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The British government will this week be forced to back down from last month's proposals for modifying students' grants. It should take the chance to reform the system.
To scientists, the philosophy of science seems an irrelevance, as does the empirical practice of science to philosophers, preoccupied as they are with the logical consistency of their methods. The gulf between the philosophy of science, which has its roots in the growth of positivism in the late nineteenth century, impoverishes both. But there is now hope that the gulf will be bridged by the evolution of philosophy into theory of science.
There are disturbing signs that the peer-review system for unpublished manuscripts is no longer as secure as it should be. Commercial competition is not the most serious a cause of trouble.
Atomic spectroscopy is alive and well thanks to the continuing development of novel experimental techniques and their application to new areas of interest.
