A morsel of personal news. I joined the UCL genetics dept as a 1st year undergraduate in 1994, then the Galton Laboratory. Today I became a Professor of Genetics in the same dept, thus proving that if you hang around long enough they eventually concede.

A very accomplished psychologist once accidentally blurted out that the way you tell if a famous study in psychology was unverifiable was if there was a TED talk about it.

I’ve been writing about xenotransplantation and monkey/goat glands. There’s a field that does both simultaneously.

Love the wording ‘real pseudoscience’!

Wise words! I guess what we’re discussing is the meaning of pseudoscience. Does it have to have malice of forethought or a scam element to it? I try to use the phrase ’what we would now consider pseudoscience’ in my books and talks.

Also worth noting that many of the British eugenics advocates did think Davenport’s work pseudoscience, even though they agreed with the politics. Pearson was extremely critical of the CSH output for being poor quality science.

My online girlfriend was so shocked by the Ukraine drone strike on the Russian data centre that she's been too upset to message me all day.

Also: both Haldane and Huxley were at times very supportive of eugenics. It’s not so simple to rule them out from the positive concensus.

I do take this point, though I think it’s minor. I did go to some lengths to explain it in the book. But I was a couple of years early; there’s nothing new above.

One day, we will look back on the musings of these egomaniacal showboating cranks who somehow convinced first academia and subsequently the world that they had some sort of philosophical wisdom beyond the reach of mortals.

Books are woke.

Wait what, Tom Watson went to work for Palantir??

<Adam has entered the chat>

Absolute trash, by trash people who are not scientists

Oh good find!

I think this might be a new category: metamansplaining

Can't believe the rejected mine. The Doctor and companion to be played by Lauren Layfield and Hacker T. Dog. Davros is back but he's Grotbags. The Master played by Pinky from Pink and the Brain.

I have similar complaints about Best Kebabs in Catford.