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Bishop Hill Dec 19, 2014 Books Media Sui generis 
It was interested to read this article by Ed Hooper, the author of a book entitled The River. Published in 1999, this weighty tome presented an alternative hypothesis for the development of AIDS, suggesting that use of simian organs during the early trials of the polio vaccine provided a pathway for the SIV virus to make the leap to humans, where it became HIV.
Bishop Hill Dec 16, 2014 Books Sui generis 
Richard Smith has another fascinating article about the way science has been practised in universities in recent decades, focusing particularly on The Big Fat Surprise, a book about the purported links between diet and health. It's full of quotable stuff; so much so that I barely know where to begin, but this, almost at random, gives a flavour of the thing.
[Ancel Benjamin Keys, a biologist at the University of Minnesota] studied few men and did not have a reliable way of measuring diets, and in the case of the Japanese and Italians he studied them soon after the second world war, when there were food shortages. Keys could have gathered data from many more countries and people (women as well as men) and used more careful methods, but, suggests Teicholz, he found what he wanted to find. A subsequent study by other researchers of 22 countries found little correlation between death rates from heart disease and fat consumption, and these authors suggested that there could be other causes, including tobacco and sugar consumption
Bishop Hill Mar 30, 2014 Ethics Sui generis
Updated on Apr 1, 2014 by
Bishop Hill
The difficulties of getting academics to correct errors is a regular theme on this blog, the Lewandowsky affair being just the latest in a long and shameful litany. Today's guest post by Doug Keenan describes a set of allegations he has submitted to the University of Oxford. Although not related to climatology, the parallels are obvious.
Research Misconduct by Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Submitted to the University of Oxford by Douglas J. Keenan 28 March 2014
NOTE: a draft of this report was sent to Ramsey; Ramsey acknowledged receipt, but had no comments on the contents.
The perpetrator
Christopher Bronk Ramsey is a professor at the University of Oxford. His main area of work is in a subject known as “radiocarbon dating”. Briefly, radiocarbon dating tries to determine how many years ago an organism died. For example, suppose that we find a bone from some animal; then, using radiocarbon dating, we might be able to determine that the animal died, say, 3000 years ago.
Bishop Hill Sep 24, 2013 Climate: MetOffice Sui generis This is a guest post by Ken Bosomworth.
Obsessive talk of deniers by some at Met Office headquarters
An afternoon, which included plans to grab foreign met equipment, ends with a bang
It was a chilly November afternoon when I made my most recent visit to the UK Meteorological Office headquarters at Victory House, London. (This description of my visit is, incidentally, entirely true, and it is unlikely that any of the Met Office staff involved will deny it.) As on previous visits I accompanied my father who had worked there as a met officer, and had now received a couple of promotions. On this particular occasion he was involved, I gathered, in an important and hush-hush plan relating to the future coordination of observations and forecasting of winds and temperatures in the extreme North of Europe, particularly Norway.
Bishop Hill Aug 7, 2013 BBC Royal Society Sui generis On Radio 4 last night, Ehsan Masood, the editor of Research Fortnight, looked at the politicisation of science in a show entitled Science, Left or Right.
The first twenty minutes or so was fairly bog-standard BBC fare, with Chris Mooney telling us that Republicans are waging a war on science and various talking heads agreeing with him. After that it picked up somewhat, with Tamsin Edwards interviewed and sounding very polished and very reasonable, while neatly avoiding naming the scientists who are "doing a PR job" on science. There was also Peter Lilley pointing out the scientific establishment's cutting off of funding for those with dissenting views. This point was put to Paul Nurse, whose answer was, in essence, that "if their arguments are good, their views will prevail". This didn't seem to address the point in my view, and Lilley's case therefore stands unchallenged. It was a pity that Masood didn't press Nurse.
Bishop Hill Oct 4, 2011 Climate: other Sui generis One of the problems with building a demand for political action on science is that it tends to get in the way of the proper conduct of science. Correcting mistakes becomes difficult, if not impossible, because there are too many political vested interests involved.
It's nice then to be reminded of how things are meant to be, with this heartening story of an eminent mathematician who thought he had found something amazing, started writing a book about it and then let on in a discussion on Google+ about what he was working on. This led to some engagement with other interested mathematicians and shortly afterwards him posting the following remarks:
Bishop Hill Sep 18, 2011 Sui generis This just in from reader Anoneumouse, inspired by Josh's recent tour-de-toon.
Bishop Hill Aug 29, 2011 Sui generis If there are any computer-literate readers out there, help! I bought a new PC over the weekend.
I appear to have this problem (although I'm using Word 2003 in Win7-64). As per the linked page, if I switch to Winword Safe Mode, the problem goes away.
The page linked suggests I have a print driver problem. However, the printer is installed on the missus's PC and I share it (it's a share rather than a network printer). Isn't the print driver on her machine then?
I'm confused...
Bishop Hill Aug 13, 2010 Sui generis I am having severe email problems. Anything addressed to my normal email address is being bounced. I'm getting odd emails suggesting that spammers are using my domain - ie out of office bounces addressed to non-existent people at my domain.
If anyone can offer advice on how to deal with this, I'd be grateful.
In the meantime, contact me through the contact link on the sidebar.
Bishop Hill
Thanks to everyone who has got in touch or suggested ideas. I've got a few possible lines of inquiry to fix the problem of emails going astray or being delayed.
Have a good weekend.
Bishop Hill Oct 30, 2009 Sui generis ...when Amazon's best idea for a book you might like to buy is... Actuarial Mathematics for Life Contingent Risks. 
Maybe I need to get out more...
Bishop Hill Aug 20, 2009 Sui generis These teabag designs from a German company called Donkey Products made me smile...
Bishop Hill Jul 7, 2009 Sui generis If this isn't a previously well-described law then it should be.
Whenever thou laughest at another's spelling or grammar, the spelling thou usest in doing so shall be found to be equally dodgy.
Take this, from the Independent, for example:
Thirteen out of 20 world class university websites analysed by Australian spelling software Spellr.us were found to have miss-spellings of the word ‘university’.
...
Despite representing one of the UK’s oldest and best educational institutions Cambridge’s website was found to have miss-spelled the word ‘service’ in one of its navigational bars.
Miss Spelling must be very upset.
