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iPhone Duo shows what the future of smartphones could look like
Since the unveiling of iPhone Duo, the idea of all major interface navigation elements being accessible from your thumb has...
White Sox offseason business during the postseason: Arbitration figures, play-by-play future
The last two times the White Sox were in a real postseason — 2008 against the Rays, 2021 against the Astros — they fell behind 2-0 in the the ALDS, and had to scratch out Game 3 victories each time in order to ensure that they wouldn’t participate in the bare minimum of games. Three…
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
Their anxiety is fueling a restlessness with a national political system that they worry is no longer capable of improving their lives or no longer interested in helping.
Despair fuels political anxiety for college students
Many college students today are feeling anxious about their future.
At San Francisco General, researchers are learning how to control HIV without drugs
Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital's famed AIDS clinic have shown the immune system can be primed to keep the virus in check — a promising advance just as U.S. funding cuts threaten future research.
Jalen Duren Has Clear Message for Pistons’ Fans
Jalen Duren delivered a strong message about his future in Detroit after signing a five-year, $200 million contract with the Pistons.
Jagex Announce RuneScape 4 And Cartoon With MoistCr1tikal
The long running fantasy MMO will receive a major new installment in the future, the first in the mainline series to take advantage of Unreal Engine
Milan to battle it out with Roma over Endrick loan
Endrick’s future could become one of the hottest topics between Italy and Spain. Roma and Milan continue to closely monitor the situation of the Brazilian Real Madrid striker, who was already on bot...
Political cartoons for October 4
Sunday’s political cartoons include cratering popularity, AI fears, and more
Sam LaPorta, Lions end contract talks: report
Contract talks between the Detroit Lions and tight end Sam LaPorta have stalled, leaving his future uncertain.
What Is DSA in Politics? Inside the Fight Over Democrats’ Future
What is DSA in politics? Explore the Democratic Socialists of America, its electoral gains, policy goals and tensions within the Democratic Party in 2026.
Ukraine’s Science Under Fire: Russia Is Targeting Knowledge, People and the Future
Russian strikes are killing scientists, destroying laboratories and equipment, and putting Ukraine’s scientific and technological capacity at risk.
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students
Their anxiety is fueling a restlessness with a national political system that they worry is no longer capable of improving their lives or no longer interested in helping.
Retailers are making returns harder. A carpet seller taught me why that’s a mistake
A standard business practice offsets future costs by funding a reserve for returns – but many small businesses don’t do it
Taylor Morrison snags 406 lots near TSMC's $265B Phoenix development
Homebuilders are shifting toward aggressive bulk lot acquisitions to lock down future inventory, with more to come.
Lions, Sam LaPorta reportedly end contract extension talks
The Lions and Sam LaPorta reportedly failed to reach an agreement on a new deal, leaving the tight end’s future in Detroit uncertain.
Particle collider experiment recreates the Big Bang's primordial soup — and finds an unexpected twist
A particle collider experiment just revealed something unexpected about how the fiery soup of particles that filled the universe after the Big Bang coalesced into the protons and neutrons that make up matter today.
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University.
A Black community in Louisiana faces a future without a champion in Congress after redistricting
Scotlandville is a predominantly Black community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that’s facing challenges in its political representation
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University.He will
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University.
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University.
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
Many college students today are feeling anxious about their future.
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
(AP) — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University. He will graduate in the spring with an economics degree and an interest in dat...
Despair over future fuels political anxiety for college students on the cusp of adulthood
Many college students today are feeling anxious about their future. They have concerns about their job prospects, homeownership and impending adulthood. Michigan State University student Frankie...
Despair Over Future Fuels Political Anxiety for College Students on the Cusp of Adulthood
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Frankie Llerandi, 21, has been unable to land a single internship in his three years at Michigan State University. He will graduate in the spring with an economics degree and an interest in data analytics, but true adulthood seems maddeningly far away. Most of his cousins ...
A Black community in Louisiana faces a future without a champion in Congress after redistricting
Scotlandville is a predominantly Black community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that's facing challenges in its political representation.
A Black community in Louisiana faces a future without a champion in Congress after redistricting
Scotlandville is a predominantly Black community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that's facing challenges in its political representation.
A Black Community in Louisiana Faces a Future Without a Champion in Congress After Redistricting
SCOTLANDVILLE, La. (AP) — If you cross the Mississippi River on the Huey P. Long-O.K. Allen Bridge, pass the Exxon Refinery, then head north for a few minutes, you'll find a pocket of Louisiana that's unlike any other place in America's never-ending battle over what it means to have equal ...
Weird girls, your next shelf collectible is a stack of Robert Pattinsons
Why A24’s nesting dolls are perfect.
Blue Origin unveils huge 'Power Tower' to boost solar electricity on the moon (video)
"Our Power Tower is a 20-meter-tall, vertically deployed solar array system designed to provide more than 10 kilowatts of power for Moon Base operations at the lunar south pole."
Auroras appear in broad daylight in Smile spacecraft's eerie first images of Earth — Space photo of the week
The joint European-Chinese Smile satellite officially began its science operations this week, sharing a ghostly image of Earth's sunlit North Pole ringed by giant auroras.
Future of French far-right star in balance after antisemitism claims
After one of the most meteoric rises in the history of French politics, Jordan Bardella, the 31-year-old top ally of Marine Le Pen, is fighting for his political life after
Do animals experience schadenfreude?
Schadenfreude, or pleasure at seeing another's pain, is a complex emotion. So can animals besides humans experience it?
Liverpool keeping tabs on Barcelona midfielder Bernal
Liverpool and Atletico Madrid are keeping tabs on the situation of Barcelona midfielder Marc Bernal.The teenager is set to assess his future should his minutes not increase under Hansi Flick, having b...
Dana White answers critics: UFC 332 takeaways as Silva, KOs highlight night
UFC 332 delivered nine first-round knockouts and several major takeaways for the sport's future.
Georgia no. 1, Tennessee third in business magazine rankings
For the 13th straight year, Area Development magazine has put Georgia atop of its 2026 list of top states for doing business. Tennessee came in at No. 3 on the list, just behind Texas.
Manchester City faces uncertain future after 114 charges upheld
Manchester City face renewed uncertainty after reports that an independent commission upheld 114 of 115 Premier League charges. The club denies wrongdoing and has appealed, while potential sanctions remain unknown. The case could have major sporting and financial consequences for City and wider English soccer.
Business as usual for Buescher and Preece following Keselowski departure announcement
Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece will miss Brad Keselowski as a teammate at RFK Racing, but neither seem concerned about the company’s future.
PlatinumGames talks Nintendo Switch 2, offers brief comment on Bayonetta's future
PlatinumGames has offered a few words about Nintendo Switch 2 as well as the future of Bayonetta. PlatinumGames CEO Atsushi Inaba was recently taking part in a joint discussion with Shift Up’s Kim Hyung Tae. For those who missed the news, the companies recently announced a collaboration which will bring special Bayonetta costumes to Stellar Blade in time for the...
6 Baltimore Orioles Prospects Land on Top 100 Prospect List
The future is bright for the Baltimore Orioles.
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.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says he "did his best" to fight for a full disc release
Naoki Hamaguchi says he fought for a disc release of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, as the industry heads towards an all-digital future.
Diamondbacks News
The regular season is over. The team extended their skipper. Now the owner is adjusting the future expectations.
iPhone 18 Pro Max vs Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: which should you choose?
Two of the very best phones compared
Phil Castellini Sends Message About Reds' Future After Rough Season
The Reds' new control person spoke for the first time since taking over, and he had firm answers about the front office and the team's ownership.
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.
'I Did My Best' — Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Director Responds to Fans Asking for Full Disc Version
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Naoki Hamaguchi said he did his best to fight for a disc release as the industry heads toward a "future where physical media is essentially disc-less."
Seattle and San Francisco: Big tech, political backlash and the AI boom
In a live joint recording of the GeekWire and Blue City Blues podcasts, GeekWire's John Cook, historian Margaret O'Mara and journalist Jonathan Weber join Blue City Blues hosts David Hyde and Sandeep Kaushik to discuss the tech industry's tensions with Seattle and San Francisco, and what the AI boom means for the future of both cities.
1 in 8 cancer cases are caused by infections, underscoring the importance of vaccines, experts say
Four pathogens account for most infection-related cancers, a new study highlights, but the tools to prevent them range from well-established vaccines to treatments still under development.
'Back from outer space': How Karina Rykman escapes from Earth in her new album 'Late Checkout'
Space, touring and the daily grind collide on Rykman's latest record.
What happens when a brand story moves beyond advertising and into entertainment? Industry leaders explore the future of branded storytelling on OTT, from new formats and shoppable content to live…
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
Menopause is a major health milestone, yet health records barely track it—new research
Anyone with ovaries who lives long enough will experience menopause. While menopause is a natural transition in midlife, it can strongly affect a person's quality of life and their current and future ...
Ocean chemistry on ancient Earth could help scientists search for life on alien worlds
"Earth's history shows that oxygen, nutrients, and life evolved together. Understanding those connections gives us a more nuanced perspective on our own planet's future and what we might look for on other planets."
Candidate profile: Jennie Hill wants a thriving future for Wilsonville businesses
The Review is running profiles of all City Council candidates in Lake Oswego, West Linn and Wilsonville prior to the November election. Jennie Hill is a familiar face in Wilsonville. […]
'Giant tusks from Siberia were thought to be the horns of the mythical unicorn': What medieval people made of fossils before vertebrate paleontology
In this excerpt from "The Story of the Mammals in 25 Discoveries," author Donald R. Prothero looks at a time when the idea of extinction was blasphemous.
Capcom details plans to evolve RE Engine into an ‘AI-generation game engine’
Programmer says Capcom’s goal is a future ‘where we create games together with AI’…
Could psilocybin treat brain injuries? Neuroscientist explains how psychedelics could fill a gap in head trauma care
Live Science spoke with neuroscientist Argel Aguilar-Valles about recent research exploring psychedelics as a treatment for mild head trauma.
Japan's impact on Mississippi takes center stage with 18,000 jobs
Mississippi leaders and Japanese officials discussed trade, jobs and the future of a key international partnership at Millsaps.
The most surprising things about Etihad's new first and business class
Etihad is bringing a new Airbus aircraft to its fleet in 2027, and I got an early look at its premium seats. Here's what future passengers can expect.
Could we ever create artificial gravity on a spaceship?
Microgravity poses severe health risks for astronauts. But could there be a solution?
Konami teases that Belmont's Curse won't be the end for Castlevania
Konami has been a bit quiet with Castlevania until recently, but the publisher has teased more to come for the franchise in the future. Castlevania stepped back into the spotlight with the special DLC made for Dead Cells back in 2023. Now in just a few days, we’ll be getting Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse – the series’ first new, major release...
The political walking dead: Germany’s zombie chancellor
A string of poor election results has left Friedrich Merz with unprecedentedly low approval ratings
Capcom Announces Plans to Transform the RE Engine Into an AI-Generation Game Engine — ‘Our Goal Is a Future Where We Create Games Together With AI’
Resident Evil and Street Fighter developer Capcom revealed some big changes coming to its RE Engine, which they plan to gradually improve and transform into an "AI-generation game engine."
Kings’ Sabonis Sent to Raptors in 4-Team Trade Idea
A blockbuster proposal ships the three-time All-Star north to anchor Toronto’s frontcourt, landing Sacramento a massive haul of veteran defensive depth and promising future draft capital.
Top Three Questions the Astros Must Answer During the Offseason
With the season over and Joe Espada's future uncertain, the Astros face a pitching staff in need of help and a handful of young players that might see more playing time in 2027.
Connecting Medical Training to the Future of Care
Physician training doesn’t stop at the bedside. Residents also grow by teaching, leading and mentoring others. Sutter Health brought that approach to this year’s Latino Medical Student Association National Conference, where it served as a diamond-level sponsor. The event brought together medical students, pre-med students, residents and health care leaders from across the country. Now […]
Android 17 QPR3 Beta 1 gives us an early look at next year’s Pixel updates
Android 17 QPR3 Beta 1 is here to fix your Pixel’s worst bugs.
Shaping the Future of Global Health: 'Go Healthy with Taiwan 2026' Unveils Top 20 Innovators from 62 Nations
TAIPEI, Taiwan, October 02, 2026--The "Go Healthy with Taiwan 2026" global proposal campaign has selected 20 semifinalists from 832 proposals across 62 countries, with two more rounds of selection still to come. The 20 shortlisted teams hail from 16 countries worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, France, India, Israel, Japan, Malawi, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Spain, Tunisia, Ukraine, and U.S.A., fully demonstrating strong international diversity and innovative energy.
STC: Preparing the Workforce of Tomorrow
What does the future of transportation mean for the Rio Grande Valley workforce? South Texas College President Ricardo Solis sees opportunities in logistics, international trade, and emerging technology. Through industry partnerships, STC is connecting workforce training with employers’ needs and preparing for electric trucks, automation, and artificial intelligence.
TRANCASA: A First Look at Electric Trucking
TRANCASA is preparing to test its first Tesla Semi, taking another step toward innovation in South Texas transportation. At the Pharr Truck Expo, Carlos Canales and his team showcased the company’s focus on technology and the future of cross-border logistics. How do you see electric trucks changing the industry?
European Leaders Mostly Optimistic About Paramount-WB's Future
European industry leaders are cautiously optimistic now that Paramount is about to complete its takeover of Warner Bros., but there are many unknowns.
Scientists connect cosmic fingerprints of the universe's first stars with MEGATRON simulation
Sorry Optimus... The connection comes courtesy of MEGATRON.
Rare two-headed turtle hatchling discovered on Cape Cod
A two-headed turtle hatchling is one of three bicephalic terrapins that have been found on Cape Cod over the past five years.
Brazil’s future depends on science
With the upcoming Oct. 5 elections, the country has a new opportunity to strengthen scientific research as a foundation for addressing today’s challenges and bolstering its sovereignty.
Gasperini: “I came to Roma to build something new.”
Gian Piero Gasperini spoke from the Trento Sports Festival. From individuals to his relationship with the fans, through memories and the future. On his arrival in Rome: “Everyone was eagerly awaitin...
'The Day the Earth Stood Still' at 75: A sci-fi classic whose timeless themes still resonate today
Klaatu barada nikto! Three-quarters of a century on, Robert Wise's tale of alien visitation still has plenty to say.
Investing in our schools benefits the business community
There are certain moments in the life of a community when we are called to think beyond the present and invest in the future we hope to create. For me, […]
Weiser joins lawsuit challenging new fuel economy standards
“The federal government’s backsliding on standards for the next five years requires less fuel economy than what the U.S. fleet of new cars and trucks achieved in 2021. Rolling back fuel efficiency standards will cost Coloradans even more at the gas pump, harm public health, and undermine our nation’s position in the EV market. These clean car rules are part of our clean energy future and that’s why we are challenging this illegal action,” said Attorney General Weiser.
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
Animals may have evolved 200 million years earlier than previously thought, new study suggests
After using a technique called molecular clock analysis, researchers have proposed that the origin of animals could be 200 million years earlier than thought.
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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