Tag: Professor Neil Ferguson

Quackery and Corruption

February 4, 2021

This article by Robert E. Wright discusses the history of medical quackery as it evolved in early US history, defining quacks as those who “put profits or power ahead of the scientific method”, breaking the Hippocratic oath to “sell a system or nostrum”. He compares age-old quackery to that we are all victims of today … More Quackery and Corruption

Coxcombs and Bell Curves

July 13, 2020

Florence Nightingale invented the coxcomb during her time nursing soldiers in the Crimea in the 1850s.  This pie chart demonstrated that more soldiers were dying from contagion (mainly cholera and typhus) than battle injury.  It helped her convince authorities of the need for infection control practices. Another English influencer who used mathematical diagrams to explain … More Coxcombs and Bell Curves