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The scores are in. Who received low, high scores in health inspections?
Several restaurants in Bryan and Effingham Counties scored above 90 on the most recent health inspection.
Democratic mayors in red states launch new group to counter MAGA and far-left extremes
Cleveland Mayor Bibb will lead Blue Cities/Red States, launching next week.
A toddler’s wobbly walk, hand tremors send parents on a medical journey
Doctors initially told the boy's parents not to worry. But they pressed for years until a rare diagnosis became clear.
Marshall University Top Scholar applications open now through Dec. 15
HUNTINGTON — Applications for Marshall University’s Top Scholar Program opened Thursday, Oct. 1, giving incoming students the opportunity to be considered for some of the university’s most prestigious scholarships through
Brenda Lucas: Community news for Saturday, Oct. 3
Click for community news in the Huntington, West Virginia, and Tri-State area.
Hardee’s Friday Night Blitz Week 6
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1 (3-3)BLACKSBURG 34, (3-3)CAVE SPRING 27 (5-0)WILLIAM BYRD 40, (4-1)RADFORD 35 (5-1)AUBURN 34, (0-6)GILES 14 (4-1)THOMAS JEFFERSON-RICHMOND 14, (4-1)HERITAGE 7 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2 (5-0)ROANOKE CATHOLIC 18, ST. FRANCIS ACADEMY 2 FORK UNION 35, (2-4)NORTH CROSS 33 (5-1)PARRY MCCLUER 43, (0-5)SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE CHRISTIAN 21 (3-2)ALTAVISTA 55, (2-4)DAN RIVER 7 (3-3)APPOMATTOX 49, (2-3)CHATHAM 7 […]
Where to watch Duke basketball Countdown to Craziness: Time, TV schedule, channel, live stream for 2026 event
Here's everything you need to know about Duke basketball Countdown to Craziness, including TV channel and streaming options for the preseason event.
Public Health Director Chris Crum honored by KHDA
GREENUP, Ky. — Greenup County Health Department recently announced that Public Health Director Chris Crum was selected as the recipient of the Kentucky Health Departments Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
Konami teases that Belmont's Curse won't be the end for Castlevania
Konami has been a bit quiet with Castlevania until recently, but the publisher has teased more to come for the franchise in the future. Castlevania stepped back into the spotlight with the special DLC made for Dead Cells back in 2023. Now in just a few days, we’ll be getting Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse – the series’ first new, major release...
5 Must-Visit Places for Science in Paris
From the pioneering work of Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur to today’s research into space, medicine, climate and technology, scientific discovery has long been woven into the country’s history.
Late score boosts Mount Vernon over East Newton
Mount Vernon utilized a late score to find a win over East Newton. Check out the highlights!!
Henderson County loses close game to George Rogers Clark
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) — After trailing 21-7 at halftime, Henderson County high school football team battled back against George Rogers Clark to lose in the end 53-48. Next the Colonels will travel to Christian County to take on the Tigers.
Liam Coen on Travis Hunter's usage: "He cares about winning"
Blitz on 2: Week 7
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (WCBD): Hanahan 21 – Oceanside 31 Fort Dorchester 0 – James Island 56 Wando 3 – Berkeley 52 Socastee 19 – Cane Bay 14 Hilton Head 14 – Lucy Beckham 0 Stratford 3 – West Ashley 16 Stall 0 – Ashley Ridge 73 Goose Creek 6 – Carolina Forst 41 Bishop […]
Heritage Hills picks up a victory over Mt. Vernon
MOUNT VERNON, Ind. (WEHT) — The Heritage Hills Patriots beat the Mount Vernon Wildcats, 25-7. The Patriots will face North Posey next week, while the Wildcats go up against Washington.
Extra Point, Week Six: Slocomb hosts Bullock County
America wants to wean itself off Chinese technology. Will the pain pay off?
Seven years after founding a robotics startup in San Francisco, Rajat Bhageria is confronting a daunting new task: building robots without any help from China.
NAMI New Mexico to host behavioral health community forum
The free event invites residents to ask city and county leaders tough questions about the region’s behavioral health system.
Huddle Highlights
Thursday Night Games Austin vs. East Limestone Final Score: Austin 54, East Limestone 12 Randolph vs. Madison Academy Final Score: Madison Academy 31, Randolph 30 Plainview vs. Geraldine Final Score: Plainview 17, Geraldine 6 Fyffe vs. Ider Final Score: Fyffe 62, Ider 0 Friday Night Games Deshler vs. West Morgan Final Score: Deshler 35, West […]
Luzerne County Arts & Entertainment Hall of Fame names 20 inductees for 2026
The Luzerne County Arts & Entertainment Hall of Fame was established in 2022 by Joe Nardone Sr. and Bill O’Boyle, and was announced at a news conference at the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts on October 20 of that year.
Three graduate Wyoming County Business Accelerator
WARSAW — Three Wyoming County entrepreneurs are moving forward with new skills, plans and connections after graduating from the Wyoming County Business Accelerator Academy.
Hempfield falls to Penn Manor | Friday Night Football Week 6
(WHTM) — It was a clash of two good Lancaster County teams in week six as Hempfield hosted Penn Manor. It was Penn Manor coming away with the victory with a score of 28-23. Penn Manor’s record is now 5-1, while Hempfield falls to 3-3.
'Gold Rush': Rick Ness Reveals Dangerous Health Issue in Dramatic Season 17 Premiere
Plus, Parker Schnabel finds himself on Tony Beets' property line while a new face joins the treasure hunt.
$10 million political check is not aimed at any particular Oregon race this year, union says
The largest single political donation on record in Oregon arrived mid-September in the account of Building a Stronger Oregon, a political action committee controlled by carpenter unions.
Barbour Community Health Association appoints new finance chief
Nathan Channell is the new chief financial officer of Barbour Community Health Association. His experience includes banking, accounting and financial reporting.
Tulane Women’s Cross Country Continues Campaign at Nicholls
The Green Wave women's cross country are looking at their final slate ahead of the outdoor championships.
Connecting Medical Training to the Future of Care
Physician training doesn’t stop at the bedside. Residents also grow by teaching, leading and mentoring others. Sutter Health brought that approach to this year’s Latino Medical Student Association National Conference, where it served as a diamond-level sponsor. The event brought together medical students, pre-med students, residents and health care leaders from across the country. Now […]
Shawnee County Health Department discusses public health challenges and solutions
The Shawnee County Health Department held its Annual Community Conversation, bringing together local leaders to discuss public health and how to better serve residents.
Irvine bat tests positive for rabies, OC Health Care Agency says
Orange County Health Care Agency said the bat was found in a neighborhood near Canyon View Elementary School
Healthcare Has Normalized The Abnormal. Raj Panjabi’s New Book Explains Why.
A new book from former Biden official Raj Panjabi unpacks the notion of “normalcy bias.” It may help explain how we have come to accept our country’s underperforming healthcare system.
Hochul puts support behind closing 'voluntary intoxication loophole'
The State Senate has passed the bill multiple times.
Southport fire chief files lawsuit against Novant Health after mother’s fatal fall
Southport’s fire chief has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Novant Health and an attending doctor, alleging hospital staff ignored warnings that his 67-year-old mother was at high risk of falling before a fatal bathroom fall triggered an untreated brain bleed.
Eugene Science Center celebrates World Space Week Oct. 4-10
Eugene Science Center is celebrating World Space Week with free events, discounts and special activities from Oct. 4-10.
Health department issues warning after testing finds unexpected opioid in tablet marketed as kratom
The St. Louis County Health Department is warning you to check the labels of products you buy, after lab testing found a synthetic opioid in a tablet marketed as a kratom product.
Inside Texas Politics | Full interview on Proposition A with Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins
Cabell-Huntington Health Department hosts drive-thru flu shot clinic
A drive-thru clinic in Huntington gave people a quick way to get their flu shot as flu season approaches.
Game Night Live ’26
WJBF NewsChannel 6 heads into Week 7 of the 2026 season of GAME NIGHT LIVE as Thomson takes on Burke County High School.
Shaping the Future of Global Health: 'Go Healthy with Taiwan 2026' Unveils Top 20 Innovators from 62 Nations
TAIPEI, Taiwan, October 02, 2026--The "Go Healthy with Taiwan 2026" global proposal campaign has selected 20 semifinalists from 832 proposals across 62 countries, with two more rounds of selection still to come. The 20 shortlisted teams hail from 16 countries worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, France, India, Israel, Japan, Malawi, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Spain, Tunisia, Ukraine, and U.S.A., fully demonstrating strong international diversity and innovative energy.
Mass. health officials announce 12th human case of West Nile Virus
Officials say the person, a woman in her 60s, was likely exposed in Norfolk County.
Milwaukee brothers use youth sports to support local church
Three Milwaukee brothers use youth sports to raise money, collect food and recruit volunteers for nonprofits.
Why Is CVS Health (CVS) Reworking Primary Care Around Value Based Care?
CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) is expanding its primary care approach by integrating value-based care across its health system. The company intends to connect health plans, provider groups, clinics, and pharmacies under a single patient-centered care model. Management is targeting shared accountability for outcomes that include social determinants of health alongside traditional clinical metrics. This push to embed value-based care across CVS Health's operations reshapes how the group manages care,...
Woman accusing Sherrod Brown of forcing transgender surgeries isn’t from Ohio, didn’t have procedure as minor
In an attack ad against U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, a woman accuses the Democrat of pushing transgender surgeries on minors "like her." She didn't have surgery until she was an adult.
MYB This Weekend: Bucco Talks His 4-Point Affordability Plan for NJ Residents, Businesses
On this weekend’s Minding Your Business on News 12+, Senate Republican Leader Anthony Bucco joins Bob Considine to discuss his 4-point affordability plan
Health Officials urge caution after rabid Raccoon found in Nash County
Nash County health officials are warning residents to avoid wild animals after a raccoon found near Spring Hope tested positive for rabies.
Hispanic business leaders gather in Lancaster County to celebrate growth and community
Lancaster Hispanic business leaders gathered to celebrate growth, pride and new partnerships at Tec Centro.
Pharr Police Earns State Accreditation
A department-wide achievement for Pharr Police. The Pharr Police Department has earned state accreditation, recognizing rigorous standards in professionalism, accountability, training and leadership. Chief Juan Gonzalez credits the dedication and professionalism of the entire department.
LA County Extends East LA Small Business Grant Deadline
Los Angeles County officials announced Friday that the application deadline for a grant program assisting small businesses affected by the Lineage Fire and East Los Angeles Oil Spill has been extended by one week, to Oct. 9. The Small Business Recovery Grant provides up to $3,000 to eligible brick-and-mortar businesses and up to $1,000 to […]
A system under strain: Deadly attack raises questions about mental health beds
Second-degree murder, attempted murder, and assault- crimes that happened in three counties over the course of six weeks.
Country star diagnosed with rare blood cancer after health scare: ‘One day at a time’
Charles Kelley, the singer and songwriter best known as a founding member of the country trio Lady A, revealed he’s been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer.
Country star diagnosed with rare blood cancer after health scare: ‘One day at a time’
Charles Kelley, the singer and songwriter best known as a founding member of the country trio Lady A, revealed he’s been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer.
Country star diagnosed with rare blood cancer after health scare: ‘One day at a time’
Charles Kelley, the singer and songwriter best known as a founding member of the country trio Lady A, revealed he’s been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer.
Country star diagnosed with rare blood cancer after health scare: ‘One day at a time’
Charles Kelley, the singer and songwriter best known as a founding member of the country trio Lady A, revealed he’s been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer.
Country star diagnosed with rare blood cancer after health scare: ‘One day at a time’
Charles Kelley, the singer and songwriter best known as a founding member of the country trio Lady A, revealed he’s been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer.
22 arcade machines stolen from Fort Myers business, suspect arrested
A man is now in custody after 22 arcade gaming machines worth around $95,000 were stolen from a Fort Myers business, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.
European Leaders Mostly Optimistic About Paramount-WB's Future
European industry leaders are cautiously optimistic now that Paramount is about to complete its takeover of Warner Bros., but there are many unknowns.
Nashville-inspired entertainment destination planned for former Sunken City Brewery at Smith Mountain Lake
Richland County law enforcement considers mental health alternative over arrests
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department is beginning a partnership with the Mental Illness Recovery Center, Inc. (MIRCI) to guide its Law Enforcement Assisted Deflection (LEAD) program.
Timberfest Brings Two Days of Family Fun and Entertainment to Downtown Sheridan
The 42nd annual Timberfest is underway in downtown Sheridan, with two days of activities planned around the Grant County Courthouse Square Friday and Saturday. The annual Grant County festival began Friday, October 2nd, with arts and crafts vendors, amusement rides, a petting zoo and pony […]
Politics Unusual: Governor's race, NY consent laws
In this episode of Politics Unusual, FOX 5 NY's political reporter Morgan McKay speaks with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman about his campaign for the governor's office. Also, a conversation with NYS Assemblymember Catalina Cruz about New York's consent laws.
Rinse-A-Poo founder brings home $30,000 prize
An entrepreneur in Onslow County brought home a $30,000 prize and a first-place win for his business Rinse-A-Poo on Sept. 17.
Family of man killed at Minneapolis mental health facility calls for justice
The family of the 23-year-old man killed in Monday’s attack at a Minneapolis residential treatment facility is calling for accountability and justice.
Justin Jefferson Out on Vikings Final Injury Report vs Dolphins
Justin Jefferson is out Sunday vs the Dolphins, the Minnesota Vikings' final injury report shows. Punter Brett Thorson and CB Charles Demmings are out too.
Brazil’s future depends on science
With the upcoming Oct. 5 elections, the country has a new opportunity to strengthen scientific research as a foundation for addressing today’s challenges and bolstering its sovereignty.
Modern Science: An Ohio University professor studies the mechanisms behind bats using echolocation
ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) —There's a lot we know about how animals navigate their world, but there's even more we don't. This included how bats use echolocation until recently.Peishu Li is an assistan
Beaver Valley high school football Week 6 live score updates
Follow along for Beaver Valley high school football Week 6 live score updates.
Scientists Thought Mars’s North Polar Ice Was 25% Dust. They Were Way Off
Previous research pointed to copious amounts of dust atop the arctic Martian wasteland, but a clearer picture is coming into focus.
14 Jefferson County restaurants fail health inspections in September
Fourteen Jefferson County food establishments, led by Yasmins Food Mart in Fairfield at a 73, failed September health inspections with scores below 85.
Q&A with Syracuse SB Nation site, TNIAAM
Hear from our counterparts covering the Orange on what to expect from their football team!
Timberfest Brings Two Days of Family Fun and Entertainment to Downtown Sheridan
The 42nd annual Timberfest is underway in downtown Sheridan, with two days of activities planned around the Grant County Courthouse Square Friday and Saturday. The annual Grant County festival began Friday, October 2nd, with arts and crafts vendors, amusement rides, a petting zoo and pony […]
Fairport Harbor downtown businesses band together for community night out
The annual Witches Night Out event is back with more planned for this weekend, including an opportunity to check out a special "haunted" lighthouse tower, but beware of the ghost cat!
Sunday Science talk to feature ‘Good Fats, Bad Fats’
“Good Fats, Bad Fats” is the title of the Central Colorado Humanists Sunday Science Program at 10 a.m. Oct. 4 at A Church, 419 D St, led by Alicia McLeod.
This week in health care policy: September 28 – October 2, 2026
Drug pricing CMS finalizes GLOBE pilot. On September 30, CMS finalized the Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing model, a program that ties Part B drug rebates to prices paid in 19 countries. It will cover physician-administered drugs in randomly selected communities throughout the US, representing about 25 percent of Part B beneficiaries. It runs […]
Texas Tenors set to open Entertainment Series at the Whatley Center on October 20
September 29, 2026 Three powerhouse voices spanning country, classical, Broadway and pop will take the Whatley Center stage when The Texas Tenors perform Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 7:30 p.m. The Texas Tenors — JC Fisher, Marcus Collins and John Hagen — first gained national attention as finalists on NBC’s America’s Got Talent in 2009. Since then,…
Buncombe sheriff hopefuls spar over jail staffing, mental health
ASHEVILLE - Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller and his political opponent, Gary Parris, butted heads over a range of issues at a candidate forum hosted Oct. 2 by the Council of Independent Business Owners. Among issues on which they clashed were mental health, staffing issues and jail overcrowding.
Bank Independent Stadium Opens At The University Of North Alabama
The University of North Alabama celebrated a historic milestone with the opening of Bobby Wallace Field at Bank Independent Stadium, bringing to life a vision
Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance
David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance, speaks during CinemaCon 2026 on April 16, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (David Becker/Getty Images for CinemaCon)
164 slot machines seized in Sarasota County illegal gambling bust
The slot machines were taken from three locations in Englewood, officials say.
Former GOP Rep. David Rivera sentenced to 10 years for secret Venezuela lobbying
David Rivera has been jailed since jurors found him guilty in May on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of his work for former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government.
Studying Science in an Anti-Scientific Time
This Chronicle Review Deep Cut was first published in 2025. By Julianne Werlin Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe The last two decades have not been kind to science studies. Already bruised and battered by the “science wars” of the 1990s, by the 2000s sociologists of science — who had long argued that science had to be understood in its human context — were encountering the funhouse-mirror version of their own views in right-wing critiques of climate scientists. It was enough to give some prominent scholars pause. “Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies?” asked Bruno Latour, the most famous sociologist of science in the world, in 2003. “Should we apologize for having been wrong all along? Or should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do a bit of soul-searching here: What were we really after when we were so intent on showing the social construction of scientific facts?” In response, Latour proposed a change of method and attitude. Science studies, now chastened and contrite, would no longer seek to strip facts of their authority, but to enrich and enhance them. What this meant in practice was never fully clear. But his diagnosis of problems resonated, even if his solutions did not. Latour’s exercise in public hand-wringing signaled a shift in mood. By 2016, with the first election of Donald Trump, the idea that skepticism of science was a right-wing position, not a left-wing one, had become a commonplace, discussed eagerly in The New York Times. For liberals, vaccine denial during the Covid era and Trump’s second-term attacks on the funding of scientific research, covered extensively in these pages, added a new urgency to the defense of science on both practical and principled grounds. There was little appetite for a sociology or philosophy of science that emphasized the messiness and missteps of the scientific process rather than its integrity and triumphs. The distinguished historian of science Peter Dear’s new book, The World as We Know It: From Natural Philosophy to Modern Science (Princeton University Press, 2025), which seeks to tell the story of 18th- and 19th-century science for a general public, may seem comfortably remote from these bitter contests. In its 16 short chapters, Dear draws swift, sure sketches of major discoveries from Newton to Einstein, ably guiding the reader through debates on stellar nebulae, animal taxonomy, atomic chemistry, evolution, and other flashpoints in the history of science. But though a work of history, Dear’s book must still negotiate our polarized present. In a blurb on its back cover, the historian of biology Lynn K. Nyhart alludes to the “present moment, when scientific knowledge is being swamped by misinformation and its institutions are under siege.” Dear himself, in his conclusion, refers to the “yard signs” and “bumper stickers” that proclaim “Science Is Real.” One antidote to both anti-science propaganda and to reductive slogans in science’s defense is a robust history and philosophy of science: exactly what Dear’s scholarship has long offered. But his new book illustrates how difficult such work has become. Dear, an emeritus professor of history at Cornell University, is best known as a creative and philosophically minded historian of the Scientific Revolution. His edited volume The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument (1991) analyzed the rhetoric of Galileo’s thought experiments to brilliant effect. Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (1995) was a major contribution to the analysis of scientific experiments in early modern Europe and beyond, while Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700 (2001), now in its third edition, remains one of the best overviews of the profound epistemological upheavals of 16th- and 17th-century science. But Dear has also ventured into later periods. Nearly two decades ago, in The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World (2006), he turned to the 18th and 19th centuries to sketch a history and theory of scientific knowledge. Aimed at a generalist audience, Dear’s simple prose belied serious philosophical ambitions. Science, Dear argued, has two aspects: “natural philosophy,” the quest to understand the true nature of the universe, and “instrumentality,” the applied skills and technologies that allow us to manipulate the world for human advantage. Both strands are ancient, but the innovation of the phenomenon we call “science” was to yoke them together. As Francis Bacon wrote, “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known, the effect cannot be produced,” an insight typically abridged to “knowledge is power.” Or, in Bertrand Russell’s characteristically blunt phrase, science has two functions, “1. to enable us to know things, and 2., to enable us to do things.” So far, so conventional. But Dear took issue with this familiar story in one respect. Bacon’s formula implied that theory and practice could be fused in a single method. In fact, Dear argued, the quest to understand nature and the desire to manipulate it were coupled only loosely. They could come together, but they could also pull apart. Focusing on natural philosophy, the “knowing” half of the scientific circle, he used a series of case studies from cosmology, taxonomy, chemistry, electromagnetism, and quantum theory to show how theories changed over time, in dialogue with practice, but never reducible to it. Take the case of matter, the basic substrate of the physical world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists not only disagreed about what it was, but also about how well it could be known. In 1789, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier dismissed speculation about the atomic composition of chemicals as “discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature,” as he sought to orient chemistry away from philosophical abstraction and toward laboratory results. But in the 19th century, atoms returned with a vengeance in the atomic chemistry of John Dalton, who wanted to explain the underlying structure of nature. It was not just that Dalton and Lavoisier had a different set of experimental results, or even a different theory, Dear showed. What counted as an explanation had changed. In arguing that scientific theories depended on their intelligibility to human beings with complex arrays of beliefs and commitments, Dear was in sympathy with science studies. Key figures such as the sociologist Steven Shapin emphasized the importance of psychological mechanisms like trust in the formation and acceptance of scientific ideas. But in focusing on the scientific pursuit of knowledge, not its politics or economics, Dear resisted the more cynical perspective of some of his colleagues. The Intelligibility of Nature strikes a very different note than Shapin’s collection of a few years later, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as If It Was Produced by People With Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority (2010), to name just one example. Walking a very fine line, Dear depicted science as driven at once by complex social dynamics and by the intellectual power of real discoveries. It was a testament not only to his own acumen but also to the vitality of the field that he was able to do so. Nearly two decades later, The World as We Know It returns to the questions broached in The Intelligibility of Nature. Like Dear’s earlier study, it begins with the Newtonian cosmos and ends with debates between Einstein and Bohr on quantum physics. Beyond its terminal figures, many of the same characters appear in both studies, including the naturalists John Ray and the Comte de Buffon; the chemists Étienne François Geoffroy, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton; as well as Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday, among others. Its subject is nearly identical: As in The Intelligibility of Nature, The World as We Know It considers natural philosophy as opposed to instrumentality, here defined as the “desire to create a picture of what the world is really like — the world as God knows it — rather than simply having instrumental or operational control over it.” The two books also overlap in insights — and sometimes even in language. The reader who has learned in The Intelligibility of Nature that Buffon’s method of classifying animals “reflected his belief in the importance of the senses and empiricism in learning about nature (a doctrine associated with Newton and the philosopher John Locke)” will experience a sense of déjà vu on reading, in The World as We Know It, that the classification “reflects Buffon’s commitment to the epistemological stance of Newton and his philosophical underlaborer John Locke, who stressed the role of the senses in creating natural knowledge.” Later in the passage, we read that, “because of its stress on understanding the ways of life of animals in their environments, Buffon’s approach could almost be labeled (anachronistically) as ‘ecological.’” And again, “an anachronistic way of putting it would be to say that Buffon recommends an ecological mode of understanding.” Likewise, in The Intelligibility of Nature we read of Dalton that he was initially drawn to meteorology, and that: He did a bit of experimental work on these things, especially having to do with the water-holding capacity of gases, but his real interest lay in understanding what, at an underlying natural-philosophical level, was really going on physically.” Whereas, in The World as We Know It: He did experimental work on these things, especially concerning the water-holding capacity of gases — although not at a very refined level quantitatively — but he was continually trying to develop a theoretical conception of what was happening physically. The final full chapter of each book closes on the same resigned note. Intelligibility: These days, most serious work on the natural philosophical underpinnings and implications of quantum mechanics is performed not by physicists but by philosophers of science. Among scientific practitioners themselves, Bohr’s attempt to use instrumentality as sufficient grounds for a respectable science has met with a high degree of success. And again, in The World as We Know It: Bohr’s and Einstein’s concerns are now questions that are mostly discussed by philosophers of science rather than by physicists themselves. The marginalization of these sorts of questions amounts to the demise of natural philosophy, at least in physics, in the 20th century. Quantum mechanics “works,” and that’s good enough for most scientists who encounter it. Examples could be multiplied. When handling the same subject matter, some echoes are inevitable. Scholars should not feel that because they have written “Isaac Newton died in 1727” in one book, in the next they must describe him as perishing, expiring, or meeting his maker. But the repetitions of language and arguments (not to mention six reproduced images) threaded throughout The World as We Know It are more extensive than that. They should have been caught by Princeton University Press or its reviewers, and revised. Because the two books have so much in common, it is easy to see where they diverge. The World as We Know It is a less theoretical work than its predecessor. The sociology of knowledge that organized The Intelligibility of Nature has been reduced in scale and folded into readings and examples. The taut interplay between history and theory, which gave the earlier study so much interest, is there, but it is subtle. In the earlier book, the case studies demonstrated theoretical claims about the character and development of science. In the later work, each narrative of discovery is an end in itself. Insights emerge from the history, but they do not control the organization of the study. With the theory muted, it can be hard to understand the logic uniting Dear’s sprawling history of more than two centuries of scientific knowledge. The 16 brisk chapters cover an enormous amount of material. But the closer the volume edges to comprehensiveness, the more obvious the missing elements become. A chapter on “Institutions and Pedagogy,” describing the birth of the research university, illustrates the problem. Inserted roughly halfway through the book, the unnumbered chapter is designed as an “entr’acte,” in acknowledgement that it does not fit the study’s organization around scientific discoveries. Yet as Dear is well aware, no general history of the development of modern science can bracket its 19th-century institutionalization and professionalization. It was the 19th-century university, after all, that gave us the “scientist,” a term coined by the Cambridge philosopher William Whewell. Dear’s history of scientific discoveries implies a wider social and institutional history, but it remains largely subterranean, only occasionally extruded under the pressure of the narrative. It must be said that the balance is not all on the side of the earlier study. There are some advantages to the more historical, less theoretical organization of The World as We Know It. Dear’s accounts of paradigm shifts are remarkably lucid, no small accomplishment given that they span fields and centuries. He makes excellent use of the wealth of new scholarship on Darwin and his influences, to which he has himself contributed. It is satisfying to see puzzle pieces from Buffon’s natural history, Georges Cuvier’s animal taxonomy, Thomas Robert Malthus’s demography, and Charles Lyell’s geology recombined seamlessly in the Darwinian jigsaw. Likewise, Dear’s discussion of stellar nebulae, divided between chapters two and 15, shows vividly how Newton, Kant, Herschel, and Hubble reimagined insights and observations as they sought to discover whether the diffuse light that filtered through early telescopes was a glowing, gaseous substance or discrete but distant stars. Yet despite such pleasures, the book remains a more modest work than The Intelligibility of Nature. Dear has clearly not changed his views about the history of science. But in the two decades that have elapsed, the discipline and the world around it have changed, making it harder to write a sociologically and philosophically ambitious history of science for the general reader. That is a shame, because in the age of Silicon Valley and biotechnology, both the reciprocity and the tensions Dear identified between the epistemological and instrumental ambitions of science are more evident than ever. In recent years, some of the most exciting new books on the history of science in early modernity have focused precisely on this pressure point. Important studies such as Pamela H. Smith’s From Lived Experience to the Written Word (2022), James Poskett’s Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science (2022), and Vera Keller’s The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge (2023) all shed new light on how early modern science negotiated the relationship between its instrumental and epistemological ambitions, or in Russell’s phrase, knowing and doing. There is every opportunity for a philosophically informed approach to draw new insights from this wealth of material. Dear, unfortunately, has not done so in The World as We Know It. But for future scholars of the history of science, his body of work over nearly four decades may provide just the model. Julianne Werlin is an associate professor of English at Duke University. Thanks for reading The Chronicle Review! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe
Wynonna Judd calls out Rosie O’Donnell after political comments leave country star ‘in shock’
Wynonna Judd pushed back after longtime friend Rosie O'Donnell labeled her a Trump supporter, calling the claim a "complete assumption."
Despite Construction, Downtown Carthage Shops Still Open for Business
Yellow caution tape, heavy machinery and piles of red dirt decorate downtown Carthage as road construction continues into its second month around the historic Moore County courthouse. The work has
Riverside County restaurants shut down by health inspectors, Sept. 24-Oct. 1
Five facilities were ordered to close, while two shut last week reopened.
San Bernardino County restaurants shut down by health inspectors, Sept. 24-Oct. 1
One facility was ordered to close.
4 Cass County businesses fail alcohol compliance check
A total of 25 businesses were checked for compliance and 21 passed, an 84% compliance rate.
Thunder Must Replace Pressure, Not Just Production
Oklahoma City’s new-look depth must replicate the internal accountability that fueled last season’s success, ensuring competition—not just talent—drives the roster toward a championship standard.
DA proposes civil commitment court during mental health symposium
Salt Lake County DA Sim Gill is proposing a civil commitment court as an alternative to jail for those suffering from a severe mental illness.
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Dr. Russell Butler, chair of Bishop’s University’s Department of Computer Science, says artificial intelligence is increasingly taking over routine digital “grunt work,” changing the skills students and workers may need in the years ahead. Photo courtesy of Bishop’s University. Click here to read our platform! Get local news like this every morning. Subscribe free below. Subscribe Pulse Newsroom Artificial intelligence is already taking over some of the routine digital work once performed by entry-level employees, according to Bishop’s University Computer Science chair Dr. Russell Butler — a shift he believes will make expertise, judgement and the ability to evaluate AI-generated work increasingly important. Butler described the change as automation reaching what he calls the “bottom of the cognitive pyramid” during an interview with The Pulse about AI, university education and the future of digital work. His argument is not that humans are disappearing from the workplace. Instead, he sees their role changing as AI becomes capable of handling more of the repetitive tasks involved in computer-based work. “Everything’s converging on just AI basically doing all the grunt work,” Butler said. The bottom of the cognitive pyramid Butler is from Lennoxville, completed his undergraduate studies at Bishop’s and later earned his PhD at the Université de Sherbrooke. He joined Bishop’s in 2019 and now chairs its Department of Computer Science. He uses AI in research, teaching and other creative work, and said the technology is increasingly capable of handling routine digital tasks that once required substantial human time. “You’ve got the grunt work, like moving things around in Excel, doing basic programming tasks,” Butler said. “That’s like the bottom grunt work that the entry-level worker would have done two or three years ago.” Butler went further, saying in his view that much of this type of work has already been absorbed by AI tools. He connected that change to a shift he sees taking place in computer science, where entry-level roles have declined while experienced workers can use AI to increase what they can produce. “A senior developer now has access to essentially an unlimited amount of junior developers on demand,” Butler said. He was describing AI systems metaphorically, not literal employees. His point was that one experienced developer can now ask AI tools to produce code or other technical work that might previously have been assigned to more junior workers. That raises a broader question for universities and employers. If some of the simpler work traditionally given to newcomers can now be done by machines, how do people gain the experience needed to become senior workers themselves? Students doing work that once required years of programming Butler said he is already seeing the change inside his classroom. He created a Bishop’s course called CS208, Coding in Plain English, to show students — including those without traditional programming backgrounds — what they can accomplish using AI. Some come from disciplines such as psychology or neuroscience with no previous programming experience. “What I’m finding is that students who have zero programming experience, they come in from another discipline like psychology or neuroscience or something, they are now able to get up and running with real data sets,” Butler said. Butler’s own doctoral work involved neuroimaging, and he said he has assigned students work he considers comparable to the kinds of analysis he performed during his PhD. He described giving students a real dataset, an expected result and instructions to use AI to complete the analysis. Butler said those students have been able to carry out work at a level he associates with tasks he once performed after years of programming experience. That does not mean a student using AI instantly acquires the same knowledge as an experienced computer scientist. But Butler sees it as evidence that AI can dramatically lower the technical barrier between having a problem to solve and producing a working result. The role of the person using the system then changes. They need to know what to ask for, understand enough about the subject to judge the answer and take responsibility for what is ultimately produced. What about AI hallucinations? One persistent concern surrounding generative AI is hallucination — when a system produces information that sounds convincing but is false or unsupported. Butler said that problem has improved substantially in newer systems and is not as severe as it was with earlier models. He pointed in particular to newer AI systems’ ability to search the web, consult scientific databases and return source links rather than simply generating a citation from their internal model. Butler nevertheless said users should verify what AI produces. “You should verify,” he said while discussing citations generated with AI. His position is that hallucinations have become less common in the systems he uses, not that incorrect AI output is impossible. Human checking remains part of the process. Hours of work compressed Butler offered another example from his administrative work at Bishop’s. The university has been comparing CEGEP courses with first-year Bishop’s courses to determine where students may qualify for advanced standing. Traditionally, Butler said, that means reviewing two sets of course descriptions and manually matching one institution’s courses with another’s. As department chair, that could require hours of reading and comparison. He said AI can now be given both sets of material and asked to generate an initial mapping automatically. “It saves me hours and hours of work,” Butler said. Butler said the AI-generated mapping can also produce a better result than he would produce himself. He sees similar opportunities in businesses. A company may receive specifications, drawings, emails or other digital material from customers and then have employees convert that information into an internal format before anything can be manufactured or delivered. AI can increasingly perform parts of that intermediate processing. In Butler’s view, the employee does not necessarily disappear. Instead, the job becomes more about checking the result. “The human is still there,” he said. Judgement could become more valuable That change is central to Butler’s view of where digital work may be headed. If AI can produce a first draft, write basic code, compare documents or process large amounts of information, he argues that knowledge and judgement become increasingly important. “The real scarce resource going forward is going to be domain knowledge, expertise, and… credentials, authority, the ability to work with other people,” Butler said. He is therefore encouraging students not only to learn AI tools but also to broaden their education. He mentioned acting, fine art and photography as examples of courses that can help develop what he described as taste and intuition — the ability to recognize what is good, what is not and what should be changed. “And that’s the skill that they need now because the grunt work has been automated and now it’s about evaluating what the AI produces and telling it how to improve or expand the output,” Butler said. That does not remove the need for technical knowledge. Butler’s argument is that the emphasis may shift away from manually completing every step of a task and toward directing, checking and improving work produced with AI assistance. He also stressed that humans remain responsible for final decisions. “At the end of the day, the human has to make the final call,” Butler said, pointing to the question of accountability. Physical work may be different Butler draws a distinction between digital work and jobs requiring people to manipulate the physical world. He expects AI to continue advancing quickly in tasks performed almost entirely on computers. He is more cautious about claims that humanoid robots will soon be able to replace workers such as plumbers or electricians. Butler said those trades would not be replaced “anytime soon” in his view and described some current robotics demonstrations as overhyped. He described the situation as counterintuitive. “It’s almost like we solved the highest level first,” he said, contrasting advances in digital AI with the harder problem of building robots capable of operating reliably in the physical world. Butler’s argument is that some digital occupations could face automation sooner than trades requiring complex physical work. The wider AI shift in the Townships Butler’s comments come as local institutions are increasingly grappling with how AI should be used. The federal government recently announced up to $162 million over five years for 10,000 AI-related placements through Mitacs. The Université de Sherbrooke told The Pulse that the number of its collaborative research and innovation projects supported through Mitacs has approximately doubled since 2018-19, while the number of placements has approximately tripled. UdeS also said it already has projects involving both AI adoption and the application of AI to other fields. At Bishop’s, Butler said part of his role involves building the Computer Science department’s local presence, connecting students with regional partners and strengthening relationships with the Sherbrooke technology ecosystem. Those developments put universities in a difficult position. They have to prepare students to use the tools employers increasingly have available while also making sure graduates understand enough to recognize when those tools are wrong, incomplete or being applied to the wrong problem. The risk of losing human skills Butler does not see AI as risk-free. Later in the interview, he raised a separate concern: as AI becomes better at reading, writing, programming and other cognitive tasks, people could lose some of the underlying skills that historically helped produce new ideas. “The other danger is that we’re going to lose the human skills,” Butler said. He specifically mentioned reading and writing and argued that people could lose some of the lower-level understanding that contributes to breakthroughs. Butler said AI systems are based on existing human knowledge and argued that they become much more powerful when paired with a capable person. That tension runs through his view of the technology. AI can remove hours of routine work. It can allow beginners to perform tasks that once required substantial technical training. It can give experienced workers significant leverage. But the more capable the technology becomes, the more important it may be for people to develop the judgement needed to decide what should be done in the first place. For Butler, that is where education may have to change. Students still need to understand their field. They still need to know when something is wrong. And they still need to be able to make the final decision. But if AI increasingly handles the bottom of the cognitive pyramid, the value of a worker may depend less on how quickly they can perform the grunt work and more on whether they understand what the work is supposed to accomplish. Don’t miss the next story that affects your community. Join thousands of readers getting The Pulse every morning—plus breaking news alerts when it matters most. If you value this kind of local journalism, consider supporting it. Subscribe, share and like! Subscribe Share
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