Real Life Situations from Natural Science

5.01: Natural Science RLS Choose your adventure

Vitamin Mega-dosing Debunked

This video comedically debunks the pseudoscientific theory (popularized by Linus Pauling's research) that taking huge amounts of vitamins can cure you of deadly diseases and improve health.

Merchants of Doubt

A documentary about the Public Relations campaign by Cigarette Companies to try and convince the public that tobacco did not cause cancer. In it are many examples of corporate funding for studies distorting the methodology and findings in the natural sciences.

"Expert opinions" clash on question of Hydration in sports

Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins | Science History InstituteThese four scientists—Crick, Franklin, Watson, and Wilkins—codiscovered the double-helix structure of DNA, which formed the basis for modern biotechnology.

The ‘sea-nomad’ children who see like dolphinsUnlike most people, the children of a Thailand tribe see with total clarity beneath the waves – how do they do it, and might their talent be learned?

The Biggest Problem In Science Isn’t GroupthinkIt's how successful our current theories are.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN - Bias and Science

Inventing Conflicts of Interest: A History of Tobacco Industry TacticsConfronted by compelling peer-reviewed scientific evidence of the harms of smoking, the tobacco industry, beginning in the 1950s, used sophisticated public relations approaches to undermine and distort the emerging science.The industry campaign worked ...

The Steady State: When astronomers tried to overthrow the Big Bang | Astronomy.comSome astronomers didn’t like the religious implications of a universe with a beginning. Their alternative was the so-called “steady state model.”

BBC World Service - HARDtalk, Carlo Rovelli: Life, the universe and white holesStephen Sackur speaks to one of the world's best known physicists