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Letter: Philosophers don't always get facts right

Published 15 January 2025

From Gabriel Carlyle, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, UK

We are urged to try the writing of philosophers, such as the “impeccable logic” of Bertrand Russell, as a remedy for poor fact-checking in popular science books. Turning to Russell’s 1948 book Human Knowledge: Its scope and limits, we read that “helium… has a nucleus consisting of four protons and two electrons” (Letters, 7 December).

Issue no. 3526 published 18 January 2025

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