Ignorance and distrust
Doubts about whether science is, or even could be, moving towards some kind of synoptic enlightenment are one thing. Actual distrust is another. I am not sure about the reasons given by Mary Midgley...
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Science to the rescue
In his very interesting article "Let there be Darwin" (THES, March 21) Russell Stannard says that the theory of relativity implies that time and space are welded together as a four-dimensional...
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Cod sincerity? You'll fake it at your peril
Groucho Marx once said that the key to success in life is sincerity, and, he added, if you can fake that you have really got it made. Dozens of institutions - and not only political parties - have...
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A kinship that relies on parity
The British Empire came to Natal last week, or at least that is what it may have seemed like to observers. The "last outpost", as Natal was once known, was host to vice chancellors on the Council of...
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Labour in search of brain gain
LABOUR has promised to reverse the brain drain, but without putting a price on the programme it says will do the job. Gordon Brown, shadow chancellor of the exchequer, told an election press...
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Dolce vita swells the student body
Rome. It was probably the first time in history that lectures at Rome's La Sapienza University have been described in lurid prose day after day in most of Italy's newspapers. The two-day seminar on...
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Up to 100 jobs may go in astronomy shake-up
PROPOSED restructuring of Britain's Royal Observatories will cost Pounds 7.5 million over the next four years, according to the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council's latest business plan...
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Proposal to close the Royal Observatory's Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope
A proposal to close the Royal Observatory's Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope in the Canary Islands would save little money but would have a substantial scientific impact, warns Steve Unger, director of the...
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Hard-up members quit league
The Association of Commonwealth Universities could be seriously weakened if any more British universities drop out to save money, its new secretary general has warned. At least three have withdrawn...
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Qualifications revamp urged
The qualifications system in higher education needs to be redefined and updated, academics are to be told. Quality chiefs want universities and colleges to work towards a common framework for the...
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Infectious inaccuracy
First the Today programme on Radio Four, now you. E. coli O157 may indeed be virulent but it is a bacterium, not a virus, and the O is a letter, not a zero. DOUGLAS KELL Institute of Biological...
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Rich pickings
MORE THAN 100,000 extra students would crowd UK lecture theatres if as many people at the bottom of the social scale went to university as the current average. Young people from the wealthiest...
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Five-star funding for fab four
"UNDERHAND elitism" in the Higher Education Funding Council for England's research funding methodology has created an "unassailable super-elite" of four top institutions, according to vice...
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Finance trio go as deficit revealed
THE University of Luton has been rocked by the shock revelation of serious deficits. Three top finance officers had their contracts terminated when the university discovered that an expected Pounds 1...
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Quality job decision imminent
The new single quality agency for higher education is expected to announce its chief executive this week after months of speculation over who would apply for the Pounds 60,000-a-year job. On the...