Unexpected research partner

Science rarely looks to non-scientists for ideas and solutions. But on this occasion, the nuns have helped scientists to understand more about the achoques and how to breed them. The nuns gained lots of their understanding from the indigenous people who know where to find the salamanders.

Global Warming and Economic Theory

Fortunately, there are some initiatives to arrive at healthier economic theories. With difficulty, because there are hardly any media that write about these new quests. Names such as ecological economics, bio-economics, eco-economics or eco-capitalism characterize them.

Coronavirus (7) – Groupthink by Governments and Health Authorities

When we proposed in the first blog post about coronavirus that the slow reaction and lax attitude of institutions can partly be explained by the phenomenon of groupthink, we could not imagine that later on groupthink would assume an even more dominant role in tackling the crisis. In the beginning, warnings about an emergent pandemic …

Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (2) – Concepts

In the crucial month of February, in those weeks before the major outbreak in Europe, there was still room to stock up on protective equipment, to scale up the laboratories, to expand the purchase and production of test materials, to prepare for the removal of serum with antibodies in healed patients. Only, it didn't happen. …

Patterns in Medicine

We came across a booklet that could be a good example for the kind of studies by the envisioned Thinkibility University. At its West Wing, scientists dissect the basic thinking patterns in a scientific discipline. Siddhartha Mukherjee was asking himself: If there is a science of medicine, then science has laws. Physics has laws. Chemistry …

Creative Data Collection

Data collection is the process of gathering and  measuring variables of interest, in an established systematic fashion that enables you to answer stated research questions, test hypotheses, and evaluate outcomes. The goal for all data collection is to capture quality evidence that then translates to rich data analysis and allows the building of a convincing and credible …

Crowd Research

There are some fascinating developments which call for some "What If Thinking". Four technological developments Nowadays more or less everyone is connected to someone via the Internet. It is assumed that any person can connect to another person via a friend of a friend, all it takes is six or fewer steps for anyone to …

Thinking Patterns in Science

Some time ago Robert Sheldrake  suggested ten dogmas of modern science. In a TEDx presentation he argued that science,  by using a rigorous method, has become a belief system that has become the default in the scientific community and this system is based on reductionism and  mechanical philosophy. This idea caused an uproar in the scientific …