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Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is also a graduate student at the University of Kansas, completing a doctorate in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not modeling species distributions or battling creationists, he writes about developments in progressive politics and the sciences.
The opinions expressed here are his own, do not reflect the official position of the NCSE. Indeed, older posts may no longer reflect his own official position.
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Academia:
Category: Creationism
The endlessly entertaining Zero out of Five collects catastrophically wrong test answers. This one got 0 points, but I think that a recently passed law in Louisiana (and similar laws introduced in Oklahoma and elsewhere this year) might make that grade illegal: I think that illustration was copied from a Discovery Institute meteorology textbook. Surely that's worth partial credit. 1 point out of 2?...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:18 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Academia
Tough economic times are squeezing university budgets in Europe, creating tension between sceintists and their governments. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is unhappy with French scientists. In a recent speech Sarkozy lambasted the [French] research system as "infantilizing and paralyzing," argued that French scientists aren't productive enough, and announced that after decades of failed attempts at change, radical reforms are now his government's top priority. "The forces of conservatism and immobilism have always triumphed," he said, "and that has to stop."French scientists responded predictably. "Incensed by a provocative policy speech … France’s researchers’ unions have threatened to go on strike indefinitely...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:55 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Biology
Carl Zimmer Live Blogging The Mars Methane Mystery: Aliens At Last?, reports that: 2:14 Lisa Pratt of Indiana University is talking biology. She is stoked. 2:15 Okay, I mean as stoked as scientists get at press conferences where they talk about photic zones. You can see it in the rise of her eyebrows.Now, a reporter used to covering press conferences on the steps of a courthouse or a state or federal capitol would not catch that as "stoked." But Carl Zimmer covers scientists, and he knows what we look like when we're excited. That means his article about this will...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:03 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Policy and Politics
Science's policy blog reports: [T]he House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee has invited not only noted economists Martin Feldstein, Mark Zandi, and Robert Reich [to discuss the economic recovery bill] but also Maria Zuber, a professor of geophysics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and principal investigator on GRAIL, a NASA mission to measure variations in the moon's gravitational field. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will kick off the discussion, has made it clear that "investing in technology and innovation should be part of any economic recovery plan," says a spokesperson for the committee, a message that Zuber is expected...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:23 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Policy and Politics
Mike the Mad Biologist is, well, mad. In writing about Obama's science team, I commented that: scientists often distinguish [technical challenges] from the challenges in testing our broad conceptual understanding of the laws of nature. While "test tube jockeys" often produce important results, there tends to be a certain skepticism of their work. Similarly, medical research is so focused on the practical application that scientists in other fields are dubious about regarding medical researchers as being engaged in the same sort of enterprise as a theoretical physicist or a landscape ecologist.Mike then points out that "science requires people who understand...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:57 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Policy and Politics
CNN shutters its science/environment/technology unit: [Longtime CNN anchor/reporter Miles] O'Brien's departure comes as the network dismantles its science, space, environment and technology unit in Atlanta. That includes O'Brien as well as six producers. O'Brien has been CNN's chief technology and environment correspondent since being replaced as anchor of American Morning in April 2007. Before, during and after anchoring, O'Brien worked the NASA beat for CNN. He covered John Glenn's return to space in 1998. In 1999 he led CNN's coverage of the failed Mars Orbiter and Polar Lander missions. And in February 2003, O'Brien led coverage of the shuttle Columbia...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 8:31 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Academia
G. Wayne Clough, president of Georgia Tech, was tapped to run the Smithsonian Institution. As we've reported, he steps into a deeply troubled organization. His predecessor allowed infrastructure to crumble, appropriated museum artifacts for personal use in his offices, and focused more on cozying up to corporate sponsors than on the scientific and educational mission of the Smithsonian. In many ways, Clough seems well-suited to restoring faith in the Smithsonian. He comes with an academic background, which means he will understand the needs of his staff, and appreciate the balance between the public face of museum exhibits and the important...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:20 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Academia
While Matt Selman's rules of book shelving are clearly insane, Ezra Klein's response is clearly not quite right either. The basic rule, from which all the others follow like a pack of hallucinating baboons, is: It is unacceptable to display any book in a public space of your home if you have not read it. Therefore, to be placed on Matt Selman's living room bookshelves, a book must have been read cover to cover, every word, by Matt Selman. If you are in the home of Matt Selman and see a book on the living room shelves, you know FOR...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:20 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: Academia
Help needy kids experience nature.
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:01 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Academia
For reasons which I may or may not reveal some day, I'm interested in picking your collective brains about the future of online scientific publishing. My premises are as follows: I do not read printed scientific journals any more – they waste space and are hard to search through when I'm looking for a specific paper, let alone a general concept.You probably don't read print journals any more either.If you do, neither you nor anyone else will still be reading print journals in, say, 5 years.Electronic editions of journals are still not quite as useable as they ought to be...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:38 PM • 16 Comments •
