The Brain Scientists of the Qing Dynasty

On April 16, 1618, the Jesuit scientists Adam Schall and Johann Schreck (a friend and colleague of Galileo) set sail from Lisbon, Portugal, bound for China1. In Schall’s possession was a book about the human body, and it championed the radical idea that the mind is created by the brain. This book, authored by the […]

Elitism is a Threat to Science

Science is highly exclusive: the vast majority of people cannot participate in research, access research articles, influence what gets researched, or influence science-related policy-making. This exclusivity is worrisome, not only because it is unfair (and that unfairness is not evenly distributed across different groups of people), but also because it is a threat to science […]