Biochemical profile may help diagnose, determine aggressiveness of prostate cancer

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy -- which analyzes the biochemistry rather than the structure of tissues -- may someday be able both to pinpoint the precise location of prostate cancer and to determine the tumor's aggressiveness, information that could help guide treatment planning. Researchers report how spectroscopic analysis of the biochemical makeup of prostate glands accurately identified the location of tissue confirmed to be malignant by conventional pathology.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Barefoot running: How humans ran comfortably and safely before the invention of shoes

Scientists have found that those who run barefoot, or in minimal footwear, tend to avoid "heel-striking," and instead land on the ball of the foot or the middle of the foot. In so doing, these runners use the architecture of the foot and leg and some clever Newtonian physics to avoid hurtful and potentially damaging impacts, equivalent to two to three times body weight, that shod heel-strikers repeatedly experience.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Prayer increases forgiveness, study shows

Is it possible that directed prayer might spark forgiveness in those doing the praying -- and in the process preserve relationships?
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

'Squeaker' catfish communicate across generations

It has been thought that young fish, lacking well-developed hearing organs, could not perceive the sounds made by their larger, older relatives. Now, researchers have used a combined fish tank and sound-proof chamber to show for the first time that catfish of all ages can communicate with one another.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Beyond sunglasses and baseball caps

A new study found that UV-blocking contact lenses can reduce or eliminate the effects of the sun's harmful UV radiation.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

How blood flow force protects blood vessels

Most people know that exercise protects against heart attack and stroke, but researchers have spent 30 years unraveling the biochemistry behind the idea. Researchers have now revealed new details of how athletic hearts push blood through arteries with greater force and the force-sensitive chain reaction that protects arteries.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Fat tissue may be a source of valuable blood stem cells, study says

Bone marrow is a leading source of adult stem cells, which are increasingly used for research and therapeutic interventions, but extracting the cells is an arduous and often painful process. Now, researchers have found evidence that fat tissue, known as adipose tissue, may be a promising new source of valuable and easy-to-obtain regenerative cells called hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm

First evidence that the brain’s native dendritic cells can muster an immune response

The human brain is a delicate organ, robustly defended. A thick skull shields it from any direct exposure to the outside world, and the blood-brain barrier keeps out any foreign substances that are circulating within. New research shows that the brain may have its own specialized immune defenses, too.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm

Rotting fish heads: Novel studies of decomposition shed new light on our earliest fossil ancestry

Decaying corpses are usually the domain of forensic scientists, but palaeontologists have discovered that studying rotting fish sheds new light on our earliest ancestry.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease associated with high mortality rates

Researchers have determined that patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease have a higher overall mortality rate compared with the general population.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm

82 months and counting... | 100 months to save the world | Andrew Simms

If economics was subject to the same evidence-based scrutiny as climate change, our world would be run very differently

The world is not run according to climate science. Amid the almost hysterical jeering since the Copenhagen climate summit, it's a fact worth remembering. If things were done with one eye carefully checking the planet's ecological engines and the resource levels in its fuel tank, it would look very different The largest indoor snow park in the world would not, for example, be in the roasting Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai. Public transport would be quick and cheap, and Richard Branson would be an unknown gardener, quietly cycling back and forth to his organically-run allotment.

Yet fear of the likely adjustments needed to halt dangerous climate change seems to fuel the vitriol of the vociferous minority attacking climate science. It's odd when you think what those changes might be. A cartoon currently going around sums it up. An academic-type gives a lecture, listing the outcomes of climate action: energy independence, clean water, clean air, green jobs, liveable cities, healthy children etc etc, while a man in the audience blusters, "But what if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

And, it's not, of course, a hoax. The basic chemistry of global warming has been understood and remained unchanged for around 200 years. Stories concerning the science in recent weeks have been of the type, "how long can you hold your breath?" Not "can we actually breathe underwater?" At the same time, observed trends on greenhouse gas emissions, measured since the last major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reveal the opposite of scaremongering.

If anything, the IPCC has been too conservative, having underestimated how quickly we would be pushed toward dangerous change. Actual carbon emissions have been beyond even their "most fossil-fuel-intensive scenario". Crowing over the inclusion in its last report of an erroneous date for the melting of Himalayan glaciers drowned out a new report from the World Glacier Monitoring Service, that detailed an "unbroken acceleration in melting" of glaciers around the world.

Sadly, right now, the climate change deniers have little to fear. We have no policies or actions remotely equal to the threat. Why is that? It is partly because the world is not run in respect of basic, well-understood physical laws. It is run according to the dictates of an altogether more variable discipline, economics, whose insights and proposals are subject to a weaker scrutiny. The real world ticks reliably according to the laws on thermodynamics and the conservation of energy. Such consistency cannot be claimed for the notion that a deregulated, greed-driven approach is the most efficient way to organise banking. But what if economic policy was subject to the same standard of evidence and review as climate science?

What would natural science make of the assumptions underlying mainstream economic models? They include the classic assertions that we are all perfectly rational, make choices that are unaffected by the behaviour of others, and that we have "perfect information", knowing everything important there is to know. Or there's the one in which an infinite number of small firms compete in open markets with no barriers to entry (think Walmart, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesco, Google). And the idea that consumption can grow infinitely on a finite planet.

Orthodox economics is based on simplifications that so distort the real world as to make it unrecognisable, yet its basic tenets are credulously repeated on an almost daily basis in national newspapers and on television news. A genuinely evidence-based approach to economic policymaking would not produce a system remotely like the one we have, the business-as-usual version that many climate sceptics seem so eager to defend. Given its task, the vast range of subjects covered, the thousands of scientists involved, and the sheer size of its reports, what's stunning about the IPCC's work is that comparing it to any economic analysis used to actually run the world is like comparing the complete Oxford English Dictionary to a guide to slang published by the Sunday Sport.

Elsewhere, some voices have called for there to be a separate climate sceptics' report. On one hand, this misses the point. If the sceptics' science was good enough to be published in decent, peer-reviewed journals, it would be considered alongside everything else by the IPCC. But on the other hand, subjecting the deniers to the same degree of rigorous review as everyone else is a rather delicious prospect. If that was done, the final report would likely be short indeed.

And, on current trends, it is still the case that by the end of the year 2016, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will make it unlikely that we'll stay below the critical 2°C temperature rise. It's 82 months and counting...

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:30 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Snowy weather was forecast to return to the Northern Plains on Monday, while the West Coast could get hit with another Pacific Storm.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:29 am

Bonobo 'cannibalises' own infant

A wild bonobo is seen cannibalising her own recently deceased infant, a behaviour never before recorded among these 'peaceful' apes.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:05 am

New Zealand joins Copenhagen climate change accord (AFP)

AFP - New Zealand confirmed Monday it was joining the Copenhagen Accord on climate change and was submitting its existing conditional 2020 target for reducing carbon emissions.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:32 am

Ageing Asia problem 'serious as climate change' (AFP/File)

AFP/File - Longer lifespans, falling fertility rates and growing ranks of elderly people in Asia can pose problems as serious as the impact of climate change, a leading expert warned Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:10 am

Older Adults Need Less Sleep (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - How much sleep we need is largely a mystery, and sleep seems tougher to come by as we age. Many studies - often funded by the pharmaceutical industry - have suggested that we're all sleep-deprived zombies, risking our health for lack of shut-eye.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:05 pm

Older Adults Need Less Sleep

Older people need less sleep, but many still don't get enough.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:01 pm

'Manage flights' to cut emissions

The quickest way to cut emissions from aircraft could be better flight management rather than new technology, an Oxford University study says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:20 pm

Advice from our evolutionary agony aunt

Carole Jahme, the Guardian's evolutionary agony aunt who writes our weekly 'Ask Carole column, joins us in the studio to help us with our relationship troubles.

In a debate on mountaintop mining that highlights America's deep political and environmental divide, Bobby Kennedy Jr took on coal baron Don Blankenship. Let us know what you make of some of the outrageous comments.

A longer version of the debate is available in our latest Science Weekly Extra podcast.

In the newsjam we look at Barack Obama's latest pledge on the environment, ginger dinosaurs, a climate science warning from the UK government's chief scientific adviser, and why running barefoot may minimise injuries.

The founder of Seti, Dr Frank Drake recently attended a special meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence at the Royal Society in London. He says we're becoming increasingly difficult for aliens to spot.

The Observer's science and technology editor Robin McKie and Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample were on hand in the studio to share their wisdom.

Don't forget to get join the discussion in this month's science book club. The book we're reading is Jared Diamond's classic Guns, Germs, and Steel, which Tim Radford will review on 19 February.

Post your comments below.

Join our Facebook group.

Listen back through our archive.

Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.

Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:13 pm

Pachauri fails to get UK support over 'unsubstantiated' climate report claims

Chair of IPCC facing allegations that claims made in key reports did not have required standard of scientific review

Rajendra Pachauri, who has faced criticism as chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change following allegations of inaccurate statements in panel reports, suffered a fresh blow last night when he failed to get the backing of the British government.

A senior government official reiterated Pachauri's position but stopped short of expressing confidence in him. "The position is that he is the chair and he has indicated that mistakes were made," the climate change official said. "There is no vacancy at this stage, so there is no issue at this stage."

The IPCC is required by governments to assess the science and imapct of climate change and its thousands of scientists produce major reports and summaries for policymakers. Its last report in 2007 concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities were 90% certain to be causing observed global warming and was accepted by all governments.

"It is clearly unfortunate that individual problems with individual papers have been found," said the official. "But the scientific basis for climate change does not rest on a very small number of papers in which the [IPCC] review process has not been rigorous enough. It relies on thousands and thousands of papers that have been peer reviewed through scientific journals."

The government has told the IPCC through official channels that it must ensure review standards are robust and its communication effective. "They need to communicate that 99% of the science on which they base [their work] is peer reviewed," the official said.

The incident most damaging to the IPCC was the inclusion in the 2007 report of a claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The IPCC admitted last month that the claim was supported only by a quote given to journalists, blaming a failure to adhere to its own review procedures.

It was also alleged that the panel was told of the error as early as 2006. In November, Pachauri dismissed a report stating the 2035 claim was wrong as "voodoo science".

A claim made by the IPCC that climate change was melting glaciers in the European Alps, the Andes and Africa was reported by the Sunday Telegraph yesterday to be based on a student dissertation and a climbing magazine article, not scientific journal papers. Scientists remain convinced, however, that glaciers are melting rapidly. Last week, the World Glacier Monitoring Service's annual report indicated most glaciers were continuing to melt at historically high rates.

Other individual claims allegedly not supported by peer-reviewed scientific papers are that climate change has increased the severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes – an allegation denied by the IPCC — and that 40% of the Amazon rainforest "could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation" caused by global warming.

All the disputed claims appear in the second volume of the 2007 IPCC report, which deals with the impact of rising temperatures. Scientists acknowledge there are much greater uncertainties in this area than in the volume which sets out how much the planet is warming and why.

Yesterday, the climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans, or that there was a need to cut carbon emissions to tackle it. It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

Global warming: Undeniable evidence

The unwillingness of scientists at the University of East Anglia to release climate data to people who choose not to believe in climate change was a mistake. Science advances through openness, through the ability of others to replicate the same findings or demonstrate error in discovery and interpretation. Reluctance to disclose – revealed last week in the wake of the release of private email exchanges between climate researchers – invites suspicion. The hacked email exchanges were an embarrassment, and the refusal to disclose data was a bad call, but neither episode casts much doubt upon the science of global warming. The ­evidence for climate change driven by man-made discharges of greenhouse gases is now decades old, has been independently confirmed by researchers all over the world, and is – as the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said yesterday – overwhelming.

There is plenty of room for argument about the rate at which the world is warming, the degree to which humans are culpable, the likely outcomes and the most effective steps to be taken. But there is not much argument about the big picture. The climate researchers at East Anglia were early in the field, but they were not alone. Their conclusions have been backed by scientists at the Met Office, from other British universities, and from the British Antarctic Survey; by oceanographers from Germany, California and Massachusetts; by planetary scientists from Nasa and the European Space Agency; by naturalists in a Europe-wide network of botanical gardens; and by climate historians, foresters, zoologists, palaeontologists, glaciologists and geographers on six continents. Scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have repeatedly released findings that broadly confirm the same big picture, and for eight of the past nine years those researchers were funded by a Republican administration that would have much preferred to hear a different story. In 2001, the national science academies of 17 nations – including Britain's Royal Society – urged governments to avert future calamity by agreeing to limit greenhouse gas emissions; within three weeks, the US National Academy of Sciences had joined the chorus, and begun to sing from the same hymnal. Although any single piece of evidence is open to reinterpretation, the mass of data assembled all seems to point in one direction: towards a warmer and increasingly uncomfortable world.

Global average temperatures have gone on rising. Nine of the 10 warmest years ever recorded have occurred in the past decade. In the past three decades, glaciers have receded at alarming rates in Alpine Europe, tropical Africa and sub-Arctic Alaska. The Greenland icecap has begun to melt and the north polar sea ice has become both smaller and thinner. The northern hemisphere growing season has been extended by 11 days. For reasons connected with human pressure, but also possibly with global warming, arid regions have become more arid, floods more catastrophic, hurricanes and cyclones more destructive. Millions of very poor people have been forced to abandon their homes, to kill their cattle, to walk away from their farms. Oceans have become more acidic, and coral reefs have been bleached. Forests have burned; rivers in the drier regions have slowed to a trickle, or dried up altogether.

Some events may be considered as consequences of natural variation in a climate cycle, but the intensity and frequency of such extreme events is expected to grow as the world warms. The lesson to be drawn from the latest round of questions about climate science is not that scientists make mistakes, and could get the future wrong. It is that we still don't know enough about our own planet, and should be spending more on research, instead of cutting science budgets. Knowledge is expensive, but wilful ignorance could cost immeasurably more.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

The greatest scientific advances from the Muslim world

From the elephant clock to the camera obscura, here are six amazing inventions from between the 9th and 15th centuries

There is no such thing as Islamic science – for science is the most universal of human activities. But the means to facilitating scientific advances have always been dictated by culture, political will and economic wealth. What is only now becoming clear (to many in the west) is that during the dark ages of medieval Europe, incredible scientific advances were made in the Muslim world. Geniuses in Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus and Cordoba took on the scholarly works of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Greece, India and China, developing what we would call "modern" science. New disciplines emerged – algebra, trigonometry and chemistry as well as major advances in medicine, astronomy, engineering and agriculture. Arabic texts replaced Greek as the fonts of wisdom, helping to shape the scientific revolution of the Renaissance. What the medieval scientists of the Muslim world articulated so brilliantly is that science is universal, the common language of the human race. The 1001 Inventions exhibition at London's Science Museum tells some of the stories of this forgotten age. Here are my top six exhibits . . .

1 The elephant clock (below)

This centrepiece of the exhibition is a three-metre high replica of an early 13th-century water clock and one of the engineering marvels of the medieval world. It was built by al-Jazari, and gives physical form to the concept of multiculturalism. It features an Indian elephant, Chinese dragons, a Greek water mechanism, an Egyptian phoenix, and wooden robots in traditional Arabian attire. The timing mechanism is based on a water-filled bucket hidden inside the elephant.

2 The camera obscura

The greatest scientist of the medieval world was a 10th century Arab by the name of Ibn al-Haytham. Among his many contributions to optics was the first correct explanation of how vision works. He used the Chinese invention of the camera obscura (or pinhole camera) to show how light travels in straight lines from the object to form an inverted image on the retina.

3 Al-Idrisi's world map

This three-metre reproduction of the famous 12th-century map by the Andalusian cartographer, Al-Idrisi (1100-1166), was produced in Sicily and is regarded as the most elaborate and complete description of the world made in medieval times. It was used extensively by travellers for several centuries and contained detailed descriptions of the Christian north as well as the Islamic world, Africa and the Far East.

4 The Banu Musa brothers' "ingenious devices"

These three brothers were celebrated mathematicians and engineers in ninth-century Baghdad. Their Book of Ingenious Devices, published in 850, was a large illustrated work on mechanical devices that included automata, puzzles and magic tricks as well as what we would today refer to as "executive toys".

5 Al-Zahrawi's surgical instruments

This array of weird and wonderful devices shows the sort of instruments being used by the 10th-century surgeon al-Zahrawi, who practised in Cordoba. His work was hugely influential in Europe and many of his instruments are still in use today. Among his best-known inventions were the syringe, the forceps, the surgical hook and needle, the bone saw and the lithotomy scalpel.

6 Ibn Firnas' flying contraption (above)

Abbas Ibn Firnas was a legendary ninth-century inventor and the Da Vinci of the Islamic world. He is honoured on Arabic postage stamps and has a crater on the moon named after him. He made his famous attempt at controlled flight when, aged 65, he built a rudimentary hang glider and launched himself from the side of a mountain. Some accounts claim he remained airborne for several minutes before landing badly and hurting his back.

Jim Al-Khalili is an author and broadcaster. He is professor of physics and of the public engagement in science at the University of Surrey.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

Study weighs benefits of transplants for leukemia (Reuters)

Reuters - Leukemia patients who have blood stem cell transplants survive just as long on average as those who undergo the more invasive procedure of having a bone marrow transplant, scientists said on Monday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:01 pm

Kennedy v coal baron

A debate took place recently at the University of Charleston in West Virginia on mountaintop mining.

Stage left was Bobby Kennedy Jr, an environmental lawyer, son of the late attorney general and nephew of JFK. (He has a condition that makes his voice quavery).

Stage right was one of America's biggest coal barons, chairman of Massey Energy Don Blankenship.

The hour-long debate highlighted America's deep political and environmental divides. This podcast comprises edited highlights.

Let us know what you make of the arguments in this clash between mining baron and eco warrior.

Join our Facebook group.

Listen back through our archive.

Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.

Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:01 pm

Fake Viagra Sales Are Rising

The sale of counterfeit drugs has nearly doubled in the last five years.
Source: Livescience.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 4:25 pm

Something rotten in the state of palaeontology

Interpretations of fossil record fail to account for decay.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/e4iKjzxt1Uk" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm

Obama to revise US space vision

President Obama is set to abandon Nasa's 'Moon rockets' and turn astronaut launches over to the private sector.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 31 Jan 2010 | 1:28 pm

Obama pushes nuclear energy to boost climate bill (AP)

AP - President Barack Obama is endorsing nuclear energy like never before, trying to win over Republicans and moderate Democrats on climate and energy legislation.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:18 pm

Rotting fish yield fossil clues

By watching fish rot, scientists discover patterns that could help interpret some of the most important fossils in the record.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:02 pm

Miliband defends climate science

The climate change secretary denies that controversies over scientific data have undermined efforts to tackle global warming.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:18 am

Russia's Lukoil signs agreement on massive Iraq oil field (AFP)

AFP - Russian energy giant Lukoil signed an agreement in Baghdad on Sunday to develop Iraq's massive West Qurna-2 oil field, the company said in a statement.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:16 am

States renew carbon emissions vow

Governments around the world reaffirm plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, as required by last month's climate accord.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:45 am

Change in space for NASA: Renting the Right Stuff (AP)

AP - Getting to space is about to be outsourced.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jan 2010 | 8:29 am

Who to watch in private space taxi field (AP)

AP - Here are some leading companies that are or could be developing a private space taxi system to take astronauts to the International Space Station. More firms may join in.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jan 2010 | 6:32 am

A very modern illusion

Charles Taylor shows how faith and scientific progress both require leaps into the unknown

Is science closer to religion than is typically assumed? Is religion closer to science? Might rational enquiry, based on evidence, share similarities with faith? These questions were raised by Charles Taylor, the distinguished Canadian philosopher, speaking at a Cambridge University symposium (pdf). He suspects that in the modern world we've bought into an illusion, one that posits a radical split between reason and revelation. Today, given the tension and violence that arises from misunderstandings about both, is a good time to examine them again.

The illusion, if that is what it is, emerged after the Enlightenment, when epistemological authority was questioned. It came to be assumed that you have to chose between one or the other – or, at least, if you appeal to revelation, its "truth" will only stand if allowed by the court of reason.

The new power invested in reason itself arose from the tremendous success of the natural sciences. Physics, geology and the like set a new standard of rational enquiry that is couched in procedural terms. Hence, what is rational has come to be equated with what is logically coherent. Further, it must be derived by proper methods including repeated observation and correct inference. In short, it's what scientists do.

Further, science's success carries political implications, for it seems that the rational can be disengaged from the specifics of culture, ethnicity and religion. A physicist in Sante Fe can communicate easily and directly with a physicist in Shanghai. From that observation, which is undoubtedly true, comes the dream of a brighter tomorrow: if only humanity could approach all its problems in the same way – deferring only to evidence and reason – then perhaps it could solve its problems too, or at least a fair number of them. Moreover, if people would only drop their appeals to revelation – which conflict, are irrational, and have a marked tendency towards violence – then perhaps the world would become a more peaceful place. That's the promise. Who'd deny its appeal?

Unless, Taylor continued, it's an illusion. For when you examine the way science actually works you see that there's a third factor at play. Philosophers of science call it by different names. Colloquially, it's the hunch or the eureka moment. More technically, it has to do with an elusive force named intuition. But take, for the sake of the argument, one of the best known attempts to understand what really happens in scientific reasoning, that put forward by Thomas Kuhn.

It's because of him we have the phrase "paradigm shift" – those breaks between the science of Aristotle and Copernicus, or between that of Newton and Einstein. What happens, he thought, is that there is no procedural appeal to reason in these moments, no patient weighing of the evidence. Instead, there is a rupture, a revelation. Science finds itself teleported to a new world, in which even the questions it asked before now look foolish.

What analysis of this kind suggests is that the reasonableness of science is partially true, during periods of what Kuhn called normal science, when puzzles are proposed and solved. However, during paradigm shifts, that evaporates. Science enters a period of flux and uncertainty until a new paradigm is settled. Intellectual wars break out too. Scientists stop talking to one another. They label opponents "heretics". Then rational discourse breaks out once more – until the next shift.

The challenge is to understand what happens during the shifts. What processes are at play then? There's a huge debate about this. But it is at least plausible that the rational periods of normal scientific enquiry are only possible because enough scientists have decided to go with the disruptive hunch or intuition. Certainly, they test it. And their tests "prove" it – until the next shift, that is.

So, the suggestion is that you could be forgiven for concluding that science is only possible because scientists are prepared to make a collective leap of faith, a commitment to the prevailing paradigm. Further, science just wouldn't be possible if scientists always and everywhere adhered to the scientific method alone, the procedures that have come to define what counts as rational. Something other than repeated observations and correct inference is required for progress.

To put it another way, the neat distinction between science and religion unravels, for religion involves commitments made on faith too. You might protest: revelation purports to come from God and is untestable, two characteristics that the scientist would certainly reject. Except that regardless of its source, a revelation can only make an impact if it makes sense to people, which is to say that they test it against their lives, that it can account for the evidence of their experience, like a theory. Revelation can only bear the weight of significance when people have engaged with it rationally too.

Moreover, a particularly successful religious revelation, or should we call it a "faith hunch", may come to have global appeal: it becomes a kind of universal language. The Christian in Sante Fe can worship with the Christian in Shanghai. Perhaps in this respect religion is closer to science too. We might take Taylor's lead and discuss, rationally if we can.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 31 Jan 2010 | 5:00 am