# kb

id: scientific-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_controversy-0.md
category: reference
title: Scientific controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:26.533179+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientific-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Sustained scientific controversy, sometimes scientific debate is any substantial disagreement among scientists. A scientific controversy may involve issues such as the interpretation of data, which ideas are most supported by evidence, and/or which ideas are most worth pursuing. Controversies between scientific and non-scientific ideas are not within the realm of science and are not true scientific controversies. A genuine scientific controversy entails an ongoing discussion within the wider scientific community. Well known examples include the debate over the existence of the atom that lasted until the turn of the 20th century, the Bohr–Einstein debates, the linguistics wars, and the debate over the causes of ADHD. == Intra-academic debate == Constructive debate within the scientific community is widely viewed as essential to the progress of science as a whole. Critique and debate leads to an environment in which ideas are rigorously and extensively cross-tested and in which mistakes which one individual might not catch are able to be justified by another, and additionally, the environment can push the development of new research programs, discovery of new evidence, and the forward movement of scientific consensus. Debate among scientists within a primarily academic setting can take one of many forms: two important forms,


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-0.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
The current campaign for an academic boycott of Israel was launched in April 2004 by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. PACBI argues that Israeli academic institutions are complicit in perpetuating the Israeli occupation and therefore should be subject to boycott in order to advance BDS goals. Since then, proposals for academic boycotts of particular Israeli universities and academics have been made by academics and organizations in Palestine, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Supporters say the boycotts is intended to pressure Israel to change policies they describe are discriminatory towards the Palestinians. The campaigns for academic boycott of Israel have led to fierce debate. Opponents argue that boycott advocates apply different standards to Israel than other countries, that the boycott is counterproductive, a collective punishment of Israeli academia, a tactic to threaten the existence of the State of Israel, and also that the campaign is antisemitic. Support for academic boycotts of Israel has been more prevalent among faculty in the humanities and social sciences than in the sciences. Despite this debate, academic boycott measures have been undertaken around the world,


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-1.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
=== Association of University Teachers === On 22 April 2005, the Council of Association of University Teachers (AUT) voted to boycott two Israeli universities: University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University. The motions to AUT Council were prompted by the call for a boycott from nearly 60 Palestinian academics and others. The AUT Council voted to boycott Bar-Ilan because it runs courses at colleges in the West Bank (referring to Ariel College) and "is thus directly involved with the occupation of Palestinian territories contrary to United Nations resolutions". It boycotted Haifa because it was alleged that the university had wrongly disciplined Ilan Pappé for supporting a student who wrote about attacks on Palestinians during the founding of the state of Israel. The University denied having disciplined the lecturer. Union members claimed that staff and students [of Israeli universities] who seek to research Israel's history in full are often "victimised". The AUT's decision was immediately condemned by Jewish groups and many members of the AUT. Critics of the boycott within and outside the AUT noted that at the meeting at which the boycott motion was passed the leadership cut short the debate citing a lack of time. Specifically, the Board of Deputies


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-2.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
The ironic thing, is if we had put this to delegates a couple of weeks ago, before the international pro-Israeli lobby started this massive campaign emailing delegates and trying to deny us our democratic right to discuss whatever we like, it probably wouldn't have passed. People feel bullied, and what we have seen is a hardening of attitudes. All they achieved was making the delegates determined to debate and pass the motion. Tamara Traubmann and Benjamin Joffe-Walt, reporting for The Guardian, conducted an analysis of "whether the campaigns against such boycotts are actually motivated by concerns for academic freedom, or whether they are using the universalist ideal to stifle critical discussion of Israel". They describe their findings this way: Through discussions with anti-boycott campaigners and a trace of the most common emails (not necessarily abusive) sent to the union and handed over by Natfhe, we found the vast majority of the tens of thousands of emails originated not with groups fighting for academic freedom, but with lobby groups and thinktanks that regularly work to delegitimise criticisms of Israel. === University and College Union === Since 2007, the UCU has been controversially involved in the academic boycotts of Israel and for


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-3.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
=== Following Operation Cast Lead === In March 2009, shortly after the Gaza War, a call for an academic boycott in France was published on the web with over 50 signatures, including Daniel Bensaïd, Gérard Toulouse of the Académie des sciences, coauthor in 2003 of Les scientifiques et les droits de l'homme with Lydie Koch-Miramond who had also signed and defended the boycott of Israel in 2002, Mireille Fanon-Mendès-France, and Roland Lombard, President of the Collectif Interuniversitaire pour la Coopération avec les Universités Palestiniennes. They called "in the first place to impose a program of boycott, divestment, and sanctions," following the creation of the French organization BDS France. In the spring of 2009, the Association of Academics for the Respect of International Law in Palestine (AURDIP) was created by the group of academics who had initiated the 2002 call, in alliance with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel PACBI and with the British organization British Committee for the Universities of Palestine. AURDIP was created with two primary missions: (1) To promote the application of international law in Israel and Palestine; specifically to oppose Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and Israel’s settlement policy, which fly


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-4.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
Others may interpret the boycott differently, but I have no problem collaborating with Israeli scholars and artists as long as we do not participate in any Israeli institution or have Israeli state monies support our collaborative work. The reason, of course, is that the academic and cultural boycott seeks to put pressure on all those cultural institutions that have failed to oppose the occupation and struggle for equal rights and the rights of the dispossessed, all those cultural institutions that think it is not their place to criticize their government for these practices, all of them that understand themselves to be above or beyond this intractable political condition. Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, is on the advisory board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel. Dabashi supports boycott efforts targeting both Israeli individuals and institutions: The divestment campaign that has been far more successful in Western Europe needs to be reinvigorated in North America – as must the boycotting of the Israeli cultural and academic institutions ... Naming names and denouncing individually every prominent Israeli intellectual who has publicly endorsed their elected officials' wide-eyed barbarism, and then categorically boycotting their


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-5.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
Until April 2013, no American school had ever divested from or imposed an academic boycott on Israel despite strong boycott campaigns. Former President of Harvard University Larry Summers has called Israel-boycott efforts "anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent". In 2007, nearly 300 university presidents across the United States signed a joint statement denouncing the boycott movement. In 2010, a group of 15 American university professors launched a campaign calling for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. Many universities and prominent scholars criticized the ASA's support of the boycott. Brandeis University, Pennsylvania State University, Indiana University and Kenyon College decided to withdraw from the ASA. The American Council on Education, an umbrella organisation of 1,800 institutions, the American Association of Universities which represents 62 schools across the US and Canada, and the American Association of University Professors all condemned the boycott. Ninety-two university presidents including of Harvard, Brown, Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Duke, Stanford, Boston, Columbia, Chicago, New York University, Dartmouth College, Wesleyan, Florida, University of Miami, Western Kentucky University, University of Connecticut and University of Washington, condemned the boycott and distanced themselves from the ASA. Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said, "academic boycotts subvert the academic


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-6.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
== Ireland == In April 2013 the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) passed a motion calling for an academic boycott of Israel. Following a referendum among NUI Galway students in March 2014, the NUI Galway Students' Union officially began supporting the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. In December 2022 the Union of Students in Ireland unanimously passed a motion to support BDS and "denounce the apartheid that Israel is committing in Palestine". The motion also called on the European Students Union (ESU) "to re-evaluate the membership of Israel and support any Palestinian efforts to engage with ESU". Trinity College Dublin cut ties with Israeli institutions in 2025. == South Africa == === Campaign to boycott Ben-Gurion University === On 5 September 2010, a nationwide academic petition was initiated by academics supporting a termination of a partnership agreement between the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and Ben-Gurion University (BGU); a long-standing partnership dating back to apartheid era relations between the two institutions. Well-known academics such as Professors Breyten Breytenbach, John Dugard, Mahmood Mamdani, Antjie Krog and Achille Mbembe are signatories to the academic petition, which is also backed by Vice-Chancellors from four universities in South Africa. Amid widespread public


id: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel-7.md
category: reference
title: Academic boycott of Israel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycott_of_Israel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:27.825907+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: academic-boycott-of-israel-20260505-0
summary:
== Criticism == A prominent Palestinian academic, former president of Al-Quds University, Sari Nusseibeh, has argued against academic boycotts of Israel, telling Associated Press "If we are to look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we've had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favor of seeing us as equals.... If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach." He acknowledges, however, that his view is a minority one among Palestinian academics. A study focusing on the impact of academic boycotts on academic freedom and discourse, based on interviews during the Gaza war that began in 2023, found that Israeli academics faced overt and covert discrimination, obstacles to collaboration, and potential long-term career challenges. Participants in the study stressed the need to keep science separate from politics and preserve cross-border collaboration as essential for advancing research and addressing global challenges. Cary Nelson argues that while boycott resolutions are unlikely to affect Israeli policy, they risk politicizing and damaging the reputation of the humanities, undermining open debate, and shaping public opinion in ways that may harm academia itself. The Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan told the Guardian that


id: alphachip-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaChip_(controversy)-0.md
category: reference
title: AlphaChip (controversy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaChip_(controversy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:29.075305+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alphachip-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The AlphaChip controversy refers to a series of public, scholarly, and legal disputes surrounding a 2021 Nature paper by Google-affiliated researchers. The paper describes an approach to macro placement, a stage of chip floorplanning, based on reinforcement learning (RL), a machine learning method in which a system iteratively improves its decisions by optimizing performance-based reward signals. The primary technical question is whether the new techniques are better than existing (non-AI) techniques. Both internal Google studies and external attempts to replicate the algorithm have failed to show the claimed benefits. No head-to-head comparison is available because the data used in the paper is proprietary, and Google has not released any results from running its algorithm on public benchmarks. This has resulted in considerable skepticism over the paper's claims. In addition, the inability of others (both inside and outside of Google) to replicate the claimed results have sparked concerns about the paper’s methodology, reproducibility, and scientific integrity. The lead researchers of the Nature paper were affiliated with Google Brain, which became part of Google DeepMind, and later spun off into the company Ricursive. == Motivation for research: Macro placement in chip layout == Chip design for modern integrated circuits is a complex,


id: alphachip-controversy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaChip_(controversy)-1.md
category: reference
title: AlphaChip (controversy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaChip_(controversy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:29.075305+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alphachip-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Internal dispute at Google and legal proceedings === In 2022, Satrajit Chatterjee, a Google engineer involved in reviewing the AlphaChip work, raised concerns internally and drafted an alternative analysis, (Stronger Baselines) arguing that established methods outperformed the RL approach under fair comparison. In March 2022, Google declined to publish this analysis and terminated Chatterjee's employment. Chatterjee filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit, alleging that representations related to the AlphaChip research involved fraud and scientific misconduct. According to court documents, Chatterjee's study was conducted "in the context of a large potential Google Cloud deal". He noted that it "would have been unethical to imply that we had revolutionary technology when our tests showed otherwise" and claimed Google was deliberately withholding material information. Furthermore, the committee that reviewed his paper and disapproved its publication was allegedly chaired by subordinates of Jeff Dean, a senior co-author of the Nature paper. Google’s subsequent motion to dismiss was denied, holding that Chatterjee had plausibly alleged retaliation for refusing to engage in conduct he believed would violate state or federal law. === External controversy === The external questions can be summarized in four main points: (a) Are the claims supported by the evidence provided? (b) Did


id: alphachip-controversy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaChip_(controversy)-2.md
category: reference
title: AlphaChip (controversy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaChip_(controversy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:29.075305+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alphachip-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
== Nature editorial actions == In April 2022, the peer review file for the Nature article was included as a supplementary information file. In September 2023, Nature added an editor's note to "A graph placement methodology for fast chip design" stating that the paper's performance claims had been called into question and that the editors were investigating the concerns. On 21 September 2023, Andrew B. Kahng's accompanying News & Views article was retracted; the retraction notice said that new information about the methods used in the Google paper had become available after publication and had changed the author’s assessment, and it also said that Nature was conducting an independent investigation of the paper’s performance claims. By late September 2024, the editor's note was removed without explanation, but Nature published an addendum to the original paper (dated 26 September 2024). The addendum introduced the name AlphaChip for the proposed RL technique and described methodological details that critics had previously identified as missing, including the use of initial ( x , y ) {\displaystyle (x,y)} locations. The addendum addressed some methodological details but still lacked the full training and evaluation inputs needed for independent replication. == Author responses and ensuing debate ==


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-0.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
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parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The question of the race of the people of ancient Egypt was raised historically as a product of the early racial concepts of the 18th and 19th centuries, and was linked to models of racial hierarchy primarily based on craniometry and anthropometry. A variety of views circulated about the racial identity of the Egyptians and the source of their culture. Some scholars argued that ancient Egyptian culture was influenced by other Afroasiatic-speaking populations in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, or West Asia, while others pointed to influences from various Nubian groups or populations in Europe. In more recent times, some writers continued to challenge the mainstream view, some focusing on questioning the race of specific notable individuals, such as the pharaoh represented in the Great Sphinx of Giza, the native Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, the Egyptian queen Tiye, and the Greek Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra VII. Mainstream Western scholars reject the notion that Egypt was a "white" or "black" civilization; they maintain that applying modern notions of black or white races to ancient Egypt is anachronistic. In addition, scholars reject the notion—implicit in a black or white Egypt hypothesis—that ancient Egypt was racially homogeneous; instead, skin colour varied between the peoples


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-1.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
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parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
In 1839, Jean-François Champollion suggested that: "In the Copts of Egypt, we do not find any of the characteristic features of the ancient Egyptian population. The Copts are the result of crossbreeding with all the nations that successfully dominated Egypt. It is wrong to seek in them the principal features of the old race." This memoir was made in the context of the first tribes that would have inhabited Egypt, his opinion was noted after his return from Nubia. In 1839, Champollion's and Volney's claims were disputed by Jacques Joseph Champollion-Figeac, who blamed a misunderstanding of the ancients for spreading a false impression of a "Negro" Egypt, stating "the two physical traits of black skin and woolly hair are not enough to stamp a race as negro" and "the opinion that the ancient population of Egypt belonged to the Negro African race, is an error long accepted as the truth. ... Volney's conclusion as to the Negro origin of the ancient Egyptian civilization is evidently forced and inadmissible." Gaston Maspero, a 19th-century French Egyptologist, stated that "by the almost unanimous testimony of ancient Greek historians, they (Ancient Egyptians) belonged to the African race, which settled in Ethiopia." Heinrich Karl Brusch,


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-2.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
In 2025, members of the UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of New Volumes IX, X and IX of General History of Africa reviewed the 1974 Symposium with the availability of new sources of data. This volume featured 60 scholars from 28 countries across every continent, with the International Scientific Committee consisting of 16 member specialists appointed by the UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay. These committee members included Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Paul Lovejoy, Tayeb Chenntouf, Anshan Li, Hilary Beckles and Vanicléia Silva Santos. The international publication featured multidisciplinary views across several chapter sections on the population formation of Egypt. UNESCO International Scientific Committee Chair and archaeologist, Augustin Holl, stated that Egypt was situated in an intersection between Africa and Eurasia but affirmed "Egypt is African" with a fluctuating distribution of African and Eurasian populations depending on historical circumstances. Coordinating reviewer, historian and archaeologist Doulaye Konate stated the volume featured a general review of the archaeology of sub-Saharan Africa and “one of the strengths of the work is an emphasis on the African roots of the Egyptian civilization”. He later stated the Volume II of General History of Africa had integrated the Pharaonic civilization into a ‘Negro-African bosom’. In a chapter review


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-3.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Egyptian historian and archaeological inspector at the Ministry of Antiquities, H. A. A. Ibrahim, examined the megalithic complex of Nabta Playa, Upper Egypt to understand the cultural and population influences of the Holocene on pre-dynastic Egypt. She cited an anthropological study confirming the appearance of a Sub-Saharan high status child in a ceremonial centre and concluded that the megalithic structures had close resemblance to comparable structures in the Sahelian and Sub-Saharan regions of Africa. In another chapter on the population genetics of pharaonic Egypt, geneticist Jean Phillipe Gourdine adduced correlative sources of linguistic, anthropological, paleontological and genetic evidence which demonstrated African affinities with specific Neolithic and predynastic remains at the Naqada, Badari and Adaima sites in Upper Egypt. He referenced a number of studies performed by Eric Crubézy, this included genetic analysis on the modern Upper Egyptian population in Adaima which identified genetic markers common across Africa, with 71% of the Adaima samples carrying E1b1 haplogroup and 3% carrying the L0f mitochondrial haplogroup. This was supported by an anthropological study by Cruzeby in the pre-dynastic cemetery at Adaima (3700 BCE) which found the notable presence of dental markers, characteristic of Khoisan people, (25%) among several children’s teeth." Gourdine also stated


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-4.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Views from Egyptologists and African historians === Frank J. Yurco outlined in a 1989 article that "In short, ancient Egypt, like modern Egypt, consisted of a very heterogeneous population". He also wrote in 1990: "When you talk about Egypt, it's just not right to talk about black or white .... To take the terminology here in the United States and graft it onto Africa is anthropologically inaccurate". Yurco added that "We are applying a racial divisiveness to Egypt that they would never have accepted, They would have considered this argument absurd, and that is something we could really learn from." Yurco wrote in 1996 that "the peoples of Egypt, the Sudan, and much of North-East Africa are generally regarded as a Nilotic continuity, with widely ranging physical features (complexions light to dark, various hair and craniofacial types)". British Africanist, Basil Davidson, summarised in 1990, that "It follows that the Ancient Egyptians were Africans even if immigrants also trickled in from Asia and southern Europe. Where the ancient Egyptians were black or as brown in skin colour as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably they were both". Gamal Mokthar, editor of the UNESCO General History of


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-5.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Robert Morkot wrote in 2005: The ancient Egyptians were not 'white' in any European sense, nor were they 'Caucasian'... we can say that the earliest population of ancient Egypt included African people from the upper Nile, African people from the regions of the Sahara and modern Libya, and smaller numbers of people who had come from south-western Asia and perhaps the Arabian peninsula. Felix Chami wrote in 2006 that Egyptian iconography had shown "that their physical type, like most of the people of the African communities, was both black and brown." Fekri Hassan wrote in 2021 in regards to the origins of Egypt that "the original African populations of the Nile Valley, who showed a local gradual change in physical traits from south to north due to distance, hosted peoples who drifted from southwest Asia". William Stiebling and Susan Helft wrote in 2023 on the historical debate concerning the race and ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians in light of recent evidence. They argued that the physical appearances would have varied along a continuum from the Delta to the Nile’s source regions in the south. The authors specified that “some ancient Egyptians looked more Middle Eastern and others looked more Sudanese


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-6.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
== Scholarly views on bias == Various scholars have highlighted the role of colonial racism in shaping the attitudes of early Egyptologists, and criticised the continued over-representation of North American and European perspectives in the field. Diop in his work, The African Origin of Civilization argued that the prevailing views in Egyptology were driven by biased scholarship and colonial attitudes. Similarly, Bruce Trigger wrote that early modern scholarship on the Nile Valley populations had been "marred by a confusion of race, language, and culture and by an accompanying racism". Criticism has also been levelled at modern anthropological studies of Nile valley populations. This has related to interpretations of biological Africans. These past approaches have been viewed to subscribe to a narrow craniometric paradigm which classifies certain African populations as “True Negroes”, whilst categorising Egyptians, Nubians, Somalians as non-Africans despite having a shared biocultural evolutionary climate. Smith wrote in 2018 that a common practice among Egyptologists was to "divorce Egypt from its proper northeast African context, instead framing it as fundamentally part of a Near Eastern or "Mediterranean" economic, social and political sphere, hardly African at all or at best a crossroad between the Near East, the eastern Mediterranean and Africa,


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-7.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
== Present-day controversies == Today the issues regarding the race of the ancient Egyptians are "troubled waters which most people who write about ancient Egypt from within the mainstream of scholarship avoid." The debate, therefore, takes place mainly in the public sphere and tends to focus on a small number of specific issues. === Greco-Roman accounts of Ancient Egypt === A range of scholars have cited the classical observations of prominent Greeks and Romans as forms of primary evidence to denote the physical appearance of the early Egyptians. Some historical accounts have drawn close physical and cultural resemblances between Egyptians and Ethiopians whereas others have associated them more closely with northern Indians. In the fifth century BCE, Greek historian, Herodotus, described the Egyptians as having “melanchrones skin and wooly hair and secondly, and more reliably for the reason that alone among mankind the Egyptians and the Ethiopians have practiced circumcision since time immemorial.” Herodotus also wrote that the Ammonians of Siwa Oasis are "colonists from Egypt and Aethiopia and speak a language compounded of the tongues of both countries". In the first century BCE, Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, in his work Bibliotheca Historica, reported that the Ethiopians claimed that Egypt


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-8.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Older literature maintained that the label "God's Land", when interpreted as "Holy Land" or "Land of the gods/ancestors", meant that the ancient Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt as their ancestral homeland. Flinders Petrie believed that the Dynastic Race came from or through Punt and that "Pan, or Punt, was a district at the south end of the Red Sea, which probably embraced both the African and Arabian shores." Moreover, E. A. Wallis Budge stated that "Egyptian tradition of the Dynastic Period held that the aboriginal home of the Egyptians was Punt...". James Breasted in 1906 argued that the term Ta netjer was not only applied to Punt, located southeast of Egypt, but also to regions of Asia east and northeast of Egypt, such as Lebanon, which was the source of wood for temples. Modern scholars have noted that the term was applied to the Land of Punt, the exact location had historically been a subject of scholarly debate with a spectrum of views associating Puntland with regions extending from Ethiopia to southern Arabia. Recent consensus has now located the region in modern northeast Africa due to the prevalence of indigenous goods and animals which are reflected in Egyptian reliefs


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-9.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Although modern technology can reconstruct Tutankhamun's facial structure with a high degree of accuracy, based on CT data from his mummy, determining his skin tone and eye color is impossible. The clay model was therefore given a coloring, which, according to the artist, was based on an "average shade of modern Egyptians". Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president for mission programs, said, in response to some of those protesting against the Tutankhamun reconstruction: The big variable is skin tone. North Africans, we know today, had a range of skin tones, from light to dark. In this case, we selected a medium skin tone, and we say, quite up front, 'This is midrange.' We will never know for sure what his exact skin tone was or the color of his eyes with 100% certainty.... Maybe in the future, people will come to a different conclusion. When pressed on the issue by American activists in September 2007, the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass stated "Tutankhamun was not black." In a November 2007 publication of Ancient Egypt magazine, Hawass asserted that none of the facial reconstructions resemble Tut and that, in his opinion, the most accurate


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-10.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The race and skin color of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, established in 323 BC, has also caused some debate, although generally not in scholarly sources. For example, the article "Was Cleopatra Black?" was published in Ebony magazine in 2012, and an article about Afrocentrism from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch mentions the question, too. Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the main origins of the black Cleopatra claim to the 1946 book by J. A. Rogers called World's Great Men of Color, although noting that the idea of Cleopatra as black goes back to at least the 19th century. The black Cleopatra claim was further revived in an essay by afrocentrist John Henrik Clarke, chair of African history at Hunter College, entitled "African Warrior Queens." Lefkowitz refutes Rogers' and Clarke's hypotheses, on various scholarly grounds. Scholars identify Cleopatra as essentially of Greek ancestry with some Persian and Sogdian Iranian ancestry, based on the fact that her Macedonian Greek family (the Ptolemaic dynasty) had intermingled with the Seleucid aristocracy of the time. Michael Grant states that Cleopatra probably had not a drop of Egyptian blood and


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-11.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The identity of the model for the Great Sphinx of Giza is unknown. Most experts believe that the face of the Sphinx represents the likeness of the Pharaoh Khafra, although a few Egyptologists and interested amateurs have proposed different hypotheses. An early description of the Sphinx, "typically negro in all its features", is recorded in the travel notes of a French scholar, Volney, who visited Egypt between 1783 and 1785 along with French novelist Gustave Flaubert. A similar description was given in the "well-known book" by Vivant Denon, where he described the sphinx as "the character is African; but the mouth, the lips of which are thick." Following Volney, Denon, and other early writers, numerous Afrocentric scholars, such as Du Bois, Diop and Asante have characterized the face of the Sphinx as Black, or "Negroid". American geologist Robert M. Schoch has written that the "Sphinx has a distinctive African, Nubian, or Negroid aspect which is lacking in the face of Khafre", but he was described by others such as Ronald H. Fritze and Mark Lehner of being a "pseudoscientific writer". David S. Anderson writes in Lost City, Found Pyramid: Understanding Alternative Archaeologies and Pseudoscientific Practices that Van Sertima's claim that


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-12.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Ancient Egyptian tombs and temples contained thousands of paintings, sculptures, and written works, which reveal a great deal about the people of that time. However, their depictions of themselves in their surviving art and artifacts are rendered in sometimes symbolic, rather than realistic, pigments. As a result, ancient Egyptian artifacts provide sometimes conflicting and inconclusive evidence of the ethnicity of the people who lived in Egypt during dynastic times. In their own art, "Egyptians are often represented in a color that is officially called dark red", according to Diop. Arguing against other theories, Diop quotes Champollion-Figeac, who states, "one distinguishes on Egyptian monuments several species of blacks, differing...with respect to complexion, which makes Negroes black or copper-colored." Regarding an expedition by King Sesostris, Cherubini states the following concerning captured southern Africans, "except for the panther skin about their loins, are distinguished by their color, some entirely black, others dark brown. University of Chicago scholars assert that Nubians are generally depicted with black paint, but the skin pigment used in Egyptian paintings to refer to Nubians can range "from dark red to brown to black". This can be observed in paintings from the tomb of the Egyptian Huy, as well as


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-13.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Manu Ampim, a professor at Merritt College specializing in African and African American history and culture, claims in the book Modern Fraud: The Forged Ancient Egyptian Statues of Ra-Hotep and Nofret, that many ancient Egyptian statues and artworks are modern frauds that have been created specifically to hide the "fact" that the ancient Egyptians were black, while authentic artworks that demonstrate black characteristics are systematically defaced or even "modified". Ampim repeatedly makes the accusation that the Egyptian authorities are systematically destroying evidence that "proves" that the ancient Egyptians were black, under the guise of renovating and conserving the applicable temples and structures. He further accuses "European" scholars of wittingly participating in and abetting this process. Ampim has a specific concern about a wall painting depicting in a scene from the Book of Gates identified as the 4th Division, 5th Hour. an Egyptian funerary text the in the Tomb of Ramesses III (KV11). The Book of Gates is a funerary text appears in a number of New Kingdom tombs, and they were usually provided for the guidance of the soul of the deceased. The Egyptians did not assign a name to this text; it was later termed 'Livre des Portes' (Book


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-14.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
==== Fayyum mummy portraits ==== The Roman era Fayum mummy portraits attached to coffins containing the latest dated mummies discovered in the Faiyum Oasis represent a population of both native Egyptians and those with mixed Greek heritage. The dental morphology of the mummies align more with the indigenous North African population than Greek or other later colonial European settlers. ==== Black queen controversy ==== The late British Africanist Basil Davidson stated "Whether the Ancient Egyptians were as black or as brown in skin color as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably, they were both. Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black being from the south." Ahmose-Nefertari is an example. In most depictions of Ahmose-Nefertari, she is pictured with black skin, while in some instances her skin is blue or red. In 1939 Flinders Petrie said "an invasion from the south...established a black queen as the divine ancestress of the XVIIIth dynasty" He also said "a possibility of the black being symbolic has been suggested" and "Nefertari must have married a Libyan, as she was the mother of Amenhetep I, who was


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-15.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The Black Egyptian hypothesis is the hypothesis that ancient Egypt was a "Black", homogeneous civilization. At a UNESCO symposium in 1974 there was consensus that Ancient Egypt was indigenous to Africa. However, Diop's hypothesis that Ancient Egypt was a "Black" civilization was met with "numerous objections" in 1974 which revealed "a disagreement which remained profound even though it was not voiced explicitly. In respect of certain sequences, the criticisms arose out of the line of argument put forward." The majority of the objections "raised were of methodological nature" which ranged from the need for reliable statistical data to further research projects in several fields such as archaeology and physical anthropology before final conclusions on the peopling of Egypt could be made. There was also "total disagreement" from the majority of scholars in the 1974 conference on the hypothesis that Ancient Egypt had been a homogenous population until Persian times with several scholars favouring the hypothesis of a mixed population. Subsequent reviewers of the 1974 symposium debate and the UNESCO publication have presented a range of views on the outcome of the debate. Larissa Nordholt argued that Diop's chapter was politically motivated, having been published only due to being in line


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-16
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-16.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Asiatic race theory === This theory was the most dominant view from the Early Middle Ages (c. 500 AD) until the early 19th century. The descendants of Ham were traditionally considered to be the darkest-skinned branch of humanity, either because of their geographic allotment to Africa or because of the Curse of Ham. Thus, Diop cited Gaston Maspero "Moreover, the Bible states that Mesraim, son of Ham, brother of Chus (Kush) ... and of Canaan, came from Mesopotamia to settle with his children on the banks of the Nile." By the 20th century, the Asiatic race theory and its various offshoots were abandoned but were superseded by two related theories: the Eurocentric Hamitic hypothesis, asserting that a Caucasian racial group moved into North and East Africa from early prehistory subsequently bringing with them all advanced agriculture, technology and civilization, and the Dynastic race theory, proposing that Mesopotamian invaders were responsible for the dynastic civilization of Egypt (c. 3000 BC). In sharp contrast to the Asiatic race theory, neither of these theories proposes that Caucasians were the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt. At the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo


id: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-17
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy-17.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Egyptian race controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:30.372855+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-egyptian-race-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The Dynastic race theory, which has been rejected by modern scholarship, is the hypothesis that a Mesopotamian force had invaded Egypt in predynastic times, imposed itself on the indigenous Badarian people, and become their rulers. The Mesopotamian-founded state or states were supposed to have conquered both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty of Egypt. The theory was proposed in the early 20th century by Flinders Petrie, who deduced that skeletal remains found at pre-dynastic sites at Naqada (Upper Egypt) indicated the presence of two different races, with one race differentiated physically by a noticeably larger skeletal structure and cranial capacity. Petrie also noted new architectural styles—the distinctly Mesopotamian "niched-façade" architecture—pottery styles, cylinder seals and a few artworks, as well as numerous predynastic rock and tomb paintings depicting Mesopotamian style boats, symbols, and figures. Based on plentiful cultural evidence, Petrie concluded that the invading ruling elite was responsible for the seemingly sudden rise of Egyptian civilization. In the 1950s, the dynastic race theory was widely accepted. While there is clear evidence the Naqada II culture borrowed abundantly from Mesopotamia, the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period, and the changes which


id: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy-0.md
category: reference
title: Brouwer–Hilbert controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:31.712335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The Brouwer–Hilbert controversy (German: Grundlagenstreit, lit. 'foundational debate') was a debate in twentieth-century mathematics over fundamental questions about the consistency of axioms and the role of semantics and syntax in mathematics. L. E. J. Brouwer, a proponent of the constructivist school of intuitionism, opposed David Hilbert, a proponent of formalism. Much of the controversy took place while both were involved with Mathematische Annalen, the leading mathematical journal of the time, with Hilbert as editor-in-chief and Brouwer as a member of its editorial board. In 1928, Hilbert had Brouwer removed from the editorial board of Mathematische Annalen. == Background == The controversy started with Hilbert's axiomatization of geometry in the late 1890s. In his biography of Kurt Gödel, John W. Dawson, Jr observed that "partisans of three principal philosophical positions took part in the debate" – these three being the logicists (Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell), the formalists (David Hilbert and his colleagues), and the constructivists (Henri Poincaré and Hermann Weyl); within this constructivist school was the radical self-named "intuitionist" L. E. J. Brouwer. === History of Intuitionism === Brouwer founded the mathematical philosophy of intuitionism as a challenge to the prevailing formalism of David Hilbert and his colleagues, Paul Bernays,


id: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy-1.md
category: reference
title: Brouwer–Hilbert controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:31.712335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== The law of excluded middle extended to the infinite === Cantor (1897) extended the intuitive notion of "the infinite" – one foot placed after the other in a never-ending march toward the horizon – to the notion of "a completed infinite" – the arrival "all the way, way out there" in one fell swoop, and he symbolized this notion with a single sign ℵ0 (aleph-null). Hilbert's adoption of the notion wholesale was "thoughtless", Brouwer alleged. Brouwer in his (1927a) "Intuitionistic reflections on formalism" states: "SECOND INSIGHT The rejection of the thoughtless use of the logical principle of the excluded middle, as well as the recognition, first, of the fact that the investigation of the question why the principle mentioned is justified and to what extent it is valid constitutes an essential object of research in the foundations of mathematics, and, second, of the fact that in intuitive (contentual) mathematics this principle is valid only for finite systems. THIRD INSIGHT. The identification of the principle of excluded middle with the principle of the solvability of every mathematical problem." This Third Insight is referring to Hilbert's second problem and Hilbert's ongoing attempt to axiomatize all of arithmetic, and with this system,


id: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy-2.md
category: reference
title: Brouwer–Hilbert controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:31.712335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Objections related to the law of the excluded middle and induction === In van Heijenoort's commentary preceding Weyl's (1927) "Comments on Hilbert's second lecture on the foundations of mathematics" Poincaré points out to Hilbert (1905) that there are two types of "induction" (1) the intuitive animal-logic foot-following-foot version that gives us a sense that there's always another footstep after the last footstep, and (2) the formal version – e.g. Peano's version: a string of symbols. Poincaré, Weyl, and Brouwer claimed that Hilbert tacitly, and unjustifiably, adopted formal induction as one of his premises. Poincaré (1905) asserted that, by doing this, Hilbert's reasoning became circular. Weyl's (1927) agreement and Brouwer's polemics ultimately forced Hilbert and his disciples Herbrand, Bernays, and Ackermann to reexamine their notion of "induction" – to eschew the assumption of a "totality of all the objects x of an infinite collection" and (intuitionistically) assume that the general argument proceeds one x after another, ad infinitum (van Heijenoort p. 481, footnote a). This is in fact the so-called "induction schema" used in the notion of "recursion" that was still in development at this time (van Heijenoort p. 493). This schema was acceptable to the intuitionists because it had


id: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy-3.md
category: reference
title: Brouwer–Hilbert controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:31.712335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
He does not appear to use this in the formalist's sense, but there is some contention around this point. Gödel specifies this symbol string in his I.3., i.e., the formalized inductive axiom appears as shown above – yet even this string can be "numeralized" using Gödel's method. On the other hand, he doesn't appear to use this axiom. Rather, his recursion steps through integers assigned to variable k (cf his (2) on page 602). His skeleton-proof of Theorem V, however, "use(s) induction on the degree of φ," and uses "the induction hypothesis." Without a full proof of this, the "induction hypothesis" could be assumed to be the intuitive version, not the symbolic axiom. His recursion simply steps up the degree of the functions, an intuitive act, ad infinitum. Gödel's proofs being intuitionistically satisfactory and infinitary are not incompatible truths, as long as the law of the excluded middle over the completed infinite isn't invoked anywhere in the proofs. Despite the last-half-twentieth century's continued abstraction of mathematics, the issue has not entirely gone away. A hard look at the premises of Turing's 1936–1937 work led Robin Gandy (1980) to propose his "principles for mechanisms" that have speed of light as a


id: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy-4.md
category: reference
title: Brouwer–Hilbert controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:31.712335+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brouwer-hilbert-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
== Bibliography == W.S. Anglin 1994, Mathematics: A Concise History and Philosophy, Springer–Verlag, New York. ISBN 0-387-94280-7. Herbert Breger, 2000. "Tacit Knowledge and Mathematical Progress", appearing in E. Groshoz and H. Breger (eds.) 2000, The Growth of Mathematical Knowledge, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht Netherlands, ISBN 0-7923-6151-2, pages 221–230. Martin Davis, 1965. The Undecidable: Basic Papers on Undecidable Propositions, Unsolvable Problems, and Computable Functions, Raven Press, New York, no ISBN. This includes: Emil Post, 1936. "Finite Combinatory Process. Formulation I", with commentary (pages 288ff) Emil Post, 1941 unpublished until 1965. "Absolutely Unsolvable Problems and Relatively Undecidable Propositions: Account of an Anticipation", with commentary, (pages 338ff) van Dalen, Dirk (1990). "The war of the frogs and the mice, or the crisis of the Mathematische annalen". The Mathematical Intelligencer. 12 (4): 17–31. doi:10.1007/BF03024028. S2CID 123400249. On the battle for editorial control of the journal Mathematische Annalen between Hilbert and Brouwer, stemming in part from their foundational differences. Martin Davis, 2000. The Engines of Logic, W. W. Norton, London, ISBN 0-393-32229-7 pbk. Cf. Chapter Five: "Hilbert to the Rescue" wherein Davis discusses Brouwer and his relationship with Hilbert and Weyl with brief biographical information of Brouwer. John W. Dawson, Jr, 1997. Logical Dilemmas: The


id: carbonaceous-sulfur-hydride-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_sulfur_hydride-0.md
category: reference
title: Carbonaceous sulfur hydride
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_sulfur_hydride
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:32.954945+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: carbonaceous-sulfur-hydride-20260505-0
summary:
Carbonaceous sulfur hydride (CSH) is a potential superconductor that was announced in October 2020 by the lab of Ranga Dias at the University of Rochester, in a Nature paper that was later retracted. It was reported to have a superconducting transition temperature of 15 °C (59 °F) at a pressure of 267 gigapascals (GPa), which would have made it the highest-temperature superconductor discovered. The paper faced criticism due to its non-standard data analysis calling into question its conclusions, and in September 2022 it was retracted by Nature. In July 2023 a second paper by the authors was retracted from Physical Review Letters due to suspected data fabrication, and in September 2023 a third paper by the authors about N-doped lutetium hydride was retracted from Nature. CSH is an uncharacterized ternary polyhydride compound of carbon, sulfur and hydrogen with a chemical formula that is thought to be CH8S. Measurements under extreme pressure are difficult, and in particular the elements are too light for an X-ray determination of crystal structure (X-ray crystallography). == Background == Prior to 1911, all known electrical conductors exhibited electrical resistance, due to collisions of the charge carrier with atoms in the material. Researchers discovered that in certain


id: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis-0.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of nonstandard analysis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:38.400334+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-0
summary:
Nonstandard analysis and its offshoot, nonstandard calculus, have been criticized by several authors, notably Errett Bishop, Paul Halmos, and Alain Connes. These criticisms are analyzed below. == Introduction == The evaluation of nonstandard analysis in the literature has varied greatly. Paul Halmos described it as a technical special development in mathematical logic. Terence Tao summed up the advantage of the hyperreal framework by noting that it allows one to rigorously manipulate things such as "the set of all small numbers", or to rigorously say things like "η1 is smaller than anything that involves η0", while greatly reducing epsilon management issues by automatically concealing many of the quantifiers in one's argument. The nature of the criticisms is not directly related to the logical status of the results proved using nonstandard analysis. In terms of conventional mathematical foundations in classical logic, such results are quite acceptable although usually strongly dependent on choice. Abraham Robinson's nonstandard analysis does not need any axioms beyond Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZFC) (as shown explicitly by Wilhelmus Luxemburg's ultrapower construction of the hyperreals), while its variant by Edward Nelson, known as internal set theory, is similarly a conservative extension of ZFC. It provides an assurance that the newness


id: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis-1.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of nonstandard analysis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:38.400334+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-0
summary:
=== Bishop's review === Bishop reviewed the book Elementary Calculus: An Infinitesimal Approach by Howard Jerome Keisler, which presented elementary calculus using the methods of nonstandard analysis. Bishop was chosen by his advisor Paul Halmos to review the book. The review appeared in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society in 1977. This article is referred to by David O. Tall (Tall 2001) while discussing the use of nonstandard analysis in education. Tall wrote: the use of the axiom of choice in the non-standard approach however, draws extreme criticism from those such as Bishop (1977) who insisted on explicit construction of concepts in the intuitionist tradition. Bishop's review supplied several quotations from Keisler's book, such as: In 1960, Robinson solved a three-hundred-year-old problem by giving a precise treatment of infinitesimals. Robinson's achievement will probably rank as one of the major mathematical advances of the twentieth century. and In discussing the real line we remarked that we have no way of knowing what a line in physical space is really like. It might be like the hyperreal line, the real line, or neither. However, in applications of the calculus, it is helpful to imagine a line in physical space as a


id: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis-2.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of nonstandard analysis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:38.400334+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-0
summary:
"The answer given by non-standard analysis, namely a nonstandard real, is equally disappointing: every non-standard real canonically determines a (Lebesgue) non-measurable subset of the interval [0, 1], so that it is impossible (Stern, 1985) to exhibit a single [nonstandard real number]. The formalism that we propose will give a substantial and computable answer to this question." In his 1995 article "Noncommutative geometry and reality" Connes develops a calculus of infinitesimals based on operators in Hilbert space. He proceeds to "explain why the formalism of nonstandard analysis is inadequate" for his purposes. Connes points out the following three aspects of Robinson's hyperreals: (1) a nonstandard hyperreal "cannot be exhibited" (the reason given being its relation to nonmeasurable sets); (2) "the practical use of such a notion is limited to computations in which the final result is independent of the exact value of the above infinitesimal. This is the way nonstandard analysis and ultraproducts are used [...]". (3) the hyperreals are commutative. Katz & Katz analyze Connes' criticisms of nonstandard analysis, and challenge the specific claims (1) and (2). With regard to (1), Connes' own infinitesimals similarly rely on non-constructive foundational material, such as the existence of a Dixmier trace. With regard


id: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis-3.md
category: reference
title: Criticism of nonstandard analysis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:38.400334+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: criticism-of-nonstandard-analysis-20260505-0
summary:
== References == Albeverio, S.; Guido, D.; Ponosov, A.; Scarlatti, S. (1996). "Singular traces and compact operators". J. Funct. Anal. 137 (2): 281–302. doi:10.1006/jfan.1996.0047. S2CID 55846784. Artigue, Michèle (1994), Analysis, Advanced Mathematical Thinking (ed. David O. Tall), Springer-Verlag, p. 172, ISBN 0-7923-2812-4 Bishop, Errett (1975), "The crisis in contemporary mathematics", Historia Math., 2 (4): 507–517, doi:10.1016/0315-0860(75)90113-5 Bishop, Errett (1977), "Review: H. Jerome Keisler, Elementary calculus", Bull. Amer. Math. Soc., 83: 205–208, doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1977-14264-x Bishop, E. (1983). "Schizophrenia in contemporary mathematics". Written at San Diego, Calif.. Errett Bishop: reflections on him and his research. Contemp. Math. Vol. 39. Providence, RI: Amer. Math. Soc. (published 1985). pp. 1–32. Bos, Henk J. M. (1974), "Differentials, higher-order differentials and the derivative in the Leibnizian calculus", Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 14: 1–90, doi:10.1007/BF00327456, S2CID 120779114 Chihara, C. (2007). "The Burgess–Rosen critique of nominalistic reconstructions". Philos. Math. 15 (1): 54–78. doi:10.1093/philmat/nkl023. Connes, A. (1997). "Brisure de symétrie spontanée et géométrie du point de vue spectral" (PDF). Journal of Geometry and Physics. 23 (3–4): 206–234. Bibcode:1997JGP....23..206C. doi:10.1016/s0393-0440(97)80001-0. Connes, A. (1995). "Noncommutative geometry and reality" (PDF). J. Math. Phys. 36 (11): 6194–6231. Bibcode:1995JMP....36.6194C. doi:10.1063/1.531241. Dauben, J. (1988). "Abraham Robinson and Nonstandard Analysis: History, Philosophy, and Foundations of


id: definition-of-life-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_life-0.md
category: reference
title: Definition of life
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_life
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:39.577696+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: definition-of-life-20260505-0
summary:
The precise definition of life is a contested aspect of it, and several proposals have been advanced. Biology defines and studies life as we know it, but abiogenesis and astrobiology seek wider and more encompassing definitions. Abiogenesis is the process by which life develops from inorganic materials, so a definition aims to establish the frontier between inorganic matter and the earliest lifeforms. Astrobiology seeks extraterrestrial life, which may differ from life on Earth. == Common features == Life does not have a simple definition, because life on Earth has a huge diversity, ranging from microscopic microorganisms to massive plants and trees, and in all sorts of habitats. A common way to define life is by using a number of characteristics that should be common to all life forms. However, those characteristics are not universal, and there are exceptions and possible false positives with all of them. The main ones include: Order: The elements that make up life are not randomly distributed. There is a biological organisation at all levels of life, from the microscopic cell to a full organism and even to the groups of several organisms. However, order is a necessary but not sufficient condition for life, as other


id: definition-of-life-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_life-1.md
category: reference
title: Definition of life
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_life
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:39.577696+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: definition-of-life-20260505-0
summary:
A problem with defining life by a number of characteristics is that it can provide false positives. Long and detailed lists leave potential lifeforms out, and small lists may include things that were not intended to be considered alive. For example, Crystals can grow and tend towards equilibrium, similar to homeostasis, but are not alive. Robert Saphiro and Gerald Feinberg proposed that life is the activity of a biosphere, defining biosphere as "a highly ordered system of matter and energy characterized by complex cycles that maintain or gradually increase the order of the system through the exchange of energy with the environment"; a definition that may be too broad. There are four possible ways to organize a definition. The first one is that there are a number of features and all of them must apply for something to be alive; if something has only some features but not others, then it is not. This is the method used by divulgation outlets. The second is that there is a single necessary and sufficient condition that can define the presence or absence of life. The third is that there are several necessary and sufficient conditions that define life; this is the one


id: definition-of-life-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_life-2.md
category: reference
title: Definition of life
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_life
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:39.577696+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: definition-of-life-20260505-0
summary:
=== Mechanism to vitalism === Aristotelianism was questioned in the 1630s by René Descartes in Treatise on Man, which described living beings as automata, built on muscles, bones, and organs instead of cogs and pistons. Shortly afterwards Isaac Newton postulated the three laws of motion, and final causation was no longer considered valid. However, as the knowledge about plants and animals grew, it soon became clear that their working was fundamentally different to that of artificial machines. Scientists proposed vitalism to explain that a "vital force" made living organisms work. In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant said that living organisms are built with a design, but as nature lacks a designer, it could only mean that living beings are naturally teleological and incapable of being explained purely by a framework of forces like Newton's laws of motion. === Emergentism === In 1828, Friedrich Wöhler synthesised urea, plainly a chemical of life, launching the discipline of organic chemistry. This supported the view that life was built out of chemical reactions. This philosophical viewpoint, later called emergentism, rejected vitalism. It proposed instead that living matter is composed by the same basic physical stuff as non-living matter, and is subject to the laws


id: a-diary-in-the-strict-sense-of-the-term-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Diary_in_the_Strict_Sense_of_the_Term-0.md
category: reference
title: A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Diary_in_the_Strict_Sense_of_the_Term
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:40.872017+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-diary-in-the-strict-sense-of-the-term-20260505-0
summary:
A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term is a collection of the private diaries of the prominent anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski during his fieldwork in New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands between 1914–1915 and 1917–1918. The collection is composed of two diaries, written in Polish. Published posthumously by his widow Valetta Swann in 1967, the diaries, which repeatedly touch upon intensely personal matters such as sexual desires, as well as his private prejudices against his interlocutors, have remained extremely controversial. The introduction of the book was written by his pupil Raymond Firth. == History and significance == When the diaries were published in 1967, Clifford Geertz called them "gross" and "tiresome", and wrote that they portrayed Malinowski as "a crabbed, self-preoccupied, hypochondriacal narcissist, whose fellow-feeling for the people he lived with was limited in the extreme." Two decades later, however, he praised the collection as a "backstage masterpiece of anthropology, our The Double Helix". Michael W. Young noted that the diaries, "scandalously frank" with regards to topic such as the author's sexual desires and encounters, "debunked the romantic myth that he enjoyed relaxed and friendly rapport with his subjects and it fueled a moral crisis of the discipline in


id: einstein-bergson-debate-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Bergson_debate-0.md
category: reference
title: Einstein–Bergson debate
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Bergson_debate
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:42.156437+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: einstein-bergson-debate-20260505-0
summary:
On April 6, 1922, the physicist Albert Einstein and the philosopher Henri Bergson met at the Société française de philosophie and discussed the implications of the theory of relativity on the nature of time. This debate, with the broader discussion it set off, has had wide-ranging implications for Western cosmology and for the prestige of the humanities as compared to science. In 1934, Paul Valéry wrote that the meeting between these two thinkers was the "grande affaire" of the twentieth century. == Context == === Bergson === Henri Bergson was widely viewed as an epoch-defining thinker. For William James, Bergson's Creative Evolution was a work as important for Western philosophy as those of George Berkeley or Immanuel Kant; Jean Wahl concurs, placing Bergson alongside Plato, René Descartes and Kant as one of "the four great philosophers." A cult of personality developed around Bergson following the 1907 publication of Creative Evolution: students would make "mystical pilgrimages" to his summer home in Switzerland; he was referred to as "an enchanter" and "the greatest thinker in the world." His biographer Emily Herring refers to him as being in the early twentieth century "the most famous philosopher in the world." Bergson had a deep


id: einstein-bergson-debate-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Bergson_debate-1.md
category: reference
title: Einstein–Bergson debate
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Bergson_debate
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:42.156437+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: einstein-bergson-debate-20260505-0
summary:
Einstein's theory of relativity and his contributions to quantum theory had made him a household name in the scientific community, and by 1919 he even became a public celebrity after the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, which helped substantiate Einstein's theory of general relativity, with the New York Times proclaiming: “Revolution in Science/New Theory of the Universe/Newtonian Ideas Overthrown.” The new doctrine was widely regarded as necessitating a total overhaul of current understandings of space and time. Einstein's fame had proliferated through his own efforts as well: he had published popular versions of both his treatises, and his Four Lectures on Relativity (delivered in 1921 at Princeton University) had intensified public interest even further. Einstein was invited to France by Paul Langevin, on behalf of the Collège de France, to help “to restore relations between German and French scholars” after World War I, a conflict whose mechanization had enlisted scientists in the service of bloodshed to a previously unprecedented degree. Einstein had opposed the war. On his arrival at the Gare du Nord, Einstein was greeted by crowds of "photographers, reporters, filmmakers, officials and diplomats," and had to slip out a side door to escape the attention. The debate


id: einstein-bergson-debate-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Bergson_debate-2.md
category: reference
title: Einstein–Bergson debate
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Bergson_debate
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:42.156437+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: einstein-bergson-debate-20260505-0
summary:
=== Duration and Simultaneity === Later in 1922, Bergson published Duration and Simultaneity, which was explicitly a "confrontation" with Einstein's theory of relativity. It sought to enlist the facts Einstein drew upon in his theories in service of Bergson's vitalist philosophy. He argued that special relativity is rooted in quantifiable clock-time, and that it fails to capture the true essence of time as duration. Distinguishing between "real" time that can be directly experienced and "imaginary" time (i.e. time dilation and relativity of simultaneity) derived form the relativistic formulas, he specifically takes aim at the twin paradox first proposed by Paul Langevin, and calls for the biological aging process to be distinguished from measurable time. In Langevin's example, a traveler makes a round-trip in a rocket for 200 years as measured on Earth, while he himself only experienced 2 years during the flight (see History of the twin paradox). Bergson erroneously rejected this conclusion by claiming that both twins (Peter on Earth and Paul in the rocket) are interchangeable and therefore must be of same age at reunion: p.74: We must now repeat for Paul everything we said about Peter: Since motion is reciprocal, the two people are interchangeable. If, earlier,


id: paul-fillunger-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Fillunger-0.md
category: reference
title: Paul Fillunger
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Fillunger
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:43.387269+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-fillunger-20260505-0
summary:
Paul Fillunger (June 25, 1883 in Vienna – March 7, 1937 in Vienna) was an Austrian geotechnical engineer. Raised in a family of engineers, he studied at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna and took a position in the state-owned railway company in 1906. In 1908 he completed a PhD and then went to teach mathematics, machine industry and then mechanics at the University of Vienna. Fillunger pioneered the study of saturated ground and was made famous by an article published in 1913. He discovered the difference in behaviors of the effective and general stresses in samples of ground, opening the way for further research. He is considered to be a pioneer of the theory of liquid-saturated porous solids. Fillunger's theories put him in heated conflict with Karl von Terzaghi, who is often referred to as "father of soil mechanics", whom Fillunger was accused of slandering. The university blamed Fillunger, who then committed suicide by opening the gas jets in the bathroom with his wife. == References == Reint Boer, The Engineer And The Scandal: A Piece Of Science History, Springer, 2005 Paul Fillunger, "Erdbaumechanik?", Vienna, 1936


id: food-irradiation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation-0.md
category: reference
title: Food irradiation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:44.577399+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: food-irradiation-20260505-0
summary:
Food irradiation (sometimes called radurization in American English, and radurisation in British English) is the process of exposing food and food packaging to ionizing radiation, such as from gamma rays, x-rays, or electron beams. Food irradiation improves food safety and extends product shelf life (preservation) by effectively destroying organisms responsible for spoilage and foodborne illness, inhibits sprouting or ripening, and is a means of controlling insects and invasive pests. In the United States, consumer perception of foods treated with irradiation is more negative than those processed by other means. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have performed studies that confirm irradiation to be safe. In order for a food to be irradiated in the U.S., the FDA will still require that the specific food be thoroughly tested for irradiation safety. Food irradiation is permitted in over 60 countries, and about 500,000 metric tons of food are processed annually worldwide. The regulations for how food is to be irradiated, as well as the foods allowed to be irradiated, vary greatly from country to country. In Austria, Germany, and many other countries


id: food-irradiation-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation-1.md
category: reference
title: Food irradiation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:44.577399+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: food-irradiation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Dosimetry === The radiation absorbed dose is the amount energy absorbed per unit weight of the target material. Dose is used because, when the same substance is given the same dose, similar changes are observed in the target material(Gy or J/kg). Dosimeters are used to measure dose, and are small components that, when exposed to ionizing radiation, change measurable physical attributes to a degree that can be correlated to the dose received. Measuring dose (dosimetry) involves exposing one or more dosimeters along with the target material. For purposes of legislation doses are divided into low (up to 1 kGy), medium (1 kGy to 10 kGy), and high-dose applications (above 10 kGy). High-dose applications are above those currently permitted in the US for commercial food items by the FDA and other regulators around the world, though these doses are approved for non commercial applications, such as sterilizing frozen meat for NASA astronauts (doses of 44 kGy) and food for hospital patients. The ratio of the maximum dose permitted at the outer edge (Dmax) to the minimum limit to achieve processing conditions (Dmin) determines the uniformity of dose distribution. This ratio determines how uniform the irradiation process is. == Chemical changes


id: food-irradiation-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation-2.md
category: reference
title: Food irradiation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:44.577399+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: food-irradiation-20260505-0
summary:
Gamma irradiation is widely used due to its high penetration depth and dose uniformity, allowing for large-scale applications with high throughput. Additionally, gamma irradiation is significantly less expensive than using an X-ray source. In most designs, the radioisotope, contained in stainless steel pencils, is stored in a water-filled storage pool which absorbs the radiation energy when not in use. For treatment, the source is lifted out of the storage tank, and product contained in totes is passed around the pencils to achieve required processing. Treatment costs vary as a function of dose and facility usage. A pallet or tote is typically exposed for several minutes to hours depending on dose. Low-dose applications such as disinfestation of fruit range between US$0.01/lb and US$0.08/lb while higher-dose applications can cost as much as US$0.20/lb. ==== Electron beam ==== Treatment of electron beams is created as a result of high energy electrons in an accelerator that generates electrons accelerated to 99% the speed of light. This system uses electrical energy and can be powered on and off. The high power correlates with a higher throughput and lower unit cost, but electron beams have low dose uniformity and a penetration depth of centimeters. Therefore, electron


id: food-irradiation-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation-3.md
category: reference
title: Food irradiation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:44.577399+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: food-irradiation-20260505-0
summary:
== Standards and regulations == The Codex Alimentarius represents the global standard for irradiation of food, in particular under the WTO-agreement. Regardless of treatment source, all processing facilities must adhere to safety standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Codex Code of Practice for the Radiation Processing of Food, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). More specifically, ISO 14470 and ISO 9001 provide in-depth information regarding safety in irradiation facilities. All commercial irradiation facilities contain safety systems which are designed to prevent exposure of personnel to radiation. The radiation source is constantly shielded by water, concrete, or metal. Irradiation facilities are designed with overlapping layers of protection, interlocks, and safeguards to prevent accidental radiation exposure. Meltdowns are unlikely to occur due to low heat production from sources used. === Labeling === The provisions of the Codex Alimentarius are that any "first generation" product must be labeled "irradiated" as any product derived directly from an irradiated raw material; for ingredients the provision is that even the last molecule of an irradiated ingredient must be listed with the ingredients even in cases where the unirradiated ingredient does not appear on the label. The RADURA-logo is


id: food-irradiation-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation-4.md
category: reference
title: Food irradiation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:44.577399+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: food-irradiation-20260505-0
summary:
==== European Union ==== European law stipulates that all member countries must allow the sale of irradiated dried aromatic herbs, spices and vegetable seasonings. However, these Directives allow Member States to maintain previous clearances food categories the EC's Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) had previously approved (the approval body is now the European Food Safety Authority). Presently, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Netherlands, and Poland allow the sale of many different types of irradiated foods. Before individual items in an approved class can be added to the approved list, studies into the toxicology of each of such food and for each of the proposed dose ranges are requested. It also states that irradiation shall not be used "as a substitute for hygiene or health practices or good manufacturing or agricultural practice". These Directives only control food irradiation for food retail and their conditions and controls are not applicable to the irradiation of food for patients requiring sterile diets. In 2021 the most common food items irradiated were frog legs at 65.1%, poultry 20.6% and dried aromatic herbs, spices and vegetables seasoning. Due to the European Single Market, any food, even if irradiated, must be allowed to be marketed in any


id: food-irradiation-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation-5.md
category: reference
title: Food irradiation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:44.577399+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: food-irradiation-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == World Health Organization publications: Safety and nutritional adequacy of irradiated food, WHO, Geneva, 1994 High-dose irradiation: Wholesomeness of food irradiated with doses above 10 kGy, WHO, Geneva, 1999, Technical Report Series No. 890 Facts about Food Irradiation, A series of Fact Sheets from the International Consultative Group on Food Irradiation (ICGFI), 1999, IAEA, Vienna, Austria at the Wayback Machine (archived 2006-03-16) Diehl, J.F., Safety of irradiated foods, Marcel Dekker, N.Y., 1995 (2. ed.) Satin, M., Food irradiation, Technomic, Lancaster, 1996 (2. ed.) Urbain, W.M., Food irradiation, Academic Press, Orlando, 1986 Molins, R. (ed.), Food irradiation – Principles and applications, Wiley Interscience, N.Y., 2001 Sommers, C.H. and Fan, X. (eds.), Food Irradiation Research and Technology, Blackwell Publishing, Ames, IA, 2006 The Food That Would Last Forever : Understanding the Dangers of Food Irradiation, by Gary Gibbs, Garden City Park, N.Y. : Avery Pub. Group, c1993 anon., Food Irradiation: Available Research Indicates That Benefits Outweigh Risks, RCED-00-217, August 24, 2000, Government Accountability Office, United States General Accounting Office, Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division, Washington, D.C. 20548 "Food Irradiation" Farkas, József; Mohácsi-Farkas, Csilla (March 2011). "History and future of food irradiation". Trends in Food Science & Technology. 22


id: generation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation-0.md
category: reference
title: Generation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:45.779516+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: generation-20260505-0
summary:
A generation is all of the individuals born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It also is "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children." In kinship, generation is a structural term, designating the parent–child relationship. In biology, generation also means biogenesis, reproduction, and procreation. Generation is also a synonym for birth/age cohort in demographics, marketing, and social science, where it means "people within a delineated population who experience the same significant events within a given period of time." The term generation in this sense, also known as social generations, is widely used in popular culture and is a basis of sociological analysis. Serious analysis of generations began in the nineteenth century, emerging from an increasing awareness of the possibility of permanent social change and the idea of youthful rebellion against the established social order. Some analysts believe that a generation is one of the fundamental social categories in a society; others consider generation less important than class, gender, race, and education. == Etymology == The word generate comes from the Latin generāre, meaning "to beget". The word generation as


id: generation-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation-1.md
category: reference
title: Generation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:45.779516+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: generation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Generational theory === The sociologist Karl Mannheim was a seminal figure in the study of generations. He elaborated a theory of generations in his 1923 essay The Problem of Generations. He suggested that there had been a division into two primary schools of study of generations until that time. Firstly, positivists such as Comte measured social change in designated life spans. Mannheim argued that this reduced history to "a chronological table". The other school, the "romantic-historical" was represented by Dilthey and Martin Heidegger. This school focused on the individual qualitative experience at the expense of social context. Mannheim emphasised that the rapidity of social change in youth was crucial to the formation of generations, and that not every generation would come to see itself as distinct. In periods of rapid social change a generation would be much more likely to develop a cohesive character. He also believed that a number of distinct sub-generations could exist. According to Gilleard and Higgs, Mannheim identified three commonalities that a generation shares: Shared temporal location: generational site or birth cohort Shared historical location: generation as actuality or exposure to a common era Shared sociocultural location: generational consciousness or entelechy Mannheim elaborated on the


id: generation-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation-2.md
category: reference
title: Generation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:45.779516+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: generation-20260505-0
summary:
Generational analysis has a long and distinguished place in social science, and we cast our lot with those scholars who believe it is not only possible, but often highly illuminating, to search for the unique and distinctive characteristics of any given age group of Americans. But we also know this is not an exact science. We are mindful that there are as many differences in attitudes, values, behaviors, and lifestyles within a generation as there are between generations. But we believe this reality does not diminish the value of generational analysis; it merely adds to its richness and complexity. Another element of generational theory is recognizing how youth experience their generation, and how that changes based on where they reside in the world. "Analyzing young people's experiences in place contributes to a deeper understanding of the processes of individualization, inequality, and of generation." Being able to take a closer looks at youth cultures and subcultures in different times and places adds an extra element to understanding the everyday lives of youth. This allows a better understanding of youth and the role generation and place play in their development. It is not where the birth cohort boundaries are drawn that is


id: generation-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation-3.md
category: reference
title: Generation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:45.779516+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: generation-20260505-0
summary:
The Lost Generation, also known as the "Generation of 1914" in Europe, is a term originating from Gertrude Stein to describe those who fought in World War I. The Lost Generation is defined as the cohort born from 1883 to 1900 who came of age during World War I and the Roaring Twenties. The Greatest Generation, also known in American usage as the "G.I. Generation", includes the veterans who fought in World War II. They were born from 1901 to 1927; older G.I.s (or the Interbellum Generation) came of age during the Roaring Twenties, while younger G.I.s came of age during the Great Depression and World War II. Journalist Tom Brokaw wrote about American members of this cohort in his book The Greatest Generation, which popularized the term. The Silent Generation, also known as the "Lucky Few", is the cohort who came of age in the post–World War II era. They were born from 1928 to 1945. In the U.S., this group includes most of those who may have fought in the Korean War and many of those who may have fought during the Vietnam War. Baby boomers (often shortened to Boomers) are the people born following World War II


id: generation-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation-4.md
category: reference
title: Generation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:45.779516+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: generation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Other areas === In Armenia, people born after the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 are known as the "Independence generation". In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the generation of people born in Czechoslovakia during the baby boom which started in the early 1970s, during the period of "normalization" are called "Husák's children". The generation was named after the President and long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia, Gustáv Husák. This was due to his political program to boost the growth of population. In the People's Republic of China, the "Post-80s" (Chinese: 八零后世代 or 八零后) (born-after-1980 generation) are those who were born in the 1980s in urban areas of mainland China. Growing up in modern China, the Post-80s has been characterised by its optimism for the future, newfound excitement for consumerism and entrepreneurship and acceptance of its historic role in transforming modern China into an economic power. There is also the similarly named "Post-90s" (Chinese: 九零后), those born after 1990. A broader generational classification would be the "one-child generation" born between the introduction of the one-child policy in 1979 and its softening into a "two-child policy" in 2015. The lack of siblings has had profound psychological effects on this


id: generation-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation-5.md
category: reference
title: Generation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:45.779516+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: generation-20260505-0
summary:
In Taiwan, the term Strawberry generation refers to Taiwanese people born after 1981 who "bruise easily" like strawberries—meaning they can not withstand social pressure or work hard like their parents' generation; the term refers to people who are insubordinate, spoiled, selfish, arrogant, and sluggish in work. In the Philippines, the Filipinos who are in Millennials is also known as Batang 90's. In Ukraine, the political scientists Olga Onuch and Henry E. Hale identified people born from about 1975 to 1985 as the "Independence Generation" in their book The Zelensky Effect. This generation were children when Ukraine gained independence in 1991—old enough to recall and understand, but too young to participate—and "came of age politically in an independent Ukraine". Onuch and Hale argue that this generation has played a vital role in the formation of civic national identity in Ukraine.


id: generation-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation-6.md
category: reference
title: Generation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:45.779516+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: generation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Other terminology === The term generation is sometimes applied to a cultural movement, or more narrowly defined group than an entire demographic (such as cuspers between generations). Some examples include: The Stolen Generations, refers to children of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander descent, who were forcibly removed from their families by Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under Acts of their respective parliaments between approximately 1869 and 1969. The Beat Generation, refers to a popular American cultural movement widely cited by social scholars as having laid the foundation of the pro-active American counterculture of the 1960s. It consisted of Americans born between the two world wars who came of age in the rise of the automobile era, and the surrounding accessibility they brought to the culturally diverse, yet geographically broad and separated nation. Generation Jones is a term coined by Jonathan Pontell to describe the cohort of people born between 1954 and 1965. The term is used primarily in English-speaking countries. Pontell defined Generation Jones as referring to the second half of the post–World War II baby boom. The term also includes first-wave Generation X. MTV Generation, a term referring to the adolescents and young


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-0.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
Consumers, farmers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists have been involved in controversies around foods and other goods derived from genetically modified crops instead of conventional crops, and other uses of genetic engineering in food production. The key areas of controversy related to genetically modified food (GM food or GMO food) are whether such food should be labeled, the role of government regulators, the objectivity of scientific research and publication, the effect of genetically modified crops on health and the environment, the effect on pesticide resistance, the impact of such crops for farmers, and the role of the crops in feeding the world population. In addition, products derived from GMO organisms play a role in the production of ethanol fuels and pharmaceuticals. Specific concerns include mixing of genetically modified and non-genetically modified products in the food supply, effects of GMOs on the environment, the rigor of the regulatory process, and consolidation of control of the food supply in companies that make and sell GMOs. Advocacy groups such as the Center for Food Safety, Organic Consumers Association, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Greenpeace say risks have not been adequately identified and managed, and they have questioned the objectivity of


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-1.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Reviews and polls === An EMBO Reports article in 2003 reported that the Public Perceptions of Agricultural Biotechnologies in Europe project (PABE) found the public neither accepting nor rejecting GMOs. Instead, PABE found that public had "key questions" about GMOs: "Why do we need GMOs? Who benefits from their use? Who decided that they should be developed and how? Why were we not better informed about their use in our food, before their arrival on the market? Why are we not given an effective choice about whether or not to buy these products? Have potential long-term and irreversible consequences been seriously evaluated, and by whom? Do regulatory authorities have sufficient powers to effectively regulate large companies? Who wishes to develop these products? Can controls imposed by regulatory authorities be applied effectively? Who will be accountable in cases of unforeseen harm?" PABE also found that the public's scientific knowledge does not control public opinion, since scientific facts do not answer these questions. PABE also found that the public does not demand "zero risk" in GM food discussions and is "perfectly aware that their lives are full of risks that need to be counterbalanced against each other and against the potential


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-2.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
In May 2012, a group called "Take the Flour Back" led by Gerald Miles protested plans by a group from Rothamsted Experimental Station, based in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England, to conduct an experimental trial wheat genetically modified to repel aphids. The researchers, led by John Pickett, wrote a letter to the group in early May 2012, asking them to call off their protest, aimed for 27 May 2012. Group member Lucy Harrap said that the group was concerned about spread of the crops into nature, and cited examples of outcomes in the United States and Canada. Rothamsted Research and Sense about Science ran question and answer sessions about such a potential. The March Against Monsanto is an international grassroots movement and protest against Monsanto corporation, a producer of genetically modified organism (GMOs) and Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide. The movement was founded by Tami Canal in response to the failure of California Proposition 37, a ballot initiative which would have required labeling food products made from GMOs. Advocates support mandatory labeling laws for food made from GMOs . The initial march took place on May 25, 2013. The number of protesters who took part is uncertain; figures of "hundreds of thousands" and


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-3.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
There are various conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food that have been identified by some commentators such as Michael Shermer. Generally, these conspiracy theories posit that GMOs are being knowingly and maliciously introduced into the food supply either as a means to unduly enrich agribusinesses or as a means to poison or pacify the population. A work seeking to explore risk perception over GMOs in Turkey identified a belief among the conservative political and religious figures who were opposed to GMOs that GMOs were "a conspiracy by Jewish Multinational Companies and Israel for world domination." Additionally, a Latvian study showed that a segment of the population believed that GMOs were part of a greater conspiracy theory to poison the population of the country. == Lawsuits == === Foundation on Economic Trends v. Heckler === In 1983, environmental groups and protesters delayed the field tests of the genetically modified ice-minus strain of P. syringae with legal challenges. === Alliance for Bio-Integrity v. Shalala === In this case, the plaintiff argued both for mandatory labeling on the basis of consumer demand, and that GMO foods should undergo the same testing requirements as


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-4.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Reviews === A 2011 analysis by Diels et al., reviewed 94 peer-reviewed studies pertaining to GMO safety to assess whether conflicts of interest correlated with outcomes that cast GMOs in a favorable light. They found that financial conflict of interest was not associated with study outcome (p = 0.631) while author affiliation to industry (i.e., a professional conflict of interest) was strongly associated with study outcome (p < 0.001). Of the 94 studies that were analyzed, 52% did not declare funding. 10% of the studies were categorized as "undetermined" with regard to professional conflict of interest. Of the 43 studies with financial or professional conflicts of interest, 28 studies were compositional studies. According to Marc Brazeau, an association between professional conflict of interest and positive study outcomes can be skewed because companies typically contract with independent researchers to perform follow-up studies only after in-house research uncovers favorable results. In-house research that uncovers negative or unfavorable results for a novel GMO is generally not further pursued. A 2013 review, of 1,783 papers on genetically modified crops and food published between 2002 and 2012 found no plausible evidence of dangers from the use of then marketed GM crops. In a 2014


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-5.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
Regulators check that GM foods are "substantially equivalent" to their conventional counterparts, to detect any negative unintended consequences. New protein(s) that differ from conventional food proteins or anomalies that arise in the substantial equivalence comparison require further toxicological analysis. In 1999, Andrew Chesson of the Rowett Research Institute warned that substantial equivalence testing "could be flawed in some cases" and that current safety tests could allow harmful substances to enter the human food supply. The same year Millstone, Brunner and Mayer argued that the standard was a pseudo-scientific product of politics and lobbying that was created to reassure consumers and aid biotechnology companies to reduce the time and cost of safety testing. They suggested that GM foods have extensive biological, toxicological and immunological tests and that substantial equivalence should be abandoned. This commentary was criticized for misrepresenting history, for distorting existing data and poor logic. Kuiper claimed that it oversimplified safety assessments and that equivalence testing involves more than chemical tests, possibly including toxicity testing. Keler and Lappe supported Congressional legislation to replace the substantial equivalence standard with safety studies. In a 2016 review, Domingo criticized the use of the "substantial equivalence" concept as a measure of the safety of


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-6.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Allergenicity === A well-known risk of genetic modification is the introduction of an allergen. Allergen testing is routine for products intended for food, and passing those tests is part of the regulatory requirements. Organizations such as the European Green Party and Greenpeace emphasize this risk. The use of genes from known allergenic sources is discouraged in the research and development of GM foods. A 2005 review of the results from allergen testing stated that "no biotech proteins in foods have been documented to cause allergic reactions". Regulatory authorities require that new modified foods be tested for allergenicity before they are marketed. The Codex Alimentarius recommends a weight-of-evidence safety approach for assessing the allergenic potential of genetically modified crops, including the history of exposure and safety of the source of the inserted gene, the structure of the protein, its stability to pepsin digestion, and the degree of exposure in the gastrointestinal tract as a function of the abundance of the recombinant protein in the food. In the assessment of the allergenic safety of genetically modified organisms, bioinformatics is used to analyze whether newly expressed proteins show similarity to known human allergens. This process is based on comparing the amino acid


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-7.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Horizontal gene transfer === Horizontal gene transfer is the movement of genes from one organism to another in a manner other than reproduction. The risk of horizontal gene transfer between GMO plants and animals is very low and in most cases is expected to be lower than background rates. Two studies on the possible effects of feeding animals with genetically modified food found no residues of recombinant DNA or novel proteins in any organ or tissue samples. Studies found DNA from the M13 virus, Green fluorescent protein and RuBisCO genes in the blood and tissue of animals, and in 2012, a paper suggested that a specific microRNA from rice could be found at very low quantities in human and animal serum. Other studies however, found no or negligible transfer of plant microRNAs into the blood of humans or any of three model organisms. Another concern is that the antibiotic resistance gene commonly used as a genetic marker in transgenic crops could be transferred to harmful bacteria, creating resistant superbugs. A 2004 study involving human volunteers examined whether the transgene from modified soy would transfer to bacteria that live in the human gut. As of 2012 it was the only


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-8.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Animal feeding studies === Reviews of animal feeding studies mostly found no effects. A 2014 review found that the performance of animals fed GM feed was similar to that of animals fed "isogenic non-GE crop lines". A 2012 review of 12 long-term studies and 12 multigenerational studies conducted by public research laboratories concluded that none had discovered any safety problems linked to consumption of GM food. A 2009 review by Magaña-Gómez found that although most studies concluded that modified foods do not differ in nutrition or cause toxic effects in animals, some did report adverse changes at a cellular level caused by specific modified foods. The review concluded that "More scientific effort and investigation is needed to ensure that consumption of GM foods is not likely to provoke any form of health problem". Dona and Arvanitoyannis' 2009 review concluded that "results of most studies with GM foods indicate that they may cause some common toxic effects such as hepatic, pancreatic, renal, or reproductive effects and may alter the hematological, biochemical, and immunologic parameters". Reactions to this review in 2009 and 2010 noted that Dona and Arvanitoyannis had concentrated on articles with an anti-modification bias that were refuted in peer-reviewed


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-9.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Human studies === While some groups and individuals have called for more human testing of GM food, multiple obstacles complicate such studies. The General Accounting Office (in a review of FDA procedures requested by Congress) and a working group of the Food and Agriculture and World Health organizations both said that long-term human studies of the effect of GM food are not feasible. The reasons included lack of a plausible hypothesis to test, lack of knowledge about the potential long-term effects of conventional foods, variability in the ways humans react to foods and that epidemiological studies were unlikely to differentiate modified from conventional foods, which come with their own suite of unhealthy characteristics. Additionally, ethical concerns guide human subject research. These mandate that each tested intervention must have a potential benefit for the human subjects, such as treatment for a disease or nutritional benefit (ruling out, e.g., human toxicity testing). Kimber claimed that the "ethical and technical constraints of conducting human trials, and the necessity of doing so, is a subject that requires considerable attention." Food with nutritional benefits may escape this objection. For example, GM rice has been tested for nutritional benefits, namely, increased levels of Vitamin A.


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-10.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
In 2007, 2009, and 2011, Gilles-Éric Séralini published re-analysis studies that used data from Monsanto rat-feeding experiments for three modified maize varieties (insect-resistant MON 863 and MON 810 and glyphosate-resistant NK603). He concluded that the data showed liver, kidney and heart damage. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) then concluded that the differences were all within the normal range. EFSA also stated that Séralini's statistics were faulty. EFSA's conclusions were supported by FSANZ, a panel of expert toxicologists, and the French High Council of Biotechnologies Scientific Committee (HCB). In 2012, Séralini's lab published a paper that considered the long-term effects of feeding rats various levels of GM glyphosate-resistant maize, conventional glyphosate-treated maize, and a mixture of the two strains. The paper concluded that rats fed the modified maize had severe health problems, including liver and kidney damage and large tumors. The study provoked widespread criticism. Séralini held a press conference just before the paper was released in which he announced the release of a book and a movie. He allowed reporters to have access to the paper before his press conference only if they signed a confidentiality agreement under which they could not report other scientists' responses to the paper.


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-11.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
== Environment == Genetically modified crops are planted in fields much like regular crops. There they interact directly with organisms that feed on the crops and indirectly with other organisms in the food chain. The pollen from the plants is distributed in the environment like that of any other crop. This distribution has led to concerns over the effects of GM crops on the environment. Potential effects include gene flow/genetic pollution, pesticide resistance and greenhouse gas emissions. === Non-target organisms === A major use of GM crops is in insect control through the expression of the cry (crystal delta-endotoxins) and Vip (vegetative insecticidal proteins) genes from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Such toxins could affect other insects in addition to targeted pests such as the European corn borer. Bt proteins have been used as organic sprays for insect control in France since 1938 and the US since 1958, with no reported ill effects. Cry proteins selectively target Lepidopterans (moths and butterflies). As a toxic mechanism, cry proteins bind to specific receptors on the membranes of mid-gut (epithelial) cells, resulting in their rupture. Any organism that lacks the appropriate receptors in its gut is unaffected by the cry protein, and therefore is not


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-12.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Gene flow === Genes from a GMO may pass to another organism just like an endogenous gene. The process is known as outcrossing and can occur in any new open-pollinated crop variety. As late as the 1990s this was thought to be unlikely and rare, and if it were to occur, easily eradicated. It was thought that this would add no additional environmental costs or risks - no effects were expected other than those already caused by pesticide applications. Introduced traits potentially can cross into neighboring plants of the same or closely related species through three different types of gene flow: crop-to-crop, crop-to-weedy, and crop-to-wild. In crop-to-crop, genetic information from a genetically modified crop is transferred to a non-genetically modified crop. Crop-to-weedy transfer refers to the transfer of genetically modified material to a weed, and crop-to-wild indicates transfer from a genetically modified crop to a wild, undomesticated plant and/or crop. There are concerns that the spread of genes from modified organisms to unmodified relatives could produce species of weeds resistant to herbicides that could contaminate nearby non-genetically modified crops, or could disrupt the ecosystem, This is primarily a concern if the transgenic organism has a significant survival capacity and


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-13.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
The US has no legislation governing the relationship among mixtures of farms that grow organic, conventional, and GM crops. The country relies on a "complex but relaxed" combination of three federal agencies (FDA, EPA, and USDA/APHIS) and states' common law tort systems to manage coexistence. The Secretary of Agriculture convened an Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21) to study coexistence and make recommendations about the issue. The members of AC21 included representatives of the biotechnology industry, the organic food industry, farming communities, the seed industry, food manufacturers, State governments, consumer and community development groups, the medical profession, and academic researchers. AC21 recommended that a study assess the potential for economic losses to US organic farmers; that any serious losses lead to a crop insurance program, an education program to ensure that organic farmers put appropriate contracts in place and that neighboring GMO farmers take appropriate containment measures. Overall the report supported a diverse agriculture system supporting diverse farming systems. The EU implemented regulations specifically governing co-existence and traceability. Traceability has become commonplace in the food and feed supply chains of most countries, but GMO traceability is more challenging given strict legal thresholds for unwanted mixing. Since 2001,


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-14.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Resistant insect pests === Resistance evolves naturally after a population has been subjected to selection pressure via repeated use of a single pesticide. In November 2009, Monsanto scientists found that the pink bollworm had become resistant to first generation Bt cotton in parts of Gujarat, India—that generation expresses one Bt gene, Cry1Ac. This was the first instance of Bt resistance confirmed by Monsanto. Similar resistance was later identified in Australia, China, Spain and the US. One strategy to delay Bt-resistance is to plant pest refuges using conventional crops, thereby diluting any resistant genes. Another is to develop crops with multiple Bt genes that target different receptors within the insect. In 2012, a Florida field trial demonstrated that army worms were resistant to Dupont-Dow's GM corn. This resistance was discovered in Puerto Rico in 2006, prompting Dow and DuPont to stop selling the product there. The European corn borer, one of Bt's primary targets, is also capable of developing resistance. == Economy == GM food's economic value to farmers is one of its major benefits, including in developing nations. A 2010 study found that Bt corn provided economic benefits of $6.9 billion over the previous 14 years in five Midwestern


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-15.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== 2014 review ==== A 2014 review, concluded that GM crops' effects on farming were positive. According to The Economist, the meta-analysis considered all published English-language examinations of the agronomic and economic impacts between 1995 and March 2014. The study found that herbicide-tolerant crops have lower production costs, while for insect-resistant crops the reduced pesticide use was offset by higher seed prices, leaving overall production costs about the same. Yields increased 9% for herbicide tolerance and 25% for insect resistance. Farmers who adopted GM crops made 69% higher profits than those who did not. The review found that GM crops help farmers in developing countries, increasing yields by 14 percentage points. The researchers considered some studies that were not peer-reviewed, and a few that did not report sample sizes. They attempted to correct for publication bias, by considering sources beyond academic journals. The large data set allowed the study to control for potentially confounding variables such as fertiliser use. Separately, they concluded that the funding source did not influence study results. ==== 2010 review ==== A 2010 article, supported by CropLife International summarised the results of 49 peer-reviewed studies. On average, farmers in developed countries increased yields by 6% and


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-16
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-16.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Intellectual property === Traditionally, farmers in all nations saved their own seed from year to year. However, since the early 1900s hybrid crops have been widely used in the developed world and seeds to grow these crops are purchased each year from seed producers. The offspring of the hybrid corn, while still viable, lose hybrid vigor (the beneficial traits of the parents). This benefit of first-generation hybrid seeds is the primary reason for not planting second-generation seed. However, for non-hybrid GM crops, such as GM soybeans, seed companies use intellectual property law and tangible property common law, each expressed in contracts, to prevent farmers from planting saved seed. For example, Monsanto's typical bailment license (covering transfer of the seeds themselves) forbids saving seeds, and also requires purchasers to sign a separate patent license agreement. Corporations say that they need to prevent seed piracy, to fulfill financial obligations to shareholders, and to finance further development. DuPont spent approximately half its $2 billion research and development (R&D) budget on agriculture in 2011 while Monsanto spends 9–10% of sales on R&D. Detractors such as Greenpeace say that patent rights give corporations excessive control over agriculture. The Center for Ecoliteracy claimed that "patenting


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-17
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-17.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== Status ==== In 2014, 64 countries required labeling of all GM foods. These include the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China and India. As of March 2015, Israel was in the process of issuing regulations for labeling of food with ingredients from GMOs. Alaska required labeling of GMO fish and shellfish in 2005, even though no GM fish had been approved by the FDA at the time. A 2014 Vermont law went into effect on July 1, 2016, and some food manufacturers (including General Mills, Mars, Kellogg's, the Campbell Soup Company, PepsiCo, ConAgra, Frito-Lay, and Bimbo Bakeries USA) began distributing products either locally or nationwide with labels such as "Partially produced with Genetic Engineering". Other manufacturers removed about 3,000 non-compliant products from sale in Vermont. The federal government of the United States passed a law at the end of that month pre-empting all state laws, including Vermont's. The law requires labeling regulations to be issued by July 2018, and allows indirect disclosure such as with a phone number, bar code, or web site. It is unclear whether the rules will require labeling of oils and sugars from GM crops, where the final product does not contain any


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-18
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-18.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== United States ==== Four federal district court suits have been brought against Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the agency within USDA that regulates genetically modified plants. Two involved field trials (herbicide-tolerant turfgrass in Oregon; pharmaceutical-producing corn and sugar in Hawaii) and two the deregulation of GM alfalfa. and GM sugar beet. APHIS lost all four cases at trial, with the judges ruling they failed to diligently follow the guidelines set out in the National Environmental Policy Act. However, the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide ban on GM alfalfa and an appeal court allowed the partial deregulation of GM sugar beets. After APHIS prepared Environmental Impact Statements for both alfalfa and sugar beets they were approved. In 2014, Maui County, Hawaii approved an initiative calling for a moratorium on GMO production and research. The initiative specified penalties including fines and jail for knowing violations and did not limit its scope to commercial agriculture. The initiative passed by about 50.2 to 47.9 percent. On December 15, 2015, the New York Times ran an op-ed titled "Are You Eating Frankenfish?", saying that the United States congress will debate whether genetically engineered salmon should be labeled. ==== European Union ==== Until


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-19
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-19.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== Philippines ==== A petition filed May 17, 2013, by environmental group Greenpeace Southeast Asia and farmer-scientist coalition Masipag (Magsasaka at Siyentipiko sa Pagpapaunlad ng Agrikultura) asked the appellate court to stop the planting of Bt eggplant in test fields, saying the impacts of such an undertaking to the environment, native crops and human health are still unknown. The Court of Appeals granted the petition, citing the precautionary principle stating "when human activities may lead to threats of serious and irreversible damage to the environment that is scientifically plausible but uncertain, actions shall be taken to avoid or diminish the threat". Respondents filed a motion for reconsideration in June 2013 and on September 20, 2013, the Court of Appeals chose to uphold their May decision saying the bt talong field trials violate the people's constitutional right to a "balanced and healthful ecology". The Supreme Court on December 8, 2015, permanently stopped the field testing for Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) talong (eggplant), upholding the decision of the Court of Appeals which stopped the field trials for the genetically modified eggplant. In April 2023, the Supreme Court of the Philippines issued a Writ of Kalikasan ordering the Philippine Department of Agriculture to stop


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-20
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-20.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:47.717639+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
India is an agrarian country with around 60% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. From 1995 to 2013, a total of 296,438 farmers have killed themselves in India, or an average of 16,469 suicides per year. During the same period, about 9.5 million people died per year in India from other causes including malnutrition, diseases and suicides that were non-farming related, or about 171 million deaths from 1995 to 2013. Activists and scholars have offered a number of conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as monsoon failure, high debt burdens, genetically modified crops, government policies, public mental health, personal issues and family problems. There are also accusations of states reporting inaccurate data on farmer suicides. In India, GM cotton yields in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu resulted in an average 42% increase in yield in 2002, the first year of commercial planting. A severe drought in Andhra Pradesh that year prevented any increase in yield, because the GM strain was not drought tolerant. Drought-tolerant variants were later developed. Driven by substantially reduced losses to insect predation, by 2011 88% of Indian cotton was modified. There are economic and environmental benefits of GM cotton to farmers in India.


id: higher-superstition-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Superstition-0.md
category: reference
title: Higher Superstition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Superstition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:48.871677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: higher-superstition-20260505-0
summary:
Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science is a 1994 book about the philosophy of science by the biologist Paul R. Gross and the mathematician Norman Levitt. == Summary == Levitt states he is a leftist trying to save the "academic left" from itself by exposing misuses and abuses of science to advance political goals. Topics discussed include: cultural constructivism or social constructivism, the strong programme, the science criticism of Stanley Aronowitz and Bruno Latour, post-modernism and deconstructionism and their influence on American academia, the science criticism of Andrew Ross, feminist science criticism, environmentalist science criticism and "apocalyptic naturism", Jeremy Rifkin's influential "pseudoscientific alarmism", attacks on medical research connected with AIDS activism and animal rights advocacy, and Afrocentrism. The book also questions human activity's relationship with climate change. The authors find it unfortunate that social scientists and literary critics often consider themselves qualified to criticize the natural sciences without learning much about them in detail, and worry about what would replace Enlightenment ideals of universalism and rationalism, and objective truths about the natural world as ascertained by a scientific methodology of repeatable experiments, if these were to be discredited, as many science critics in the humanities wish


id: hobbes-wallis-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbes–Wallis_controversy-0.md
category: reference
title: Hobbes–Wallis controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbes–Wallis_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:50.179873+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hobbes-wallis-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The Hobbes–Wallis controversy was a polemic debate that continued from the mid-1650s well into the 1670s, between the philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the mathematician and clergyman John Wallis. It was sparked by De corpore, a philosophical work by Hobbes in the general area of physics. The book contained not only a theory of mathematics subordinating it to geometry and geometry to kinematics, but a claimed proof of the squaring of the circle by Hobbes. While Hobbes retracted this particular proof, he returned to the topic with other attempted proofs. A pamphleteering exchange continued for decades. It drew in the newly formed Royal Society, and its experimental philosophy to which Hobbes was (on principle) opposed. The sustained nature of the exchanges can be attributed to several strands of the intellectual situation of the time. In mathematics there were open issues, namely the priority (pedagogic, or theoretical) to be assigned to geometry and algebra; and the status of algebra itself, which (from an English standpoint) had been pulled together by the text of William Oughtred, as more than a collection of symbolic abbreviations. Socially, the formation of the group of Royal Society members, and the status of the publication Philosophical Transactions, was


id: hobbes-wallis-controversy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbes–Wallis_controversy-1.md
category: reference
title: Hobbes–Wallis controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbes–Wallis_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:50.179873+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hobbes-wallis-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== The Elenchus === Wallis's Elenchus geometriae Hobbianae, published in 1655, contained an elaborate criticism of Hobbes's attempt to put the foundations of mathematical science in its place within knowledge. Hobbes had limited his interest to geometry, restricting the scope of mathematics. The book was dedicated to John Owen, and in prefatory remarks Wallis (a Presbyterian) avows that his differences with Hobbes are largely rooted in theology. Hobbes himself wrote to Samuel de Sorbière in the same year, saying the controversy was not merely scientific. He regarded the use of infinite quantities as the thin end of the wedge for a return of scholasticism, and behind Wallis he saw "all the Ecclesiastics of England". Sorbière visited Wallis in Oxford; but his analysis of Wallis as stereotypical pedant helped not at all in the quarrel. Hobbes took care to remove some mistakes exposed by Wallis, before allowing an English translation of the De Corpore to appear in 1656. But he still attacked Wallis in a series of Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, included with the De Corpore translation. Wallis defended himself, and re-confronted Hobbes with his mathematical inconsistencies. Hobbes responded with Marks of the Absurd Geometry, Rural Language, Scottish


id: hobbes-wallis-controversy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbes–Wallis_controversy-2.md
category: reference
title: Hobbes–Wallis controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbes–Wallis_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:50.179873+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hobbes-wallis-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
== Second phase: the Dialogus physicus of 1661 == The Dialogus physicus, sive De natura aeris attacked Robert Boyle and other friends of Wallis who were forming themselves into a society (incorporated as the Royal Society in 1662) for experimental research. The full Latin title of the book mentioned Gresham College as the experimental base of Boyle's group (see Gresham College and the formation of the Royal Society), followed immediately by a reference to the duplication of the cube, which in Hobbes's latest version was included as an appendix. Hobbes chose to take as the manifesto of the new academy Boyle's New Experiments touching the Spring of the Air (1660). Hobbes saw the whole approach as a direct contravention of the method of physical inquiry enjoined in the De Corpore. He had reasoned out his own conclusions years before from speculative principles, and he warned them that if they were not content to begin where he had left off, their work would come to naught. This attack from Hobbes was one of several at the time: other opponents of Boyle were Franciscus Linus and Henry More. The issues at stake now had broadened out, and this was a choice Hobbes


id: homosexual-seduction-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction-0.md
category: reference
title: Homosexual seduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:55.742026+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: homosexual-seduction-20260505-0
summary:
Homosexual seduction is the pseudoscientific conspiracy theory which suggests homosexuality is spread through intergenerational sex, and that older homosexuals aim to change the sexual orientation of previously heterosexual youth by seducing them. It is related to the LGBT grooming conspiracy theory, the discredited acquired homosexuality theory, the gay agenda conspiracy theory, and the drag panic phenomenon. The idea of homosexual seduction, or that sexuality can be changed, has been debunked multiple times in psychological academic discourse. Although scientific research shows that LGBT people do not molest children at higher rates than heterosexuals, anti-LGBT groups have pushed the purported link in popular culture over multiple decades going back to the times before World War II. The allegation that having an LGBT identity is caused by, causes, or otherwise contributes to pedophilia has continued as a matter of ideological faith into the 21st century. In 2010, 13 US organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), signed an open letter which opposed attempts by anti-LGBT groups to promote this conspiracy theory, in order to "protect the safety and emotional well-being of students", including those who are LGBT. According to Sarah Kate Ellis, head of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, this conspiracy theory


id: homosexual-seduction-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction-1.md
category: reference
title: Homosexual seduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:55.742026+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: homosexual-seduction-20260505-0
summary:
== History == The theory originated in the early 20th century's work of German psychologists such as Albert Moll and Emil Kraepelin on adolescent sexuality, and was used in the early work attempting to explain the phenomenon of male prostitution. It played an important role in population regeneration efforts after the First World War in Germany and informed homophobic policies in Nazi Germany. In the 19th century, German psychologists Magnus Hirschfeld and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs had argued for the inborn nature of homosexuality. Challenging the idea of inborn and fixed sexuality, Sigmund Freud theorised that humans were inherently bisexual, and then became either heterosexual or homosexual as a result of childhood experiences. Freud argued that same-sex attraction and experimentation were essential parts of development, with heterosexuality being the preferable outcome. Although he argued that homosexuality should not be thought of as an illness, his focus on how the social environment may shift sexual identity inspired theories behind homosexual seduction. Opposing the inborn nature of sexuality put forward by Hirschfeld and Ulrichs, other psychologists including Max Dessoir, Albert Moll and Emil Kraepelin built on Freud's conception of teenage sexuality as indeterminate and susceptible to social influence. They recognised that same-sex activities


id: homosexual-seduction-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction-2.md
category: reference
title: Homosexual seduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:55.742026+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: homosexual-seduction-20260505-0
summary:
The homosexual seduction theory, like the acquired homosexuality and LGBT grooming conspiracy theories, has subsequently been used in homophobic propaganda and by anti-LGBT rights groups to delay the progress of LGBT rights, by portraying homosexual men as "old perverts who prey on children". The theoretical link between homosexual men and predation or child abuse has permeated discussions about levelling the age of consent, anti-discrimination efforts, adoption and fostering rights, marriage equality, LGBT pride events, pediatric healthcare, and inclusion in sports and public spaces. It has created harmful stereotypes around gay and bisexual men, which have led to increasing and disproportionate numbers of anti-LGBT hate crimes, including violence and even mass murder. In some countries, it has also led to anti-LGBT legislation which criminalizes homosexuality; in Uganda, this may even result in a death sentence. According to Bryn Nelson in Scientific American, conspiracy theories based on pedophilia use disgust as a form of "stochastic terrorism", that incites audiences already primed for violence to target the subjects of those conspiracy theories. A 2020 paper by James A. Piazza found that there is a correlation between politicians sharing prejudicial views and rising domestic terrorism. Another study in Warsaw supported this view. The idea


id: homosexual-seduction-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction-3.md
category: reference
title: Homosexual seduction
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_seduction
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:55.742026+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: homosexual-seduction-20260505-0
summary:
Utah state Senator Daniel Thatcher has said of the homosexual seduction trope, "This idea of grooming, I'll tell ya, to me — as a survivor of childhood sexual assault — I'll just tell ya, I find it personally deeply offensive." == See also == LGBT grooming conspiracy theory Acquired homosexuality Gay agenda Anti-LGBT rhetoric Environment and sexual orientation Conversion therapy Growing Up Straight Pederasty == References ==


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-0.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
The Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry, often called the Khazar myth by its critics, is a largely abandoned historical hypothesis that postulated that Ashkenazi Jews were primarily, or to a large extent, descended from converts to Judaism among the Khazars, a multi-ethnic conglomerate of mostly Turkic peoples who formed a semi-nomadic khanate in and around the northern and central Caucasus and the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the late 6th century CE. It is still sometimes used in antisemitic conspiracy theories and in various anti-Zionist approaches. The hypothesis draws on medieval sources such as the Khazar Correspondence, according to which at some point in the 8th–9th centuries, a small number of Khazars were said by Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Daud to have converted to Rabbinic Judaism. The hypothesis also postulates that after collapse of the Khazar empire, the Khazars fled to Eastern Europe and made up a large part of the Jews there. The scope of the conversion within the Khazar Khanate remains uncertain, but the evidence used to tie the subsequent Ashkenazi communities to the Khazars is meager and subject to conflicting interpretations. Speculation that Europe's Jewish population originated among the Khazars has persisted for two centuries, from at least


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-1.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
This conversion of the kingdom of the Khazars has a considerable importance regarding the origin of those Jews who dwell in the countries along the Danube and southern Russia. These regions enclose great masses of Jewish populations which have in all probability nothing or almost nothing that is anthropologically Jewish in them. According to Mari Réthelyi, a Jewish studies teacher writing in the journal Hungarian Cultural Studies, many Hungarian Jews in the late nineteenth century, responding to Magyarization and to Hungarian antisemitism, took up the theory, proposed by Rabbi Samuel Kohn in 1884, that Hungarian Jews, like Hungarian Christians, shared a common ethnic descent from the intermarriage of Khazars and Magyars. Renan's thesis found an echo soon after, in 1885, when Isidore Loeb, a rabbi, historian and secretary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, arguing for the cause of Jewish emancipation, challenged the notion that nations were based on races, and the Jews therefore, could be excluded as alien. To the contrary, he argued, they were no different from other peoples and nations, all of which arose from miscegenation: the Jews were no exception, and one could assume, he added, that many German and Russian Jews descended from the Khazars. Similarly,


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-2.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1939–1945 === In 1943, Abraham Polak (sometimes referred to as Poliak), later professor of the history of the Middle Ages at Tel Aviv University, published a Hebrew monograph in which he concluded that the East European Jews came from Khazaria. First written as an article in 1941, then as a monograph (1943), it was twice revised in 1944, and then in 1951 with the title Khazaria: History of a Jewish Kingdom in Europe. In Nazi Germany, unlike most race theorists in Germany down to his time, Hans F. K. Günther argued that the Jews were not a pure race, although he nevertheless considered them to be highly inbred. He argued that the Ashkenazi were a mix of Near Eastern, Oriental, East Baltic, Eastern, Inner-Asian, Nordic, Hamite, and Negro peoples and separate from the Sephardim. Günther believed that the conversion of the Khazars, whom he took to have been a Near Eastern race, constituted a further external element in the racial makeup of the Ashkenazi Jews, strengthening its Near Eastern component. Günther's theorizing about racial consequences flowing from the conversion of the Khazars was embraced by Gerhard Kittel. The Karaite claim not to be ethnic Jews, but descendants of the


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-3.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1976–present: Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe and contemporary views === The Khazar-Ashkenazi hypothesis came to the attention of a much wider public with the publication in 1976 of Arthur Koestler's book The Thirteenth Tribe, which made sweeping claims for a Khazar legacy among the Ashkenazi, and asserted that the Jewish population in Eastern Europe could not have reached 8 million without the contribution of the Khazars. Koestler argued that the Khazar theory would mitigate European racially-based antisemitism. The book received both positive and negative reviews. Israel's ambassador to Britain branded it "an anti-Semitic action financed by the Palestinians", while Bernard Lewis claimed that the idea was not supported by any evidence whatsoever, and had been "abandoned by all serious scholars". Raphael Patai, however, registered some support for the idea that Khazar remnants had played a role in the growth of Eastern European Jewish communities, and several amateur researchers, such as Boris Altschüler (1994) and Kevin Alan Brook, kept the thesis in the public eye. Brook's views evolved as new data became available: in the first edition of his book (1999), he contended that about one-fourth of Ashkenazic ancestry may trace back to the Khazars, whereas in the second edition (2006)


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-4.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
=== Behar et al. studies === According to a 2010 study by Doron Behar et al., Ashkenazi Jews form a "tight cluster" overlying non-Jewish samples from the Levant with Sephardic, Middle Eastern and North African Jewish populations and Samaritans, results being "consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant". In 2013 Behar et al. published a genetic study that came up with the conclusion that there isn't genetic evidence for the Khazar origin of Ashkenazi Jews, and instead Ashkenazi Jews are genetically closest to other Jewish groups and non-Jewish Middle Eastern and European populations. A 2003 study by Behar et al., found that Haplogroup R1a1a (R-M17) is present in over 50% of Ashkenazi Levites (who comprise 4% of the Ashkenazi Jewish population). In 2008 David Goldstein asserted that based on the study a Khazar connection "now seems to me plausible, if not likely". Faerman (2008) states that "External low-level gene flow of possible Eastern European origin has been shown in Ashkenazim but no evidence of a hypothetical Khazars' contribution to the Ashkenazi gene pool has ever been found.". However, Behar and others made two more genetic studies on


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-5.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
==== Criticism of the Elhaik studies ==== Elhaik's 2012 study proved highly controversial. Several noted geneticists, among them Marcus Feldman, Harry Ostrer, Doron Behar, and Michael Hammer have maintained—and the view has gained widespread support among scientists—that the worldwide Jewish population is related and shares common roots in the Middle East, Feldman stated Elhaik's statistical analysis would not pass muster with most scientists; Hammer affirmed it was an outlier minority view without scientific support. Elhaik in reply described the group as "liars" and "frauds", noting Ostrer would not share genetic data that might be used "to defame the Jewish people". Elhaik's PhD supervisor Dan Graur, likewise dismissed them as a "clique", and said Elhaik is "combative" which is what science itself is. Elhaik's 2012 study was criticized in a 2013 paper in Human Biology for its use of Armenians and Azerbaijani Jews as proxies for Khazars and for using Bedouin and Jordanian Hashemites as a proxy for the Ancient Israelites. The former decision was criticized because Armenians were assumed to have a monolithic Caucasian ancestry, when as an Anatolian people (rather than Turkic) they contain many genetically Middle Eastern elements. Azerbaijani Jews are also assumed for the purposes of the


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-6.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
Maurice Fishberg and Roland B. Dixon's works were later exploited in racist and religious polemical literature by advocates of British Israelism in the United States. Particularly after the publication of Burton J. Hendrick's The Jews in America (1923) Singerman 2004, pp. 4–5 it began to enjoy a vogue among advocates of immigration restrictions in the 1920s; racial theorists like Lothrop Stoddard; antisemitic conspiracy theorists such as the Ku Klux Klan's Hiram Wesley Evans; and anti-communist polemicists such as John O. Beaty. In 1938, Ezra Pound, then strongly identifying with the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, sent a query to fellow poet Louis Zukofsky concerning the Khazars after someone had written to him claiming that the ancient Jews had died out and that modern Jews were of Khazar descent. He returned to the issue in 1955, apparently influenced by a book called Facts Are Facts, which pushed the Jewish-Khazar descent theory, and which for Pound had dug up "a few savoury morsels". The booklet in question, by a Roman Catholic convert from Rabbinic Judaism, Benjamin H. Freedman, was an antisemitic tirade written to David Goldstein after the latter had converted to Catholicism. John O. Beaty was an antisemitic, McCarthyite professor of


id: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry-7.md
category: reference
title: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:58.212648+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: khazar-hypothesis-of-ashkenazi-ancestry-20260505-0
summary:
=== Germany === The Khazar hypothesis was promoted by the former Nazi scholar Herman Wirth (1885-1981), who wrote an anti-Semitic legal report in 1958 that questioned the origins of the Jewish People and relativized the Holocaust. It was central to his Palestinabuch (Book of Palestine), the extensive manuscript of which was lost for unclear reasons in the 1970s. It was his theory that the Ashkenazi Jews descended from a superstitious slave people (Khazars) on the fringes of a mythical Nordic civilization (Shambhala) in the Gobi Desert. According to Wirth, Christ descended from a lost tribe of the original Aryans, who had left their traces in the Near East in the form of Megalithic monuments. The Palestinabuch was meant as a counterpart to Wirth's Ura Linda Chronicle (1933) on the ancient Frisians, whom he considered direct descendants of the first Aryans and whose origins he located in Palestine. It was officially titled The Riddle of the Palestine's Megalithic Graves: From JAU to Jesus. By 1969 the proposed title had changed into Between the North Sea and the Sea of Genezareth, implicitly referring to an influential book by the 19th-century German reactionary Julius Langbehn. The myth of the lost Palestinabuch was promoted


id: king-of-clones-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Clones-0.md
category: reference
title: King of Clones
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Clones
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:17:59.429895+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: king-of-clones-20260505-0
summary:
King of Clones is a documentary released on Netflix and directed by Aditya Thayi which examines the Hwang affair involving human cloning by South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk. == Description == The documentary is described by Netflix as "After rocking the world with work in human cloning, a scientist falls from grace. Now, he's back -- this time with pets and extinct species." == Release == The film was released on 23 June 2023 by Netflix. == Production == King of Clones was directed by London-based Singaporean filmmaker Aditya Thayi via and is a Netflix U.K. commission. Thayi has 20 nominations and five wins at the Asian Television Awards, including two wins for best direction. Thayi described Hwang as a "polarizing figure" in South Korea and wanted to do an objective take on him." According to Variety, Thayi learned about Hwang due to anxiety he had waiting for the birth of his child, due to growing up in India in the 1980s where multiple industrial disasters occurred affecting children's health. He looked into getting genetic testing done and "was amazed by the choices that modern science has put in the hands of prospective parents and the complex ethical questions it


id: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report-0.md
category: reference
title: Lancet MMR vaccine-autism report
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:00.602839+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-0
summary:
On 28 February 1998, a fraudulent research paper primarily authored by physician Andrew Wakefield, along with twelve other coauthors (titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children"), was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal. The paper falsely claimed causative links between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and colitis, and between colitis and autism. The fraud involved data bias and manipulation, and two undisclosed conflicts of interest. It was exposed in a lengthy Sunday Times investigation by reporter Brian Deer, resulting in the paper's retraction in February 2010 and Wakefield's being discredited and struck off the UK medical register three months later. In the paper, Wakefield fabricated evidence to suggest a new "syndrome" existed, which he called "autistic enterocolitis". Wakefield had been employed by a lawyer representing parents in lawsuits against vaccine producers, and had reportedly earned up to US$43 million per year selling diagnostic kits for the non-existent syndrome he claimed to have discovered. He also held a patent to a rival measles vaccine at the time. The scientific consensus on vaccines and autism is that there is no connection between MMR (or any other vaccine) and autism. == 1998 The Lancet paper


id: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report-1.md
category: reference
title: Lancet MMR vaccine-autism report
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:00.602839+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-0
summary:
Multiple subsequent studies failed to find any link between the MMR vaccine, colitis, and autism. In March 1998, a panel of 37 scientific experts set up by the Medical Research Council, headed by Professor Sir John Pattison found "no evidence to indicate any link" between the MMR vaccine and colitis or autism in children. Public concern over Wakefield's claims of a possible link between MMR and autism gained momentum in 2001 and 2002, after he published further papers suggesting that the immunisation programme was not safe. These were a review paper with no new evidence, published in a minor journal, and two papers on laboratory work that he said showed that measles virus had been found in tissue samples taken from children who had autism and bowel problems. There was wide media coverage including distressing anecdotal evidence from parents, and political coverage attacking the health service and government peaked with unmet demands that Prime minister Tony Blair reveal whether his infant son, Leo, had been given the vaccine. It was the biggest science story of 2002, with 1257 articles mostly written by non-expert commentators. In the period January to September 2002, 32% of the stories written about MMR mentioned Leo


id: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report-2.md
category: reference
title: Lancet MMR vaccine-autism report
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:00.602839+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-0
summary:
=== Conflict of interest === Public understanding of the claims sharply changed in February 2004 with revelations by The Sunday Times of an undisclosed conflict of interest on Wakefield's part in that, two years before the paper's publication, he had been approached by Richard Barr, a lawyer of Justice, Awareness and Basic Support, who was looking for an expert witness to start a planned class action regarding alleged "vaccine damage". Barr hired Wakefield at £150 per hour, plus expenses, and only then did they recruit the twelve children, actively seeking the parents of cases that might imply a connection between MMR and autism. Barr and Wakefield convinced the UK Legal Aid Board, a UK government organization to give financial support to people who could not afford access to justice, to assign £55,000 to fund the initial stage of the research. According to journalist Brian Deer, the project was intended to create evidence for the court case, but this only became publicly known six years after the Lancet report, with the newspaper's first disclosures. Based on Deer's evidence, the Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton said Wakefield's paper should have never been published because its findings were "entirely flawed". Although Wakefield maintained that


id: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report-3.md
category: reference
title: Lancet MMR vaccine-autism report
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:00.602839+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-0
summary:
=== Manipulation of data === The Sunday Times continued the investigation, and on 8 February 2009, Brian Deer reported that Wakefield had "fixed" results and "manipulated" patient data in the Lancet, creating the appearance of a link with autism. Wakefield falsely denied these allegations, and even filed a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over this article on 13 March 2009. The complaint was expanded by a 20 March 2009 addendum by Wakefield's publicist. In July 2009, the PCC stated that it was staying any investigation regarding the Sunday Times article, pending the conclusion of the GMC investigation. Wakefield did not pursue his complaint, which Deer then published along with a statement saying he and The Sunday Times rejected the complaint as "false and disingenuous in all material respects", and that the action had been suspended by the PCC in February 2010. === UK General Medical Council inquiry === Responding to the first Sunday Times reports, the General Medical Council (GMC), which is responsible for licensing doctors and supervising medical ethics in the UK, launched an investigation into the affair. The GMC brought the case itself, not citing any specific complaints, claiming that an investigation was in the public


id: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report-4.md
category: reference
title: Lancet MMR vaccine-autism report
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:00.602839+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-0
summary:
=== Full retraction and fraud revelations === In an April 2010 report in The BMJ, Deer expanded on the laboratory aspects of his findings recounting how normal clinical histopathology results generated by the Royal Free Hospital were later changed in the medical school to abnormal results, published in the Lancet. Deer wrote an article in The BMJ casting doubt on the "autistic enterocolitis" that Wakefield claimed to have discovered. In the same edition, Deirdre Kelly, President of the European Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and the Editor of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition expressed some concern about The BMJ publishing this article while the GMC proceedings were underway. On 5 January 2011, The BMJ published the first of a series of articles by Brian Deer, detailing how Wakefield and his colleagues had faked some of the data behind the 1998 Lancet article. By looking at the records and interviewing the parents, Deer found that for all 12 children in the Wakefield study, diagnoses had been tweaked or dates changed to fit the article's conclusion. Continuing BMJ series on 11 January 2011, Deer said that based upon documents he obtained under freedom of information legislation, Wakefield—in partnership with


id: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report-5.md
category: reference
title: Lancet MMR vaccine-autism report
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_vaccine-autism_report
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:00.602839+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lancet-mmr-vaccine-autism-report-20260505-0
summary:
== Aftermath == Characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the 20th Century", The Lancet paper led to a sharp drop in vaccination rates in the UK and Ireland. Promotion of the claimed link, which continues in anti-vaccination propaganda despite being refuted, led to an increase in the incidence of measles and mumps, resulting in deaths and serious permanent injuries. Following the initial claims in 1998, multiple large epidemiological studies were undertaken. Reviews of the evidence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, the UK National Health Service, and the Cochrane Library all found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Physicians, medical journals, and editors have described Wakefield's actions as fraudulent and tied them to epidemics and deaths. Among commentators drawing on Deer's investigation, academic Peter N. Steinmetz summarizes six fabrications and falsifications in the paper itself and in Wakefield's response: findings of non-specific colitis; timing of MMR vaccine administration and first behavioral symptoms; findings of regressive autism; ethics consent statement; conflict of interest statement; and methods of patient referral. Wakefield has continued to defend his research and conclusions,


id: list-of-scientific-debates-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_debates-0.md
category: reference
title: List of scientific debates
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_debates
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:01.745378+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-scientific-debates-20260505-0
summary:
This is a list of notable scientific debates in the history of science and mathematics. == Biology == Nature versus nurture, long-standing debate in biology on human behavior 1764–1778 Voltaire vs Needham, between Voltaire and John Needham and others on the validity of preformationism. 1830 Cuvier–Geoffroy debate between Georges Cuvier and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire on animal structure. 1860 Oxford evolution debate between several scientists on Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. 1860–1862 Great Hippocampus Question, between Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Owen on the importance of hippocampus minor. == Chemistry and nanoscience == 2001–2003 Drexler–Smalley debate on molecular nanotechnology by K. Eric Drexler and Richard Smalley on the feasibility of molecular assemblers. == Mathematics == 1654–1665 problem of points, correspondence between Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat on games and the fair share of a prize pot. 1655–1679 Hobbes–Wallis controversy, between Thomas Hobbes and John Wallis on geometry and other topics. 1745 Leibniz–Bernoulli correspondence, between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Johann Bernoulli on the logarithm of negative numbers. 1902–1924 Nekrasov–Markov conflict, between Pavel Nekrasov and Andrey Markov on the relation between the law of large numbers and free will. 1903–1912 Poincaré vs. Russell, between Henri Poincaré and Bertrand Russell on


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-0.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:03.001865+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The materialism controversy (German: Materialismusstreit) was a public debate in the mid-19th century about how new developments in the natural sciences might affect existing worldviews. During the 1840s, a new form of materialism emerged, shaped by advances in biology and the decline of idealistic philosophy. This form of materialism sought to explain human beings and their behavior through scientific methods. The central question of the debate was whether scientific discoveries were compatible with traditional ideas such as the existence of an immaterial soul, a personal God, and human free will. The discussion also touched on deeper philosophical issues, such as what kind of knowledge a materialist or mechanical view of the world could offer. In his Physiologische Briefe from 1846, zoologist Carl Vogt argued that mental processes were entirely physical, famously stating that "thoughts stand in the same relation to the brain as bile does to the liver or urine to the kidneys." In 1854, the physiologist Rudolf Wagner criticized this view in a speech to the Göttingen Naturalists' Assembly. He argued that religious belief and science belonged to separate areas of understanding, and that natural science could not answer questions about God, the soul, or free will. Wagner’s comments


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-1.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:03.001865+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The materialism controversy was sparked in part by the writings of physiologist Carl Vogt, beginning in 1847. His commitment to materialism was shaped by the scientific and political reform movements of the time, as well as his own personal and political development. Vogt was born in Giessen in 1817, into a family with both scientific and revolutionary traditions. His father, Philipp Friedrich Wilhelm Vogt, was a professor of medicine who moved to Bern in 1834 after facing political persecution. On his mother’s side, political activism was also a strong influence: Louise Follen’s three brothers—Adolf, Karl, and Paul Follen—were all involved in nationalist and democratic causes and eventually went into exile. In 1817 Adolf Follen drafted a proposal for a future German constitution and was later arrested for his political activities. He avoided a 10-year prison sentence by fleeing to Switzerland. Karl Follen was suspected of encouraging the assassination of conservative writer August von Kotzebue and escaped to the United States, where he became a professor at Harvard University. The youngest brother, Paul Follen, helped found the Gießener Auswanderungsgesellschaft in 1833, which aimed to establish a German republic in the U.S. Though the plan failed, Paul settled in Missouri as a


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-2.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:03.001865+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
During the summer of 1854, the 31st Naturalists' Meeting was held in Göttingen. A major topic of discussion was the existence of the soul and its compatibility with emerging materialist views in science. During the event, physiologist Rudolf Wagner gave a prominent lecture on human creation and the nature of the soul, in which he sharply criticized materialism. He argued that denying the existence of a soul created by God—and especially the rejection of free will—would undermine the moral foundations of society. Wagner claimed that materialist theories, such as those proposed by Carl Vogt, reduced human beings to passive machines without responsibility, which conflicted with the ethical duties of scientists. Later that year, Wagner published a second paper that expanded on his criticisms. He argued that science and faith occupy separate domains, and that science alone could neither prove nor disprove religious beliefs. He explained that while physiologists can describe the structure and function of physical organs, their findings can be interpreted in different ways. Materialists use these observations to argue that mental functions are based on physical processes, while dualists believe the body interacts with an immaterial soul. Wagner maintained that physiology cannot determine which interpretation is correct. He


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-3.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:03.001865+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
== Reactions in the 19th century == === Philosophy of neo-Kantianism === Materialism, as promoted by scientists like Carl Vogt, Jakob Moleschott, and Ludwig Büchner, was presented as a direct consequence of empirical scientific research. Following the decline of German idealism, many saw academic philosophy—especially as taught in universities—as disconnected from reality and reduced to speculative thought. Even philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, once aligned with idealist traditions, placed his trust in the natural sciences to answer longstanding philosophical questions such as the relationship between body and soul. However, a strong philosophical critique of materialism did not emerge until the 1860s, with the rise of Neo-Kantianism. In 1865, Otto Liebmann published Kant und die Epigonen (Kant and His Followers), a work that sharply criticized major post-Kantian thinkers—from German idealists to Arthur Schopenhauer. Liebmann famously ended each chapter with the refrain: "So we must go back to Kant!". The following year,Friedrich Albert Lange published Geschichte des Materialismus (History of Materialism), in which he aligned himself with the Neo-Kantian position. Lange accused the scientific materialists of “philosophical dilettantism”, claiming that they overlooked central insights of Kantian thought. At the core of Kant’s philosophy, particularly in the Critique of Pure Reason, is the question: What


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-4.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:03.001865+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Even Ludwig Büchner, initially one of the most prominent advocates of materialism, eventually distanced himself from the term. In a letter to Haeckel dated 1875, he wrote:I ... have therefore never used the term 'materialism', which evokes a completely one-sided idea, for my school of thought and only accepted it here and there later out of necessity because the general public knew no other word for the whole movement ... . The term 'monism' that you suggest is very good in itself, but it is very doubtful whether it will be accepted by the general public. === Political and ideological impact === Although scientific materialism gained considerable popularity among the general public in 19th-century Germany, its proponents—Carl Vogt, Jakob Moleschott, and Ludwig Büchner—faced significant political opposition. All three lost their academic positions largely because of their outspoken advocacy of materialism. Vogt’s revolutionary materialism, in particular, failed to gain traction in the reactionary political climate following the revolutions of 1848. Scientific materialism also struggled to influence broader political movements, in part due to ideological conflicts with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx disparaged Vogt as a “small-university beer bouncer and misguided Barrot of the Reich", and personal denunciations escalated between the


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-5.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:03.001865+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Primary literature === Beiser, Frederick C. (2014). After Hegel: German philosophy 1840-1900. Princeton, NJ Oxford: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17371-9. Büchner, Ludwig (1932). Kraft und Stoff (in German) (Pocket ed.). Leipzig: Kröner Verlag. Du Bois-Reymond, Emil; Wollgast, Siegfried (1974). Vorträge über Philosophie und Gesellschaft. Philosophische Bibliothek. Hamburg: F. Meiner. ISBN 978-3-7873-0320-5. Daum, Andreas W. (2002). Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert. Bürgerliche Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit 1848–1914 (in German) (2 ed.). Munich: Oldenbourg. Feuerbach, Ludwig (1967). Gesammelte Werke (in German). Vol. 3. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Haeckel, Ernst (1908). Die Welträthsel (in German). Leipzig: Kröner. Helmholtz, Hermann (2003). "Ueber das Sehen des Menschen". Gesammelte Schriften (in German). Vol. 1. Hildesheim: Olms. Lange, Friedrich Albert (1920) [1866]. Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart (in German). J. Baedeker. Marx, Karl (1961). Herr Vogt. Marx-Engels-Werke (in German). Vol. 14. Berlin: Dietz. Vogt, Carl (1856). Köhlerglaube und Wissenschaft. Eine Streitschrift gegen Hofrasth Rudolph Wagner in Göttingen (in German) (4th ed.). Gießen: Rickersche Buchhandlung. Vogt, Carl (1874). Physiologische Briefe (in German) (14 ed.). Gießen: Rickersche Buchhandlung. Wagner, Rudolf (1854a). Menschenschöpfung und Seelensubstanz. Ein anthropologischer Vortrag (in German). Göttingen: G.H. Wigand. Wagner, Rudolf (1854b). Ueber Wissen und Glauben. Mit besonderer Beziehung


id: math-wars-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_wars-0.md
category: reference
title: Math wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:04.272464+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: math-wars-20260505-0
summary:
In the United States, math wars are debates over modern mathematics education, textbooks and curricula that were triggered by the publication in 1989 of the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and subsequent development and widespread adoption of a new generation of mathematics curricula inspired by these standards. While the discussion about math skills has persisted for many decades, the term "math wars" was coined by commentators such as John A. Van de Walle and David Klein. The debates focus on traditional mathematics versus reform mathematics philosophy and curricula, which differ significantly in approach and content. == Advocates of reform == The largest supporter of reform in the US has been the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. They call for a more inquiry-based approach that emphasizes real-world problem solving and understanding the underlying steps, as opposed to merely applying formulas to arrive at a correct answer. Successful implementation of this approach requires a great deal of expertise in educators; some parents and other stakeholders blame educators saying that failures occur because of this lacking expertise rather than a fundamental design flaw in the curriculum. A backlash, which advocates call


id: math-wars-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_wars-1.md
category: reference
title: Math wars
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_wars
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:04.272464+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: math-wars-20260505-0
summary:
Mathland (no longer offered) Investigations in Numbers, Data, and Space, criticized for not containing explicit instruction of the standard algorithms Core-Plus Mathematics Project, criticized for failing "to convey critical mathematical concepts and ideas that should and can be within reach for high school students", downplaying "algebraic structure and skills" and "inability to build geometry up from foundations in a mathematically sound and coherent way". Connected Mathematics, criticized for not explicitly teaching children standard algorithms, formulas or solved examples Everyday Mathematics, criticized for putting emphasis on non-traditional arithmetic methods. Critics of reform textbooks say that they present concepts in a haphazard way. Critics of the reform textbooks and curricula support methods such as Singapore math, which emphasizes direct instruction of basic mathematical concepts, and Saxon math, which emphasizes frequent cumulative review. Reform educators have responded by pointing out that research tends to show that students achieve greater conceptual understanding from standards-based curricula than traditional curricula and that these gains do not come at the expense of basic skills. In fact students tend to achieve the same procedural skill level in both types of curricula as measured by traditional standardized tests. More research is needed, but the current state of research seems


id: national-character-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_character-0.md
category: reference
title: National character
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_character
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:05.472607+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: national-character-20260505-0
summary:
National character refers to a characteristic common personality of the people of a nation. National character has been studied within the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology. The question of whether analysis and descriptions of national characters express meaningful content, as opposed to comprising inaccurate stereotypes, is controversial. Most of the research on national character has focused on the content, stability, accuracy, and origins of national character stereotypes. A 1985 cross-national study of national character found fundamental differences between the psychological profiles of the respective national populations of France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, and the United States. Some studies comparing national character stereotypes with assessed personality traits find a moderate relationship between stereotype and reality, while others have found perceptions of national character to be unfounded and poorly related. Academic interest in national character peaked around World War II, with two anthropologists in 1969 identifying 1935 to 1945 as the field's seminal period, and declined in the decades that followed due to changes in academic thought. Jerome Braun wrote in 2014 that "the study of national character nowadays is considered somewhat old-fashioned because the most famous period devoted to this study, the period immediately after World War II, eventually


id: near-death-experience-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-0.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
A near-death experience (NDE) is a profound personal experience associated with death or impending death, which researchers describe as having similar characteristics. When positive, which most, but not all reported experiences are, such experiences may encompass a variety of sensations including detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, joy, the experience of absolute dissolution, review of major life events, the presence of a light, and seeing dead relatives. While there are common elements, people's experiences and their interpretations of these experiences generally reflect their cultural, philosophical, or religious beliefs. NDEs usually occur during reversible clinical death. Explanations for NDEs vary from scientific to religious. Neuroscience research hypothesizes that an NDE is a subjective phenomenon resulting from "disturbed bodily multisensory integration" that occurs during life-threatening events. Some transcendental and religious beliefs about an afterlife include descriptions similar to NDEs. == Etymology == The equivalent French term expérience de mort imminente ("experience of imminent death") was proposed by French psychologist and epistemologist Victor Egger as a result of discussions in the 1890s among philosophers and psychologists concerning climbers' stories of the panoramic life review during falls. In 1892, a series of subjective observations by workers falling from scaffolds,


id: near-death-experience-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-1.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
==== Assertions of phenomenological diversity ==== The 2022 guidelines stress that the themes of authentic death experiences have little in common with mislabeled NDEs, except perhaps for shallow similarities, like mentioning religious symbols or saying the experience felt peaceful. The physiological context of patients near-death or experiencing death (as defined by cardiopulmonary criteria) leads to a decline in mental clarity and consciousness and, in extreme cases, complete loss of detectable cerebral function. Paradoxically, genuine/authentic near death experiences—characterized by coherence, meaning, purpose, and lucid life review—arise during this state, not under normal conditions of preserved brain metabolism and function. According to the 2022 guidelines, experiences termed "NDE-like" including those induced by ketamine or DMT, reliably display features unlike recalled experiences of death: distorted body sensations, inflated or self-centered perspectives, and varied imagery such as elves, celebrities, geometric forms, aliens, or bright neon scenes. Likewise, dreams and seizures exhibit unrelated, non-authentic NDE themes. ==== Claims of common elements ==== Another author instead claims that similar traits have been identified despite the differences among populations being studied and these include: 50% awareness of being dead. 56% a sense of peace, well-being, painlessness, bliss, euphoria and other positive emotions. 24% an out-of-body experience (OBE).


id: near-death-experience-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-2.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
=== Patients' management and after-effects === Moody described the correct approach to an NDE patient is to "Ask, Listen, Validate, Educate, and Refer". Due to the potential confusion or shock attributed to those who experience near-death experiences, it is important to treat them in a calm and understanding way right after their return from the NDE. NDEs are associated with changes in personality and outlook on life. Ring has identified a consistent set of value and belief changes associated with people who have had an NDE. Among these changes, he found a greater appreciation for life, higher self-esteem, greater compassion for others, less concern for acquiring material wealth, a heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding, desire to learn, elevated spirituality, greater ecological sensitivity and planetary concern, a feeling of being more intuitive, no longer worrying about death, and claiming to have witnessed an afterlife. Although people who have experienced NDEs become more spiritual, it does not mean they become necessarily more religious. Not all after-effects are beneficial, and Greyson describes circumstances in which changes in attitudes and behavior can lead to psychosocial and psychospiritual problems. == Establishment of research framework == To establish a rigorous research framework for the study


id: near-death-experience-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-3.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
=== The Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) === American radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long has amassed a large database of NDEs through the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF). 835 out of 1,122 people who had experienced NDE seemed to feel an increase in alertness and consciousness although studies proved no sign of electrical brain activity. His second line of evidence studies the increase of accuracy developed by NDErs defining their resuscitation process with a 97.6% accuracy rate. Long documented seven more lines of evidence that all point to realism in NDE experiences, yet not all of them verifiable or defined by today's medical advances and technology. Having such an abnormally large amount (95.6% of 1,000 participants) of those who had experienced NDE proclaiming NDEs as real experiences, he concludes that although NDE are medically inexplicable, they are most probably a real phenomenon. === Recognition and criticism === According to literature, the field of near-death studies is associated with discovery, challenges, and controversy. Cant and colleagues note that "curiosity about the origin and prevalence of NDEs has escalated as technology and resuscitation techniques have improved". The topic attracts a lot of interest, which is reflected in search engine results, medical


id: near-death-experience-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-4.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
=== Awareness during resuscitation (AWARE) study === While at the University of Southampton, Parnia was the principal investigator of the AWARE Study, which was launched in 2008.[13] The study, which concluded in 2012, included 33 investigators across 15 medical centers in the UK, Austria and the US and tested consciousness, memories and awareness during cardiac arrest. The accuracy of claims of visual and auditory awareness was examined using specific tests. One such test consisted of installing shelves, bearing a variety of images and facing the ceiling, hence not visible to hospital staff, in rooms where cardiac-arrest patients were more likely to occur. The results of the study were published in October 2014. A review article analyzing the results reports that, out of 2,060 cardiac arrest events, 101 of 140 cardiac arrest survivors could complete the questionnaires. Of these 101 patients, 9% could be classified as near-death experiences. Two more patients (2% of those completing the questionnaires) described "seeing and hearing actual events related to the period of cardiac arrest". These two patients' cardiac arrests did not occur in areas equipped with ceiling shelves, hence no images could be used to objectively test for visual awareness claims. One of the two


id: near-death-experience-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-5.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
==== Expectancy model ==== Another psychological theory is called the expectancy model. It has been suggested that although these experiences could appear very real, they had actually been constructed in the mind, either consciously or subconsciously, in response to the stress of an encounter with death (or perceived encounter with death), and did not correspond to a real event. In a way, they are similar to wish-fulfillment: because someone thought they were about to die, they experienced certain things in accordance with what they expected or wanted to occur. Imagining a heavenly place was, in effect, a way for them to soothe themselves through the stress of knowing that they were close to death. Subjects use their own personal and cultural expectations to imagine a scenario that would protect them against an imminent threat to their lives. Subjects' accounts often differed from their own "religious and personal expectations regarding death", which contradicts the hypothesis they may have imagined a scenario based on their cultural and personal background. Although the term NDE was first coined in 1975 and the experience first described then, recent descriptions of NDEs do not differ from those reported earlier than 1975. The only exception is the


id: near-death-experience-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-6.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
==== Neurochemical models ==== Some theories explain reported NDE experiences as resulting from drugs used during resuscitation (in the case of resuscitation-induced NDEs) ─ for example, ketamine ─ or from endogenous chemicals (neurotransmitters) that transmit signals between brain cells: In the early 1980s, Daniel Carr wrote that the NDE has characteristics that are suggestive of a limbic lobe syndrome and that the NDE can be explained by the release of endorphins and enkephalins in the brain. Endorphins are endogenous molecules "released in times of stress and lead to a reduction in pain perception and a pleasant, even blissful, emotional state." Judson and Wiltshaw (1983) noted how the administration of endorphin-blocking agents such as naloxone had been occasionally reported to produce "hellish" NDEs. This would be coherent with endorphins' role in causing a "positive emotional tone of most NDEs". Morse et al. (1989) proposed a model arguing that serotonin played a more important role than endorphins in generating NDEs, "at least with respect to mystical hallucinations and OBEs". A 2019 large-scale study found that ketamine, Salvia divinorum, and DMT (and other classical psychedelic substances) are linked to near-death experiences. While ketamine, and other endogenous chemicals can be a source for NDE,


id: near-death-experience-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience-7.md
category: reference
title: Near-death experience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:06.795176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: near-death-experience-20260505-0
summary:
After-death communication – Spiritual practicePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Beyond and Back – 1978 film Cognitive science of religion – Study of religious thought and behavior Deathbed phenomena – Range of experiences reported by dying people Deism – Belief in a god based on rational thought Form constant – Recurringly observed geometric pattern Lazarus syndrome – Medical phenomenon Near-birth experience – Alleged recollected event which occurred before or during one's own birth Neurotheology – Attempts to explain religious experience in neuroscientific termsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Out-of-body experience – Phenomenon in which the soul (astral body) is said to exit the physical body Pam Reynolds case – Reported near-death experience Passage (Willis novel) – 2001 novel by Connie Willis Proof of Heaven – 2012 nonfiction book by Eben Alexander Psychedelic experience – Altered state of consciousness Resurrection – Concept of coming back to life Saved by the Light – 1994 book by Dannion Brinkley Terminal lucidity – Sign of impending death Zendegi Pas Az Zendegi – Iranian reality TV series (2020–2023) == References == == Further reading == Alcock, James (1979). "Psychology and Near-Death Experiences". Skeptical Inquirer. 3: 25–41. Lee Worth Bailey; Jenny Yates. (1996). The


id: new-family-structures-study-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Family_Structures_Study-0.md
category: reference
title: New Family Structures Study
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Family_Structures_Study
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:07.980389+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-family-structures-study-20260505-0
summary:
The New Family Structures Study (abbreviated NFSS) is a sociological study of family structures conducted by sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin. The study surveyed over 15,000 Americans of ages 18 to 39. The first research article based on data from the study was published in July 2012 in Social Science Research. The article concluded that people who had had a parent who had been in a same-gender relationship were at a greater risk of several adverse outcomes, including "being on public assistance, being unemployed, and having poorer educational attainment". The study was met with considerable criticism from many academics, scholarly organizations, and medical journals. Of note, only two children in the study (of the 236 counted as having gay parents) had actually lived with homosexually partnered parents for their entire childhoods. Thus, negative outcomes or events cannot be attributed to having same-sex parents, because many of these children also spent their childhoods with opposite-sex parents, and experienced family disruption and parental divorce. A 2015 reanalysis raised serious questions about the validity of the study, finding misclassification of families, inconsistency in answers suggesting mischief, and evidence that many respondents did not live with their non-heterosexual parents.


id: new-family-structures-study-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Family_Structures_Study-1.md
category: reference
title: New Family Structures Study
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Family_Structures_Study
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:18:07.980389+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: new-family-structures-study-20260505-0
summary:
== Controversy and reanalysis == Cynthia Osborne, who is on the UT-Austin faculty along with Regnerus, argued the study was unable to show "whether same-sex parenting causes the observed differences". She also said that "Children of lesbian mothers might have lived in many different family structures, and it is impossible to isolate the effects of living with a lesbian mother from experiencing divorce, remarriage or living with a single parent." Similarly, Gary Gates of the Williams Institute argued that the study's comparison of children of lesbian mothers was a less fair comparison than, for instance, comparing "children of heterosexual or same-sex couples who were raised in similar homes". Regnerus's former mentor Christian Smith has described the public and academic reaction to the New Family Structures Study as a "witch hunt" and said that the "push-back" to Regnerus's article "is coming simply because some people don't like where the data led". This backlash, Smith argues in his book The Sacred Project of American Sociology, is a result of the content of sociology's "sacred project" (of mitigating oppression, inequality, etc.); Smith holds that the critical reaction, e.g. on methodological issues, displays a set of double standards insofar as work by other scholars


