Science Follies
Thus Spake Zuska
Category archives for Science Follies
Lives of the Saints of Science: Darwin
Posted by Zuska on November 24, 2009 Part of my socialization into the world of science and engineering was, of course, the worship of great and important historical figures in the professions who, naturally, just happened to all be white males. This socialization was an informal, even casual, process – passing references in the introductory matter of various textbooks; framed portraits and…
Can We Talk About Science? I Mean, Really?
Posted by Zuska on November 6, 2009 You should never, ever criticize something a New Atheist says about science and religion. Never tell them maybe it’s not the best idea in the world to just go on about science/evolution + religion in whatever way, at whatever time, in whatever manner, for whatever reasons. In fact, you cannot criticize the speech of New…
Let Me Re-direct Your Perspective On That
Posted by Zuska on August 14, 2009 Via Female Science Professor, ‘Study: Women create ‘their own glass ceiling’: A new study shows female managers are more than three times as likely as their male counterparts to underrate their bosses’ opinions of their job performance. The discrepancy increases with women older than 50, the study states. “Women have imposed their own glass ceiling,…
I Have A Blog; I Don’t Need To Read Your “Dead-Tree Format” To Have An Opinion!
Posted by Zuska on July 15, 2009 Everybody’s talking about Unscientific America ’round these parts lately. I’ve almost finished reading it and will post a review of my own sometime soon. In the meantime…Isis has a post up where she makes note of ERV’s displeasure with the book. In response, ERV comments thusly on Isis’s blog: Isis– I havent read Unscientific America.…
Fashion Critic Metes Out Faux-Science Smackdown!
Posted by Zuska on April 8, 2009 Oh, linky blogosphere, how I love thee! I was just starting to browse through Atoms Arranged Meaningwise by Rachel McKinney – which I found via Scientiae’s blogroll – when her most recent post sent me shooting off to Threadbared. Rachel notes: And I know we’re supposed to be good little serious philosophers and clothes aren’t…
The Question of Emotion in Speaking of “Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience”
Posted by Zuska on February 24, 2009 As a graduate student, I observed the nascent field of functional magnetic resonance imaging and thought to myself with some amusement “modern phrenology! Now with big, fancy, expensive equipment!” Count me among those who have never been terribly impressed with fMRI, and certainly not with its applications in what is known as social neuroscience. Now…
Carpenter Technology: Litigation Forever, Cleanup Never
Posted by Zuska on August 28, 2008 This article was bizarrely stashed in the business section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, rather than reported as Science news, or even just as general news. Going back to 1969, a chemist with no soul named Manfred DeRewal bought a local farm and then used it as a chemical waste dumping ground, hiring himself out to…
Technology and Genealogy
Posted by Zuska on July 31, 2008 What makes you a member of family, or a citizen of a nation? Over at Sciencewoman, Alice reports on a session she attended at this year’s NWSA conference: In a session on the technologies of citizenship, Banu Submramaniam of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst talked about the developing practice of doing DNA maps to understand your…
It’s That Time Of Year Again
Posted by Zuska on April 30, 2008 The National Academy of Sciences has announced its latest crop of members, and there are 16 – count ‘em! 16! – women out of the 72 elected. The Chronicle of Higher Education spins this positively with the headline “16 Women Elected to National Academy of Science” and the following opening:
Gender Bias in Particle Physics: A Statistical Analysis
Posted by Zuska on April 17, 2008 UPDATE: After posting this entry, I found out that the paper I discussed here is not actually slated at this time to be published in a peer-reviewed journal; it is merely available as a preprint. Nevertheless, I hear that the folks at Nature have picked up on this and have interviewed the author; we may…