Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Statistical techniques primarily developed for the natural sciences are finding increasing application in the social sciences. At a time when there is little agreement among statisticians about the properlogical basis of statistical inference, the use of equivocal methods for the interpretation of scientific data of social relevance, and the misunderstanding of some of the basic tenets of inductive inference, may have grave social consequences.
More geological evidence can now be brought to bear on the problem of the origin of Stonehenge. Spreading ice sheets rather than human activity could have brought the rocks to Salisbury Plain.
The evidence in favour of a big bang cosmology is much less definite than is widely realized, and it is not impossible that we are living in a steady state universe.
