. He expects AI to continue advancing quickly in tasks performed almost entirely on computers. He is more cautious about claims that humanoid robots will soon be able to replace workers such as plumbers or electricians. Butler said those trades would not be replaced “anytime soon” in his view and described some current robotics demonstrations as overhyped. He described the situation as counterintuitive. “It’s almost like we solved the highest level first,” he said, contrasting advances in digital AI with the harder problem of building robots capable of operating reliably in the physical world. Butler’s argument is that some digital occupations could face automation sooner than trades requiring complex physical work. The wider AI shift in the Townships Butler’s comments come as local institutions are increasingly grappling with how AI should be used. The federal government recently announced up to $162 million over five years for 10,000 AI-related placements through Mitacs. The Université de Sherbrooke told The Pulse that the number of its collaborative research and innovation projects supported through Mitacs has approximately doubled since 2018-19, while the number of placements has approximately tripled. UdeS also said it already has projects involving both AI adoption and the application of AI to other fields. At Bishop’s, Butler said part of his role involves building the Computer Science department’s local presence, connecting students with regional partners and strengthening relationships with the Sherbrooke technology ecosystem. Those developments put universities in a difficult position. They have to prepare students to use the tools employers increasingly have available while also making sure graduates understand enough to recognize when those tools are wrong, incomplete or being applied to the wrong problem. The risk of losing human skills Butler does not see AI as risk-free. Later in the interview, he raised a separate concern: as AI becomes better at reading, writing, programming and other cognitive tasks, people could lose some of the underlying skills that historically helped produce new ideas. “The other danger is that we’re going to lose the human skills,” Butler said. He specifically mentioned reading and writing and argued that people could lose some of the lower-level understanding that contributes to breakthroughs. Butler said AI systems are based on existing human knowledge and argued that they become much more powerful when paired with a capable person. That tension runs through his view of the technology. AI can remove hours of routine work. It can allow beginners to perform tasks that once required substantial technical training. It can give experienced workers significant leverage. But the more capable the technology becomes, the more important it may be for people to develop the judgement needed to decide what should be done in the first place. For Butler, that is where education may have to change. Students still need to understand their field. They still need to know when something is wrong. And they still need to be able to make the final decision. But if AI increasingly handles the bottom of the cognitive pyramid, the value of a worker may depend less on how quickly they can perform the grunt work and more on whether they understand what the work is supposed to accomplish. Don’t miss the next story that affects your community. Join thousands of readers getting The Pulse every morning—plus breaking news alerts when it matters most. If you value this kind of local journalism, consider supporting it. Subscribe, share and like! Subscribe Share
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