Great Debates

The geologist William Buckland worked through many theories about the creation of Earth and the biblical Flood. None of them were quite right.

The women who served as munitions workers during the First World War endured dismal conditions and a plethora of dangers: illness, injury, and death. Why are they barely remembered?

Irked by both his character and his tendency towards corruption, Jonathan Swift spent years ruthlessly satirising Isaac Newton.

During the Second World War, Berlin scientists discovered nuclear fission. Only one of them got the credit. Why was Lise Meitner written out of history?

Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest land animals ever to have lived – but how did they live?

What sits beneath the planet’s crust? Scientists, writers, and conspiracy theorists have all had a guess, with Hollow-Earth Theory providing surprisingly resilient.

By the 19th century, standard classification systems were struggling with new species. Then the platypus arrived.

Hertha Ayrton’s experiment in a bathtub may have saved lives in the trenches, but it caused ripples among the ranks of the Royal Society.

Arsenic was a hidden killer in Victorian homes, but it also played a large part in the British economy. Which comes first: commerce or public health?

Surgeons trying to eliminate pain eventually arrived at anaesthesia – but not before a contest with older, more unusual therapies. Why was mesmerism so magnetic?