Online Science Resources
Useful and interesting scientific resources available on the internet
Below are our favourite online resources for people researching issues in science. Resources are grouped by subject area.
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Science Resources Index
Science Journals
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Hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information under the U.S. National Library of Medicine, PubMed is a database comprising references to over 25 million research articles and books. This resource is useful for investigating quack medicine, such as homeopathy, anti-vaccination, chiropractic and iridology.
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PLOS ONE is a peer reviewed Open Access journal specializing in interdisciplinary research and replication studies, including negative results.
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In partnership with the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC), Neuroscience of Consciousness publishes papers on the biological basis of consciousness and on relevant psychological, methodological, theoretical and philosophical issues. Being Open Access, journal articles are available online.
Scientific Method
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Many people make the mistaken assumption that a correlation between two variables entails that one causes the other. This excellent site draws on many real life examples of statistical correlations that demonstrate that drawing this automatic conclusion is a fallacy.
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Administering placebos is an integral component of double-blind testing in modern medical treatment trials. This Harvard Magazine article takes the reader through current investigations into how placebo treatments work and their impact on patient physiology and psychology.
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This web site is the central point for the Harvard Medical School's research examining the biological basis of the placebo response and the implications for medical practice. It contains summaries of research studies conducted to date and a comprehensive list of research publications in the area, some of which can be downloaded from the site.
Cosmology
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This NASA web site provides a good primer on the basic concepts in cosmology. It focuses on understanding the theory behind the big bang and the evidence for the big bang model. It goes on to provide a glimpse into inflation theory as a further development that solves some of the problems remaining with the big bang hypothesis.
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Sean Carroll's introduction to cosmology is comprehensive, yet written in non-technical language. It covers most aspects of modern cosmology and includes a resource list and FAQ.
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An excellent series of short video interviews with today's leading cosmologists on the nature of dark matter and its theoretical implications.
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An excellent series of short video interviews with today's leading cosmologists on the evidence for the existence of dark energy and how it works.
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A thought-provoking series of short interviews with leading cosmologists on the evidence for multiple universes and what it means for cosmology and us.
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A thought-provoking series of short interviews with leading cosmologists and philosophers on the question of whether our physical laws and constants are fine-tuned.
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A thought-provoking series of short interviews with leading cosmologists and philosophers on the question of whether our universe is fine-tuned for life and the implications for religious belief.
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Nick Bostrom has argued that we are most probably living within a computer simulation. This site contains his original paper and various synopses, the full-length video interview with Nick and the ongoing debate.
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Evolution and Creation Science
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The TalkOrigins Archive is an extensive collection of articles demonstrating evidence for the theory of evolution and debunking the many arguments for creationism and intelligent design. The information on the site is very well organized and covers all aspects of the evolution versus creation controversy, including politics, education, science and propaganda.
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Why Evolution Is True is a blog by Jerry Coyne, Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. His posts defending the theory of evolution against religious apologists are always topical, controversial and interesting. He does not shy away from exposing other forms of pseudoscience and nonsense, such as alternative medicine and the paranormal.
Psychology and Brain Science
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Dr. Susan Blackmore's web site discusses a number of controversial subjects, including the nature of consciousness, the evidence for paranormal abilities and religious belief. She has conducted a lot of research on parapsychology and has given up on the research after many years of inconsequential results.
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The Human Brain Project is a massive 10-year scientific research project begun in 2013 and mostly funded by the European Union. It aims at a multi-level, integrated understanding of brain structure and function through the development and use of information and communication technologies (ICT).
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The U.S. White House's BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) is a collaboration between public and private research institutions aimed at producing a revolutionary dynamic picture of the brain that shows how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space.
Cognitive Bias
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A good introduction to the ground-breaking work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman categorizing the various types of cognitive bias in the areas of perception, judgement, motivation and logic.
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This seminal research paper highlights the ease with which improper use of statistical significance in experimental research can and does lead to false positives. The authors suggest pre-disclosing and limiting the degrees of freedom researchers are allowed in collecting and analysing their results in order to eliminate the biasing effect of p-hacking through data mining.
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An overview of the type of cognitive bias that leads to an unskilled person overestimating their ability on the one hand and a highly skilled individual underestimating their skill level compared to others.
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This is a good introductory article outlining the research on the Dunning–Kruger effect, where people underestimate their own ignorance, and motivated reasoning, where people actively seek out information that validates their worldview while dismissing or ignoring information that contradicts it.
Forums
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Edge is an online forum in which the best thinkers are asked questions at the cutting edge of science and speculative thinking. Topics covered include evolutionary biology, genetics, computer science, neurophysiology, psychology and physics.
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