







The following essay was published 20 years ago (January, 2006) on my blog The Technium. I edited the intro here, but the speculations are basically unchanged.
The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves
Leading scientific theorist W. Brian Arthur puts forth …

Maybe scientific progress isn’t slowing, after all
A new paper takes aim at the claim that science has become less disruptive

The Bazaar of Scientific Knowledge | shishyko!
Is the current form of the scientific paper still optimal in 2025? How do we preserve, and efficiently leverage, the uncut gems of the scientific process?

Guest post: If you’re going to critique science, be scientific about it
Loren K. Mell Editor’s note: This post responds to a Feb. 13 article in The Atlantic, “The Scientific Literature Can’t Save Us Now,” written by Retraction Watch cofounders Adam Marcus and Ivan Oran…

It’s time to get rid of the peer-reviewed paper
The peer-reviewed journal article, perhaps the single most important device behind the expansion of scientific knowledge in the last century, is an extraordinarily expensive way to share novelty: e…

What stories should we tell about scientific progress now?
In search of the mysterious fruits of basic science

Andreas De Block on Twitter / X
It took Nature three years to publish this rebuttal, which clearly demonstrates the fundamental flaws in the original paper. In the meantime, the paper's conclusions influenced scientific debate and policy decisions. Such delays in correcting flawed research do real damage. https://t.co/QI3Ei3PE70— Andreas De Block (@DeblockBlock) August 13, 2026
The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, Second Edition
“In an age in which the inexhaustible power of scientific technology makes all things possible, it remains to be seen where we will draw the line, where we will be able to say, here are possibilities that wisdom suggest we avoid.” First published to great acclaim in 1988, Langdon Winner’s groundbreaking exploration of the political, social, and philosophical implications of technology is timelier than ever. He demonstrates that choices about the kinds of technical systems we build and use are actually choices about who we want to be and what kind of world we want to create—technical decisions are political decisions, and they involve profound choices about power, liberty, order, and justice. A seminal text in the history and philosophy of science, this new edition includes a new chapter, preface, and postscript by the author.

Are Scientific Papers Bad?
Science has been in a “replication crisis” for a decade. Have we learned anything?
Bad papers are still published. But some other things might be getting better.


Convergence · Gathering open science · Montreal, June 16–18, 2027
Three days in Montreal for the people rethinking how science is created, shared, funded, published, measured, and used. June 16–18, 2027.

Jason Shepherd on Twitter / X
I have quite a lot of thoughts on this..that won't fit in a tweet. Bottomline is that there are issues scientists in the US would love to improve - faster review, less grant writing, more stability and freedom to do risky science. The folks celebrating this doc are mostly../1 https://t.co/xlPAH9XYNC— Jason Shepherd (@JasonSynaptic) July 23, 2026
Is the scientific paper still a fraud?
How we write scientific papers does not reflect how we do science. Their formal structure infers a pre-ordained linear process rather than reflecting the messy creativity of research. This matters in the AI age because it masks the human in the process.

Child Predators Turn to Open-Source AI to Make Unlimited Illegal Images

Mac Users Reclaim 12GB+ of Storage With Apple Intelligence Removal Tool

‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

Cory Doctorow: AI’s big beasts aren’t really scared of their products. They’re scared of their competition

How AI Chatbots Are 'Deskilling' Human Empathy
Pluralistic: The Claude Delusion (21 Sep 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow