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Richard Fisher Profile picture
Richard Fisher
@rifish
Senior Editor, Aeon | Author of non-fiction book The Long View | Honorary professor in science communication, UCL | Formerly: BBC, MIT fellow, New Scientist
Oct 27, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Hurray! I can finally share the cover of my upcoming book - The Long View: Why We Need To Transform How The World Sees Time Image It'll be out in March 2023... so there's a little while to wait, but please do pre-order if you take the long view of your reading plans :) hachette.co.uk/titles/richard…
Oct 27, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
A "long-term science" story I like: In the 1700s, people living on the coast of the Baltic Sea noticed a curious thing... the sea level appeared to be inexplicably falling. Why? 1/9 One day, Anders Celsius - the man who gave his name to the temperature scale - had an idea that would allow him to investigate what was happening. It involved seeking out so-called "seal rocks" along the Baltic coast. 2/9
Oct 26, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Where did the words 'deep time' come from? Deep time was popularised in the 1980s by John McPhee in his geology book Basin & Range, but there are a couple of mentions earlier... First usage, which I learnt from @David_Farrier's book Footprints, was Thomas Carlyle in 1832 speculating whether the work of English writer Samuel Johnson would last the ages "...who shall compute what effects have been produced, and are still, and into deep Time, producing?"
Sep 29, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A good technical overview in Nature of where we are with #COVID19 vaccine development. I'll try to summarise some of the key points nature.com/articles/s4158… With nine candidates in Phase III already, and encouraging data from others in Phase I-II, things are looking cautiously positive, writes @florian_krammer. Effective and safe vaccines within months, not years, are possible. But there are unknowns ahead.
Sep 22, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
It's 1976, and with a pandemic looming, a US president announces a warp-speed effort to vaccinate every man, woman and child in the country. The mistakes that followed hold lessons for today. bbc.com/future/article… After reporting this story, I believe that there's much to learn from what happened in 1976, for policymakers, public health researchers and journalists. It shows what can go wrong when politics, science and media meet – each with differing goals, incentives and language.
Sep 3, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How many people has coronavirus killed? We won't know with certainty for many years, perhaps ever. Really interesting analysis of 'excess deaths' data and why it's a blunt tool nature.com/articles/d4158… Seems the data will take a long time to unpick eg Bulgaria has seen *negative* excess deaths so far. Despite the virus, fewer people have died this year than expected. Perhaps fewer road deaths during lockdown or hygiene practices that help to quash other infectious diseases.
Jun 22, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The Good Ancestor by @romankrznaric is out next month, and would v much recommend it. Here's a lovely animation as a taster: Roman has inspired my thinking on short-termism in various ways (and I hope vice versa). Here's a terrific piece he wrote for my BBC Deep Civilisation season about long-term thinking in politics bbc.com/future/article…
Feb 3, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
You can read lots of science about irrational beliefs, but this paper is something different. "Moralized rationality": the perception that it is a moral virtue to hold beliefs based on logic/evidence & to view it as a vice to rely on less rational thinking journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… While I am of course 100% in the facts & evidence camp, what this paper mischievously suggests is that moralized rationality has downsides: fostering negative moral judgements of those with a different worldview, less warmth, more propensity to punish, or to shun socially.
Jan 28, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
There's much to recommend in @mrkocnnll's terrific piece here, but the part that chimes most with my thinking recently is the virtues of occasionally stepping outside timekeeping theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/… As O'Connell writes: Image
Jan 17, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I've been watching and rewatching these fascinating interviews with Kent Cochrane, one of the world's most famous amnesia patients. He has such a tranquil, gentle manner in the clips And that's despite the fact that he had zero episodic memory due to a brain injury from a road accident. Sadly he has now died, but what made his case so fascinating is that he could remember facts (eg where he was born, how to change a tyre), but no events in his life at all
Jan 3, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Participating in the @KSJatMIT fellowship has been one of the richest experiences of my life and I would highly recommend applying if it suits you at this point in your career. Deadline for 2020-21 is fast approaching: Jan 15th. ksj.mit.edu Couple of lesser-known things worth knowing: 1. The fellowship directors & staff are *extremely* warm and welcoming to spouses & families. In fact, your partner can take classes at Harvard/MIT too. 2. You are paid enough to live - it's not like being a student.
Jan 3, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I would very much like to read an analysis of the scientific research, ideas and people that have influenced Dominic Cummings. This is fascinating. Have a read of this mid-2019 blog post. Some of it is legit and should prob be part of governance (eg Tetlock's evidence-based prediction, likelihood of megaproject failure). I'm less familiar with the rest but intrigued! (eg Bret Victor, Michael Nielsen) dominiccummings.com/2019/06/26/on-…
Dec 3, 2019 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
So sad to see the end of @mosaicscience, following Wellcome's decision to close it. @christinagiles's team & writers have produced so much great journalism, which we republished @BBC_Future over the years. A non-complete list that stayed with me, showing the breadth of quality: Inside the incredible minds of real-time translators mosaicscience.com/story/other-wo…
Nov 26, 2019 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
In the 1990s, a group was convened to prepare a warning message for future generations about a proposed nuclear waste dump in New Mexico. I've never actually read their report until now, and I was struck by the creativity and variety of ideas 1/14 They proposed a variety of possible methods, depending on how close the future person was to danger. Firstly, the architecture of the area should be unpleasant. Two possible designs were the Spike Field and Black Hole 2/14 ImageImage
Nov 14, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Good essay about on why empathy ≠ compassion, based on a new study showing how political tribalism can quash kindness wired.com/story/empathy-… Image Another psychological effect that may be related to this is "moral licensing" - studies suggest that when people do something they see as virtuous, they can subsequently be more likely to do something unkind, prejudiced etc.
Sep 13, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I feel v strongly about this issue and the disregard of allergies - my daughter has a life-threatening food allergy and I'm often shocked at the lack of empathy about the risks. I worry that some people see an allergy as a dietary preference. It is not. theguardian.com/society/2019/s… Stories like this are reported every few months, and make me so angry, sad and fearful for my own daughter as she navigates the world theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/s…
Aug 1, 2019 • 18 tweets • 10 min read
This year I commissioned a season of articles for @BBC_Future about the long-view of humanity, called Deep Civilisation, which has reached more than 3m people. Thank you to everyone who contributed, and to all those who read & shared! Go deep, dive in below👇👇 First up was an essay I wrote about how short-termism is shaping our society, inspired by my daughter and her future bbc.com/future/story/2…
Jul 22, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The BBC has a lot of meeting rooms, often named as you'd expect, such as 'Top Gear' and 'Doctor Who'... Not so for a new one I came across today: 'Brandon Butterworth' named after the @BBCRD researcher who put the BBC on the internet Image @BBCRD Out of curiosity, what's the best meeting room names you've seen? One of my favourites was Facebook in London which I recall has a floor of rooms themed 'things that Brits find annoying about Americans' such as one called 'EXCESSIVE USE OF THE LETTER Z'
Mar 27, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I'm watching a hypnotising waste sorting robot in Helsinki, made by Zen Robotics zenrobotics.com #Solhack This one is called Huey. It makes 2000 picks per hour.
Mar 15, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
We need language for the bad information journalists and others inadvertently spread by debunking falsehoods or reporting outrage. How about "Parasitic News". You've seen it: the conspiracy theory, the politician's racist statement, the hoax, the niche community moral panic. Here's the latest case of parasitic news today, as @MarkDiStef points out:
Jan 21, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A brief thread of @BBC_Future stories about living a happier, more meaningful life. #BlueMonday. First up, a simple exercise that I couldn't recommend highly enough...in our family we now do this regularly bbc.com/future/story/2… Why the quickest route to happiness may be to do nothing (hurray) bbc.com/future/story/2…