People expect a lot from scientists. Preferably ready-made, unambiguous answers, valid for eternity. But because of science’s critical character and rigorous reality checks of hypotheses, various scientists can give different answers to the same questions. If these questions concern cutting edge research, this is more the rule than the exception. Only after years or even decades of extensive checks, some scientific hypotheses make it into handbook science, that is hardly doubted anymore. But even some handbook science might get overthrown after some time.

“By the end of 2013, 100.000 Europeans have died of starvation.” “One solar storm could destroy power grids all over the world…” Sometimes I wonder why I don’t change my profession from being a science journalist to being a fantasy writer. Just writing whatever sells. It would save days of checking facts. This thought was [...]

Science is what scientists do. But what scientists really do, only partly appears in their scientific publications. In the publications we read what went well, not what went wrong; we read the results, not the struggle to find the results. When I was doing science myself – as a PhD student in physics – I [...]

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” Substitute ‘technology’ for ‘financial product’, ‘nature’ for ‘economy’, and we have formulated the cause of the present day global financial crisis: “For a successful financial product, reality must take precedence over public relations, for economy cannot be fooled.” This [...]