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Ochsner Health doubles the number of operating rooms at Ochsner Medical Complex
Patients across the Baton Rouge region now have greater access to specialized surgical care closer to home following an expansion of the surgical center at Ochsner Medical Complex - The Grove.
Steelers Host Former Bengals Edge Rusher for Visit
The Pittsburgh Steelers hosted veteran edge rusher Cam Sample for a free agent visit to UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on […]
Googlebooks with Intel chipsets might have trouble with ‘complex’ Android apps
According to a statement from Google, Intel-based Googlebooks will apparently still struggle with some Android apps. When Android apps made...
On complex political issues, most Americans take shortcuts to simplicity
A novel study by UC Berkeley scholars finds that when Americans are presented with complex decisions on immigration, climate change or political candidates, they often avoid difficult reasoning.
Lost Boy Entertainment LLC Helps Artists Navigate a Crowded Music Industry
Making Culture Pop. Find the latest entertainment news and the best in music, pop culture, sneakers, style and original sh...
True Religion to open its first Long Island location
True Religion is opening its first Long Island location at the Green Acres retail complex, joining Timberland and T-Mobile as new tenants in Valley Stream.
Google Cloud Gives Business Focus to Modernization
Google Cloud is simplifying enterprise modernization with an AI-driven, end-to-end approach that can shrink complex business-case processes from weeks to minutes.
Queen Latifah Says Biopic May Need 3 People to Play Her
The hip-hop icon wants performers who can capture her journey from Dana Owens to Grammy winner, Oscar nominee, producer, and entrepreneur.
The Culinary Director at a Unique California Restaurant Reveals the Key Ingredients Behind Its ‘Needle-in-a-Haystack’ Business Model
Deborah Mullin oversees a complex operation at Little Saint, the plant-based restaurant in Healdsburg, California.
Trump Promotes Data Centers at Rally With Republican Facing Heat on Them
The president defended the complexes, which have become a liability for Senator Jon Husted in a challenging midterm race.
URI to launch new computational social science doctoral program
KINGSTON, R.I. – Oct. 1, 2026 – The University of Rhode Island is introducing a new Computational Social Science Ph.D. program, citing a growing demand for trained social scientists who can ethically use advanced computational methods to study complex social problems and inform evidence-based decisions. Set to launch in the fall of 2027, URI’s new […]
Officials cast doubt on Trump’s plan for drones, snipers at proposed arch
The arch is still envisioned to be a tourist site, despite the president’s announcement that it would be a “military complex,” administration officials told advocacy groups.
New framework maps the complex link between psychological status and cardiovascular health
CVD remains the leading cause of death worldwide, while the global burden of mental disorders continues to rise.
New Lakeview Park sports complex planned for Franklin County
A new Lakeview Park baseball and softball complex aims to bring youth leagues, tournaments and more visitors to Franklin County.
North Las Vegas sports-entertainment complex celebrates final construction phase
A new sports-entertainment complex coming to North Las Vegas is celebrating a major milestone.
Rethinking discovery: how powerful screening tools are redefining the search for new medicines
In medicine discovery, identifying the right biological target has always been a critical and complex step. Today, the rise of powerful screening tools is fundamentally reshaping this process, creating a step-change in how we move from scientific hypotheses to transformative medicines. Advances in high-throughput screening, genomics and AI-driven analytics are enabling scientists to interrogate disease biology at unprecedented scale, bringing forward opportunities that were previously beyond reach.
Argonne: Building Scientific Computing Ecosystems for AI-Enabled Discovery
Trustworthy AI-enabled scientific discovery depends on software, people, institutions and community action. Oct. 1, 2026 — Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing scientific computing rapidly. AI systems can now generate and analyze code, synthesize information, assist with hypothesis generation and carry out complex reasoning tasks within scientific workflows. Alongside advances in computing architectures and data-intensive research, […]
Teaching students scientific-storytelling skills to inspire change
The senior capstone course ESCI 191 equips environmental-science majors with digital-storytelling skills to translate complex climate data into compelling narratives to immerse and engage the public.
TENNESSEE LADY VOLS SOCCER: Trip to Auburn is next
The No. 13 Tennessee soccer team is set for its fourth road match of the 2026 season on Thursday night as the Lady Vols head to Auburn, Alabama, to take on the Auburn Tigers. Kickoff from Auburn Soccer Complex is set for 7 p.m. ET.
'We may need to think differently': Star system with 'backward' planet moving the wrong way around its star has scientists puzzled
A newly discovered exoplanet orbits its star backward, and it's a mystery why. The system and others like it could shed light on how some complex planetary systems form.
Part of Capitol complex in downtown Sacramento evacuated due to threat
California lawmakers are not currently in session, but construction crews and legislative employees were at the site.
FSU data scientist receives NSF CAREER Award to develop AI model to analyze complex numerical data at scale
A Florida State University artificial intelligence and data scientist has earned one of the most prestigious early career faculty awards to develop a new
New ‘fire amoeba’ could assist scientists in finding alien life
Previous research has shown that complex multicellular organisms could only reproduce in temperatures up to 140 degrees.
IDC, The Business Value of Network Observability by Broadcom
Networks are growing in criticality and complexity. Network observability solutions and their suppliers are required to deliver on several key fronts to ensure networking success for IT organizations.
Steering complex rhythms
Nature Computational Science - A recent study reports a property-first computational strategy, identifying coordinated parameter changes that can tune several features of a complex oscillator at...
Bowling alley, entertainment complex eyed for Hilo
Bowling alley, entertainment complex eyed for Hilo - Hawaii News | Hawaii Tribune-Herald
The Mindsets Leaders Need as AI Accelerates the Pace of Business
AI is changing not only what leaders need to know, but how they need to think. Yet many are struggling to adapt to the speed, uncertainty, and emotional complexity of an AI-driven workplace. To keep pace, you need to shift the mindsets that shape your behavior in three important ways: from certainty to clarity, from expertise to exploration, and from emotional control to emotional insight. A simple four-step practice—pause, perceive, pivot, and practice—can help you start to recognize and change automatic reactions. By deliberately reshaping the assumptions and patterns that guide your behavior, you can become more adaptable, curious, and effective as the nature of work continues to change.
Prince George’s Co. Council votes to advance billion-dollar entertainment venue project
The Prince George’s County Council voted 11-0 authorizing up to $215 million in special obligation bonds to help build the entertainment complex.
Magic in Store: This month, a witchy business will put you in the right spirit
Abby Minnich is a planetary scientist who puts complex concepts into plain language. “I like to connect with the earth,” she said. “Trying to figure out how things came to be. I would say that is my purpose, almost, trying to figure it out and sharing it.” Which leads her to visit metaphysical shops like […]
Growing military cargo volumes raise commercial supply chain risks
Rising volumes of military cargo moving through freight forwarders, road haulers, port operators and shipping lines are creating complex safety, security, regulatory and political risks across…
Scientists Thought Venus Was Too Acidic for Complex Chemistry. It May Actually Be Weirdly Hospitable
MIT researchers recreated a Venus-like stew of 98% sulfuric acid to test complex signaling molecules, like peptides, in the lab. Looks like they passed.
Bruins Solved One Roster Problem, But Another Is Coming
The Boston Bruins may have a complex roster crunch coming once Matthew Poitras returns to action for the club. The post Bruins Solved One Roster Problem, But Another Is Coming appeared first on HEAVY.
Get used to multi-party politics, it’s here to stay
The prime minister’s promise on electoral reform could entrench the complex fights between five, even six parties
Do animals experience schadenfreude?
Schadenfreude, or pleasure at seeing another's pain, is a complex emotion. So can animals besides humans experience it?
Amwins launches MGA for complex liability risks
Amwins on Tuesday launched illumin Specialty, a managing general agency offering primary general liability and excess liability coverage for complex risks.
Kansas City Royals news: All (stadium) business in KC
Despite the Kansas City Royals leaving Truman Sports complex, could the area find new life?
Two URI physics professors receive NSF awards to further study science behind black holes
KINGSTON, R.I. – Oct. 6, 2026 – Black holes and their complexity continue to fascinate astrophysics researchers around the world, including those at the University of Rhode Island. Researchers are drawn to how these massive, dense concentrations of energy affect their surroundings and want to learn more about how the universe as a whole was […]
Eminem and Kid Rock Prioritize Friendship Over Politics on New Track: 'We Hope That Sets an Example'
Eminem and Kid Rock have teamed up on a new track that they hope will set a good example for friends with differing politi...
Why Cleaning Isn’t the Mental Health Miracle Everyone Believes It To Be - Futura-Sciences
Where the “therapeutic cleaning” idea comes from The belief in cleaning as a kind of moving meditation is tempting: repetitive gestures, a structured task, instant visible results—it all seems reminiscent of mindfulness. This narrative sounds great in theory, but available studies reveal a far more complex picture, one where context...
99th Maui County Fair entertainment schedule
The 99th Maui County Fair, happening Oct. 1–4, 2026at the County’s War Memorial Complex, will bring four days of live entertainment to the main stage, featuring a mix of Hawaiian music, hula, local favorites and island contemporary performers for fairgoers of all ages.
Ochsner Health expands pediatric and women’s care at The Grove
These comprehensive advancements allow Ochsner to better accommodate the evolving healthcare requirements of the Capital Region community.
Evening of Purpose helps fight complex disease
ROCKY MOUNTAIN MS CENTER Aurora News: The simplest way to describe Multiple Sclerosis is that it is a complex, unpredictable disease for which there is no cure. On a deeper dive, medical professionals will say it’s a cruel disease, one where the immune system attacks the central nervous system, affecting the brain, spinal cord and optic […]
Column: More than just a phase: The real science behind why teens feel everything so intensely
When a minor inconvenience feels like the end of the world, take a deep breath. Remember you’re navigating the complex reality of a growing mind.
The Math Singularity Is Here, and Science May Be Next
OpenAI has released an extraordinary body of mathematical work produced by an unreleased frontier model: 722 manuscripts spanning 372 research families across fields including number theory, complexity theory, and mathematical physics. Each result required, on average, the equivalent of roughly three hours of ChatGPT Pro reasoning. A New Era of Discovery We may be witnessing the beginnings of a “math singularity”: a point at which machine-generated discovery accelerates beyond humanity’s ability to independently reproduce, verify, or fully absorb it. If frontier models can generate hundreds of meaningful results in the time it takes a human researcher to investigate one, the constraint will no longer be producing new mathematics. It will be our capacity to validate, interpret, and integrate it. This does not make mathematicians obsolete. It changes their role. They may increasingly serve as guides, critics, and meaning-makers. Increasingly, they will decide which questions matter, determining which results can be trusted, and explaining why they are important. Mathematical insight may become abundant, while human judgment becomes more valuable than ever. Mathematics May Be Only the Beginning Every scientific discipline could eventually experience a similar acceleration. AI systems could generate and test hypotheses, connect findings across specialized fields, and explore possibilities at a scale no human research community could match. In medicine, imagine models identifying overlooked disease mechanisms, designing drugs and clinical trials, personalizing treatments, or discovering cures in months rather than decades. In materials science, AI could help create better batteries and cleaner industrial processes. In climate science, it could accelerate advances in energy, forecasting, and carbon removal. In biology, it could uncover relationships hidden across enormous genomic and molecular datasets. The result would not simply be faster research. It could expand the frontier of what is scientifically possible. The New Bottleneck Scientific discovery, however, is not the same as scientific progress. A medical breakthrough must still survive laboratory testing, clinical trials, regulatory scrutiny, manufacturing constraints, and real-world deployment. As machine-generated ideas multiply, the bottleneck may shift from producing breakthroughs to validating them safely and translating them into practice. We may soon have more hypotheses than laboratories can test, more drugs than clinical trials can evaluate, and more mathematical results than experts can review. That imbalance will require better systems for automated verification, reproducible research, prioritization, peer review, and collaboration between AI and domain experts. The importance of OpenAI’s work is not merely the number of manuscripts produced. It offers a glimpse of a world in which intelligence can explore thousands of intellectual paths in parallel. If ideas cease to be scarce, humanity’s defining challenge will be deciding which are true, which matter, and how to turn them into progress. The math singularity is not the end of human inquiry. It is the beginning of a new kind—one in which machines expand the frontier of knowledge and humans decide where it should lead. Subscribe Share Leave a comment
Bishop’s computer science chair says AI is eliminating ‘grunt work’ and reshaping digital jobs
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
On complex political issues, most Americans take shortcuts to simplicity
A core assumption in any democracy is that citizens with access to information will make reasoned decisions on political candidates and policy issues. But a new study by UC Berkeley social scientists ...
Industry Insights: Q&A with Estée Lauder’s SVP of Global Clinical, Consumer Sciences on One-of-a-Kind Complexion Research
“A shade can be technically close to a person’s skin tone and still not look completely natural in every situation.”
Community Bridges built ECM to prevent health crises. Now the state funding is shifting and we have to close the program
California created enhanced care management to help Medi-Cal patients with complex health and social needs before they reach the emergency room. Community Bridges spent three years building a community-based program that now serves more than 200 people. But, Community Bridges CEO Ray Cancino writes, a shift toward encounter-based reimbursement is making the relationship-building, outreach and coordination that prevention requires increasingly difficult to sustain and Community Bridges will now be forced to close the program. Cancino wonders here the new payment model will actually save money — or simply move the costs downstream.
Buck Motorsports Park & Entertainment Complex
The Buck Motorsports Park is a motorsports entertainment facility located in Quarryville (Buck), Pennsylvania.
Hilo bowling alley, entertainment complex plan moves forward
Hilo could once again have a bowling alley.
Lieutenant governor visits opening of new mental health facility in Lubbock
The event was held at the Sunrise Canyon Complex at 1905 Aspen Avenue to celebrate the grand opening of the newly expanded Sunrise Canyon Hospital and the Hope Center.
Edison's Entertainment Complex Female Athlete Of Month: Jess Sever Has Made Important Contributions To Edwardsville Girls Flag Football Team
Edwardsville sophomore Jess Sever has five touchdowns as the undefeated Tigers girls flag football team advances in the IHSA postseason.
Proposed 324-unit apartment project at Sarasota cottages falls through
The project, known as 1899 Fruitville, called for a 324-unit apartment complex.
Chet Hanks explains himself after Eric André ComplexCon exchange
Chet Hanks explains why he confronted Eric André at ComplexCon in Los Angeles over the weekend. He accused the comic of 'trashing me to the media after I outshined him on his own show!!'
Scientists uncover recurrent patterns within chaotic quantum behavior
Many complex quantum systems rapidly lose the recognizable patterns of their initial states as their components interact. To describe patterns of regular and chaotic motion in specific systems, physicists ...
Top Dawg Entertainment Wins Appeal Against Doxxing Claims by Sexual Assault Accusers
Top Dawg Entertainment won an appeal dismissing doxxing claims brought by two women who accused the label's executives of ...
Study finds simulation game helps students grasp complex health economics concepts
In Phillip Zane's classroom, students weigh an invitation to jump out of an airplane. The skydiving lesson and jump are free, and the exercise assumes there is zero risk of death. But an injury could ...
Detroit to host inaugural leadership academy for museum executives amid industry upheaval
Some 40 leaders from across North America will gather to address increasingly complex demands.
Planned Downtown Brooklyn entertainment hub promises Instagram moments and a refuge for rainy days
United American Land Principal Albert Laboz recently unveiled renderings of BKX and discussed his vision for the 440,000-square-foot entertainment complex he is building at 422 Fulton St.
Issa Rae Says HBO 'Rejected' Some of Her Show Titles
The creator of 'Insecure' and 'Rap Sh!t' denies being "mad at the rejections."
San Jose launches pilot program for mobile healthcare unit on downtown streets
The program hopes to help most vulnerable residents “with complex needs who too often cycle between the street, 911, emergency rooms and back again”
Rapper Lucki alleged stabbed in bloody brawl outside ComplexCon
Video appears to show the rapper with a laceration below the jaw. At least four people were hurt in a knife attack, police said.
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. 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