CoveragePost
October 19, 2023
By Jimmy Ellingham, RNZ Checkpoint reporter Science staff and students at Massey University in Aotearoa New Zealand are fighting to save their jobs, and their studies. The cash-strapped university is proposing to slash science courses from its Albany campus, which would hollow out a new high-tech building full of specialised labs. It is part of ... <a title="Massey University science staff, students fight for jobs and studies" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2023/10/19/massey-university-science-staff-students-fight-for-jobs-and-studies/" aria-label="Read more about Massey University science staff, students fight for jobs and studies">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 17, 2022
Essay by Keith Rankin. If … gets up your nose, picket.* This month, Radio New Zealand listeners were treated to not one but two science stories about nose-picking! They make good fodder for a discussion about the practice of science. Self-Vaccination? The first item – Science: Fun-seeking bees, nose-picking primates, death-telling smartphones – was on ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Science, and the Benefits and Costs of Nose-Picking" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/11/17/keith-rankin-essay-science-and-the-benefits-and-costs-of-nose-picking/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Science, and the Benefits and Costs of Nose-Picking">Read more</a>
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July 15, 2022
Essay by Keith Rankin. A scientific hypothesis is a claim that is both plausible and ’empirically’ testable. A hypothesis is the first part of the process of pure science. The second part is to actually test such claims. Claims that survive the rigour of testing become scientific knowledge, a subset of ‘knowledge’. (Not all knowledge ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Science versus Narrative: Facemasks and other scientific matters" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/07/15/keith-rankin-essay-science-versus-narrative-facemasks-and-other-scientific-matters/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Science versus Narrative: Facemasks and other scientific matters">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 26, 2022
Analysis Keith Rankin. One of the major themes in my life, as a baby-boomer growing up in the 1960s, has been the relationship between ‘man’ (aka humankind) and ‘nature’. Science – especially applied science, and western philosophy – was presented as a progressive economic project which involved ‘taming nature’. And indeed there were successes, many ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Nature: Friend or Foe?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/03/26/keith-rankin-essay-nature-friend-or-foe/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Nature: Friend or Foe?">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
December 6, 2021
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Science, in the not-so-recent-past, has often had a bad press. It’s been personified, particularly by the political left, as Frankenstein, as agents of capitalism, classical liberalism, colonialism, sexism (yang over yin), eugenics, and god-like pretension. More recently though, in the zeitgeists of climate change awareness and covid, it’s had an unusually ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Science, Scientists, and Scientism" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2021/12/06/keith-rankin-analysis-science-scientists-and-scientism/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Science, Scientists, and Scientism">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 20, 2021
Covid-Delta, Science, and the Problem of Known Unknowns – Analysis by Keith Rankin. It’s a known known that the late Donald Rumsfeld’s principal legacy to the world is the following quote: “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – the dangers of Delta, versus the dangers of reduced community immunity" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2021/08/20/keith-rankin-analysis-the-dangers-of-delta-versus-the-dangers-of-reduced-community-immunity/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – the dangers of Delta, versus the dangers of reduced community immunity">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
December 18, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. 2020 has been the year of the scientist, or at least the public health scientist. Science is a method, not a discipline; it includes social science, because social science does at least notionally apply the scientific method. While being about the discovery of truth, the scientific method implies that truth (with ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Science: the Good, the Ugly, the False, and the Expedient" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/12/18/keith-rankin-analysis-science-the-good-the-ugly-the-false-and-the-expedient/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Science: the Good, the Ugly, the False, and the Expedient">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
December 8, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. To understand the world we live in, it is important to read books written in different time periods. Older literature does not have access to the latest research and currently fashionable tropes, and they may include some expressions that would be censured today as sexist or racist or similar. All periods ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Microbes and Macrobes; lessons from biology and history" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/12/08/keith-rankin-analysis-microbes-and-macrobes-lessons-from-biology-and-history/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Microbes and Macrobes; lessons from biology and history">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 1, 2020
The Niugini Biomed Ltd papers … seeking to “leap frog” over all the other things Papua New Guinea needs and do drug research. Image: Scott Waide blog We cannot even get National Agriculture and Quarantine Inspection Authority (NAQIA) accredited laboratories up and running around Papua New Guinea for various lab testing our requirements. These labs ... <a title="Challenging covid-19 – two critics of PNG’s K10m drug development plan" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/11/01/challenging-covid-19-two-critics-of-pngs-k10m-drug-development-plan/" aria-label="Read more about Challenging covid-19 – two critics of PNG’s K10m drug development plan">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 21, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin Today’s chart looks back to the years 1917 to 1920, using a sampling device I call the ‘Smithometer’. I have counted the weekly deaths of all people named Smith, from the beginning of 1917 to the end of 1920. At that time New Zealand was a country of 1.2 million people. ... <a title="Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – The Smithometer: New Zealand’s mortality during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/04/21/keith-rankins-chart-analysis-the-smithometer-new-zealands-mortality-during-the-1918-influenza-pandemic/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – The Smithometer: New Zealand’s mortality during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic">Read more</a>
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April 17, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin Today’s first chart looks at death rates for six major countries. We see that Spain has overtaken Italy, and that France and United Kingdom are likely to catch up with these in a week. We also note that United Kingdom death rates, as reported have been understated; these are basically hospital ... <a title="Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – Covid19: Weekly Summary Charts" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/04/17/keith-rankins-chart-analysis-covid19-weekly-summary-charts/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – Covid19: Weekly Summary Charts">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 15, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin Today’s first chart looks at three Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway and Sweden. These give us a basis for analysis of underreporting of Covid19, in the main due to limited testing. Yesterday, Norway was shown as a high incidence ‘recovering country’, even though it was less recovering than South Korea. Iceland, however, ... <a title="Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – Covid19: Nordic Comparisons" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/04/15/keith-rankins-chart-analysis-covid19-nordic-comparisons/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – Covid19: Nordic Comparisons">Read more</a>
