Martin Robbins is a Berkshire-based researcher and science writer. He edits The Lay Scientist, a community blog about science, pseudoscience and evidence-based politics
A killer machine-learning algorithm guiding the U.S. drone program has killed thousands of innocent people according to some reports. What’s the truth?
For years I believed that tuition fees promoted inequality. But not only could scrapping fees be a terrible idea, there’s also a far better place to put the money
Even with its flaws, last year’s Ex Machina perfectly captured the curious relationship between artificial intelligence, God and ego. A tiny change in its closing moments would have given it an intriguing new dimension.
The Shoreham plane crash has prompted calls for a review of airshow safety. But everyday safety on Britain’s A roads is an issue receiving little attention
Martin Robbins: The white, male European conquerors of the New World and 19th-century American pioneers of Manifest Destiny and still colour the space age, so is it a myth that we’ll turn nice on Mars?
Martin Robbins: The number of baby deaths in the UK is still shocking, especially for poorer families. In a few days’ time you can do something about it
Martin Robbins: What are the most expensive kinks? Is porn keeping track with inflation, and is it possible to map ‘fetish-space’? Porn metadata could help find the answers to these and many other questions about human sexuality.
Martin Robbins: A hundred and eighty years ago, Darwin visited the city of Santiago, Chile. Generations later, one of its residents has worked for months to recreate his voyage in Lego; and soon you might be able to build it too.
The paywalls of scientific publishers contain a wide range of extremely racist material from some of the darker eras of 20th century history. How should they be dealing with it?
Martin Robbins: The CIA built up a multi-million dollar system of bad science that insulated them from the truth about torture. The psychologists involved should be banished from the scientific community
Martin Robbins: A poorly researched diatribe on the ‘youth of today’, Susan Greenfield’s exploration of Mind Change reads like a Littlejohn column wrapped in the trappings of science
Andrew Holding: It’s easy to dismiss the parents of Ashya King as scientific illiterates in need of a good education, but science engagement that assumes and mocks ignorance is offensive and rarely effective.
