Current events:
I heard a piece by David Kestenbaum on NPR's "Morning Edition" that hasn't been sitting right with me. You, dear readers, get to help me figure out what's bugging me about the story, a profile of 16-year-old climate skeptic Kristen...
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Posted on April 15, 2008 12:50 PM • 89 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Maybe you heard the news that PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins went to a screening of the documentary Expelled! in Minneapolis, except that, because he was recognized, PZ Myers was barred from the screening (despite having signed up ahead of...
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Posted on March 24, 2008 2:07 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A bunch of other bloggers are discussing the recent statement A Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk (PDF). I thought I'd say something about the complexities of the situation, and about why...
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Posted on March 12, 2008 1:35 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Objectively judging facts? Objectively judging friends?
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Posted on February 23, 2008 4:03 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
You've probably heard that UCLA scientist Edythe London, whose house was earlier vandalized to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by animal rights activists, has once again been targeted. This time an incendiary device was left on her...
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Posted on February 14, 2008 7:19 PM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Via Greg Laden, I see that there is now some research to support our primal revulsion toward double-dippers:...
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Posted on February 2, 2008 4:00 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In response to my earlier post on the allegations of ethical lapses among a group of paleontologists studying aetosaurs, a reader sent me a message posted to a public mailing list of vertebrate paleontologists. The message gives a glimpse of...
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Posted on February 1, 2008 2:17 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Revere already flagged this story, but I'm going to try to move beyond the forehead slapping to some analysis of why a journal's confidentiality rules might matter. (I'll leave it to Bill, Bora, Jean-Claude, and their posse to explain how...
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Posted on February 1, 2008 12:48 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A recent news item by Rex Dalton in Nature [1] caught my attention. From the title ("Fossil reptiles mired in controversy") you might think that the aetosaurs were misbehaving. Rather, the issue at hand is whether senior scientists at the...
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Posted on January 31, 2008 12:51 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Maybe you saw the story in the New York Times about new research that may show that ingesting too much caffeine while pregnant increases the chances of miscarriage. And, if you're like me, one of the first things you did...
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Posted on January 23, 2008 5:51 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Saying you've seen everything is just asking the universe to do you one better. So I won't. Still, this story nearly required grubbing around the floor on my hands and knees to find the location to which my jaw had...
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Posted on January 10, 2008 2:10 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In response to one of my science-related questions for the presidential candidates, Drugmonkey points out that the question might not work the way I want it to because of the chasm between science and politics: "8. If sound scientific research...
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Posted on December 11, 2007 2:06 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Science matters. It's hard to make good decisions in today's world that aren't somehow informed by sound science -- especially if you're the head of state of a country like the USA. This means that it's important to know...
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Posted on December 10, 2007 2:00 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
My better half and I have been catching up on movies (thanks to Netflix and our DVD player). Last week we watched 28 Days Later .... Last night we watched 28 Weeks Later. It is my better half's view that...
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Posted on December 8, 2007 1:00 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This New York Times op-ed, to be precise. My questions for Paul Davies can be boiled down to these two: What kinds of explanations, precisely, are you asking science to deliver to you? Just why do you think it is...
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Posted on November 24, 2007 5:12 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Likely, the throbbing mass of humanity at my university knows at least a little more than it did before last week, owing to an article in the student newspaper about the institutional animal care and use committee. (It was a...
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Posted on November 20, 2007 1:54 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an assistant professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at dr.freeride@gmail.com.
