Spec Tech: In Darwin’s Footsteps

Over the years, I have contributed to several anthologies that ape the form of a scientific compendium. The first of these, and one that undoubtedly influenced subsequent anthologies of a similar nature, was THE THACKERY T. LAMBSHEAD POCKET GUIDE TO ECCENTRIC AND DISCREDITED DISEASES, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts. More recently I contributed……

Spec Tech: Of Mice and Scientists

The summer after I graduated from high school, before I headed west to begin my undergraduate studies at Michigan State University, I worked in a research laboratory at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. In many ways this was a magical summer, one that remains sharply delineated in memory although it……

Spec Tech: The Lone Scientist (Not)

Last month I discovered this old paperback on a bookshelf in my parents’ house: SCIENCE AND THE MORAL LIFE by Max Otto, a posthumous collection of his philosophical works published in 1949. I skimmed through the book and latched onto a verbal nugget that helped inspire this week’s blog. In the essay, “The Scientific Method……