Rhetoric
These speeches, opinion pieces and persuasive essays argue about science, or argue from it.
8 pieces so far- Editors’ pick There Is No Such Thing as Chemical-Free This argument says the most common label in the shop is the only one guaranteed to be false, and that the right question was asked five hundred years ago.
- New Aristotle Was Wrong for 2,000 Years, and That's Good News This speech argues that being wrong, carefully and in public, is the most useful thing a scientist can do.
- Guess How Many Times Your Heart Will Beat This speech argues that every student should be taught to make good guesses, on purpose.
- Give Every School a Telescope This speech argues that the cheapest science lesson no school is teaching is pointed at the sky, and that it has almost nothing to do with zoom.
- No, It's Not "Just a Theory" This opinion piece takes on the most misunderstood word in science.
- Yes, a Tomato Is a Fruit. No, It Doesn't Go in Fruit Salad This argument settles the lunch-table debate with help from the US Supreme Court, a strawberry that isn't a berry, and the lesson that a definition is a tool.
- Your Grandmother's Remedies Deserve a Fair Test This argument says that checking a home remedy properly is the most respectful thing you can do with it, and that a ship's doctor showed how in 1747.
- Pluto Isn't Sad, and You Shouldn't Be Either This speech argues that what happened to Pluto in 2006 was science at its best, and that it had happened once before, to a world nobody has made a T-shirt about.
