If there is one thing that scientists and science writers alike get fed up of saying it's that correlation is not causality. Yet what do we find on the BBC Top Comment podcast? Sigh... brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/03/do-w... #podcasts #causality #assumptions

Small (no, no-existent) prize for naming the lighthouse in the picture, and why it is significant, without reading the article first...

Review (mystery): Blackstone Fell - Martin Edwards **** - a distinctly slow start to this Pennine-set mystery, but once Savernake gets properly on the case, from a seance to a locked room, it's impressively tangled: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/03/blac... #bookreview #murdermystery #periodnovel

Is this the royal 'we'. I have certainly never drawn parallels between ants and humans, or compared them to computers. I am yet to see an ant with a decent GUI.

We all know that the Nobel science prizes are awarded for remarkable work. But just occasionally they raise an eyebrow. I highlight two particularly weird ones - one funny, the other shocking (and, yes, one involved lighthouses): brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-... #nobelprize #prizesurprise

Time to think about thinking...

Time Travel has made for fun SF since the early days - here's a new take on it:

Review: The AI Paradox: Virginia Dignum **** - Brilliant assessment of the problems and opportunities arising from the AI paradox (see review for definition), despite reading to much like a government report. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-... #bookreview #AI

Interview: Astrobiologist Caleb Scharf @calebscharf.bsky.social tells us why he sees science as a contemplative discipline, the link between space exploration and evolution, and how AI can be involved in space. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/02/cale... #spaceexploration #astrobiology #AI

Here's a question. How many senses do humans have? If your response is five (and it's hard not come up with this knee-jerk response even if you know better), you are way out. Time to think again: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/sens... #humansenses #fivesenses #schoolerrors

In a revisit of a post from 2016 I try to understand and explain with an analogy why string theory excited so many theoretical physicists (and still clings on to this day) brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/stri... #stringtheory #theoreticalphysics #drivenbymaths

Interesting timey-wimey (which my computer keeps wanting to correct to timey-wimpy, a well known term) stuff...

Anotnia is a serious condition where a sufferer is unable to take notes. Please consider giving generously to the Anotnia Society, as much further research is required to find a cure.

Review: The Laws of Thought: Tom Griffiths ***** - The best I've seen at helping the reader understand how we think, and how technology produces similar results to intelligence without any understanding of what's involved. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-... #bookreview #popularscience #AI

The Third Rule of Time Travel: Philip Fracassi (SF) **** - A clever take on a time travel story. What first appears little more than a story of a technology producing a lived memory kicks up a gear as things begin to go wrong. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-... #bookreview #sciencefiction

Review (Crime): Murder on the Levels - David Hodges *** - more a thriller than a murder mystery. The police come out very badly (in a book by an ex-Detective Superintendent) but an interesting twist and a tensely horrible ending brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/murd... #bookreview #thriller

Let me just make a few little adjustments to that title… “How a scientist with a PhD in Geology and 25 years of experience is helping lead California’s earthquake work” Way to devalue my experience.

There are at least three things wrong here...

In reacting to a complaint that people misuse the term 'paradox' I discover that the 'misused' definitions are by far the oldest, so arguably perfectly acceptable: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/what... #logic #paradoxes

SF as pure vehicle for ideas - remarkable reading:

Review: Reaching for the Extreme: Ian Stewart **** - The UK's best raconteur of mathematics takes on some of the extremes of the mathematical world, and in doing so gives us some real insights into what makes mathematicians tick. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/02/reac... #bookreview #popularmaths

I have a bit of a rant faced with a TV drama in which this photo of an alleged London terminus in 1957 just didn't ring true: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/peri... - why can't film and TV makers put as much effort into trains as they do clothes and cars? #TVanachronism #historicalinaccuracy

Review (SF): There is No Antimemetics Division: qntm ***** - Some of the most original ideas in SF in the work of the Antimemetics Division facing the impossible task of dealing with concepts and entities that we can't remember popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/02/ther... #bookreview #sciencefiction

A photo taken many years ago when I looked out of the bedroom window and saw something decidedly unexpected:

Got that miserable drizzly Saturday feeling...

The other day I said 'Ask the oracle,' meaning a search engine or AI (not the kind pictured). It struck me that Oracle bagging the name early was a bit of a shame... which leads onto my own experience of having a three letter URL: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/bein... #naming #earlyadoption

If you think changing your personal behaviour is enough to deal with any of climate change, obesity, pension planning, US health care, inequality, plastic waste, privacy, addiction to prescription drugs, gun violence and road deaths... you need to read this book.

Review: It's On You: Nick Chater and George Loewenstein ***** - Impressively uncovers a key social science failing in attributing the solution to major problems from climate change to medical bills to individuals rather than system change. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/02/its-... #bookreview

There's a good news and bad news for the quality of scientific reporting in a BBC report that is based on behavioural science: it actually has references! But unfortunately... brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/good... #sciencecommunication #newsmedia #studyquality

Review (crime fantasy): The Gilded Nest - Sarah Painter **** - Revisiting this dependable UK urban fantasy series at book 9. A serial killer's apparent tribute to Jack the Ripper (this time the victims are sleazy men) is not what it seems. brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-... #bookreview

What better activity for a weekend than reading? Ideally with some nicely structured text:

Re-reading a science fiction book from the 70s, I look at how the most interesting of the failed predictions of hover cars, tri-vees and video phones for the imagined 1990s is the one that is technically feasible: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/01/revi... #sciencefiction #futurology #futuretech

Make Encephalitis Great Again! vaccineknowledge.ox.ac.uk/measles#Key-...

Continuing to be impressed with Littlebird:

Review (history): Mad Tom's Rising - Ian Breckon **** - An engaging exploration of a widely forgotten incident in our history when an eccentric fraudster turned would-be-messiah caused the last battle fought on English soil. brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/01/mad-... #bookreview #englishhistory

Fascinating that despite the shiny happy reputation of Bluesky when compared with X, for the first time ever I've had a to block someone (for telling me to F off) and it was on here...

Review: Merlin's Tour of the Universe - Neil deGrasse Tyson *** - A collection of short Q&As from a magazine on mostly astronomical topics. Not an end-to-end read, but okay as a lightweight dip-in book, mostly avoiding errors. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/01/merl... #bookreview #popularscience

As reading a book in bed with very long chapters keeps me awake far too long I make a plea for shorter ones (or section breaks): brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/01/in-p... #books #structure

There are fewer households who can't get fast enough broadband than can't get a TV signal:

Fancy a dip into the science of time machines? My Ten Short Lessons in Time Travel is currently on special offer (signed copies) of £3+p&p - 2/3 off - I need the shelf space! www.brianclegg.net/timetravel.h...

Any localish dinosaur lovers - I have three volumes of the Princeton Encylopedia of Dinosaurs (Theropods, Sauropods and Ornithischians). Cost £30+ but happy to let them go to a good home for £10 each. Each weighs up to 2.5kg, so UK postage up to £7 each, outside UK prohibitive.

It's generally agreed that (unlike black swans) you shouldn't totally dismiss all theories if contrary evidence emerges - but the ability to apply falsification remains an important indicator of an idea being scientific:

Review (SF): Deep Black: Miles Cameron ***(*) - After accidentally reading vol 3 (Whalesong) of this series out of order, vol 2 is less impressive, but still great as intelligent space opera in detail and alien interaction. popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/01/deep... #bookreview #sciencefiction

Review: The Antigravity Enigma: Andrew May ****- Examines the role of antigravity in fiction, physics and fringe science, from our understanding of gravity to conspiracy theories. Particularly interesting on the fringe material popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-... #bookreview #popularscience

An impressive example of someone trying to dismiss the scientific concept of falsification (partly by blaming it on those dodgy 'intellectuals') but failing badly in a revisited post from ten years ago: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/01/fasc... #Popper #logicfail #blackswans

Any localish dinosaur lovers - I have three volumes of the Princeton Encylopedia of Dinosaurs (Theropods, Sauropods and Ornithischians). Cost £30+ but happy to let them go to a good home for £10 each. Each weighs up to 2.5kg, so UK postage up to £7 each, outside UK prohibitive.

I take on @beebwatch.bsky.social (Roger Bolton), of the excellent BeebWatch podcast and his argument that we can't switch the BBC to subscription because the internet does not have universal access in the UK: brianclegg.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-...

Review: The Antigravity Enigma: Andrew May ****- Examines the role of antigravity in fiction, physics and fringe science, from our understanding of gravity to conspiracy theories. Particularly interesting on the fringe material popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-... #bookreview #popularscience

Love it...

I am now solely using this from now on.