jstemwedel

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Janet D. Stemwedel

Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.

Posts by this author

April 20, 2010
I think I've mentioned once or twice that the California State University system (of which my fair campus is a part) has been experiencing a bit of a budget crisis. Well, while there may be glimmers of hope for a recovery in the rest of the economy, we seem to be on the cusp of things getting much…
April 19, 2010
Dr. Free-Ride's parents, Duke and Super Sally, have been working hard to shed some of the material goods they have accumulated in the last several years, on account of they are planning a move to smaller living quarters. Of course, this means that they shipped several boxes of stuff from their…
April 19, 2010
Over at the DrugMonkey blog, PhysioProf noted that a push to increase NIH postdoctoral fellowship stipend levels by 6% may have the effect of reducing the number of postdoctoral positions available. To this, the postdoctoral masses responded with something along the lines of, "Hey, it's possible…
April 17, 2010
A reader writes: I was in a PhD program in materials science, in a group that did biomedical research (biomaterials end of the field) and was appalled at the level of misconduct I saw. Later, I entered an MD program. I witnessed some of the ugliest effects of ambition in the lab there. Do you…
April 16, 2010
Dr. Free-Ride: So, you went on a field trip today to a lagoon. Younger offspring: Yeah, I went to [Name redacted] Creek and [Name redacted] Lagoon. Dr. Free-Ride: You know, I'm going to redact the names to protect your privacy. Tell me what you saw on your field trip that was interesting. Younger…
April 15, 2010
Making good ethical choices in the real world is hard, in large part because it requires us to find the best balance in responding to interested parties whose legitimate interests pull in different directions. The situation is further complicated by the fact that as we are trying to make the best…
April 12, 2010
A reader sends the following query: I've only recently begun teaching in a big state university, maybe tier C in the field I'm in. I'm in a quandary as to how to manage pressure to pass students who are under performing. The first semester, I had to lower the passing to a basically ridiculous…
April 9, 2010
This just arrived at the email address associated with my blog (rather than the email address associated with my university appointment): Dear Sir, I am [Name Redacted] a student of [Institution Redacted], currently in 3rd year pursuing Integrated M. Tech. in Polymer Science and Technology. I…
April 9, 2010
The Free-Ride offspring have been enjoying their Spring Break visiting with the Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment. The night before they left, however, the younger Free-Ride offspring awoke in the wee hours because of a bad dream. As we all know from the peer reviewed literature on the…
April 7, 2010
(Click to embiggen) Tomorrow, April 8, 2010, Pro-Test for Science will be holding its second rally in Los Angeles in support of humanely conducted, ethical animal research and the people who conduct it. Their first rally last April drew approximately 700 people to the streets to support the…
April 2, 2010
Unlike some of my dear readers, the elder Free-Ride offspring, upon reading yesterday's post, immediately recognized it as an April Fool's Day joke. (This recognition was accompanied by only the barest hint of a smile. A mother's fine, dry wit is, apparently, an acquired taste.) Although that…
April 1, 2010
You don't have to look far to find mutterings about the peer review system, especially about the ways in which anonymous reviewers might hold up your paper or harm your career. On the other hand, there are plenty of champions of the status quo who argue that anonymous peer review is the essential…
April 1, 2010
Observant readers will have noticed that three of my last four posts -- the ones sporting the spiffy Research Blogging icon -- were posts discussing peer-reviewed journal articles. This is a substantially higher proportion of writing about the details of scholarly research than I normally feature…
March 31, 2010
Especially in student papers, plagiarism is an issue that it seems just won't go away. However, instructors cannot just give up and permit plagiarism without giving up most of their pedagogical goals and ideals. As tempting a behavior as this may be (at least to some students, if not to all), it…
March 30, 2010
That post about how hard it is to clean up the scientific literature has spawned an interesting conversation in the comments. Perhaps predictably, the big points of contention seem to be how big a problem a few fraudulent papers in the literature really are (given the self-correcting nature of…
March 29, 2010
In the last post, we looked at a piece of research on how easy it is to clean up the scientific literature in the wake of retractions or corrections prompted by researcher misconduct in published articles. Not surprisingly, in the comments on that post there was some speculation about what…
March 27, 2010
Science is supposed to be a project centered on building a body of reliable knowledge about the universe and how various pieces of it work. This means that the researchers contributing to this body of knowledge -- for example, by submitting manuscripts to peer reviewed scientific journals -- are…
March 26, 2010
Earlier this week, the younger Free-Ride offspring "made a bad decision" about time utilization at the after school program, electing to play outside and do a project before doing homework, meaning the homework was still unfinished when I arrived to fetch the sprogs. The standard consequence for…
March 19, 2010
In a post last month, I noted that not all (maybe even not many) supporters of animal rights are violent extremists, and that Bruins for Animals is a group committed to the animal rights position that was happy to take a public stand against the use of violence and intimidation to further the cause…
March 19, 2010
Earlier this week, I got to judge projects at a Science Fair, which, as usual, was loads of fun. This year, however, owing to budget cuts and staffing cuts and things like that, there will be no science fair at the sprogs' elementary school. We are wistful about this, especially after the fun we…
March 18, 2010
Our online world is searchable, but it seems likely than not all of our searches are destined to be fruitful. Here are some searches that have recently brought people to this blog: what temperature does mucus melt at Do I smell a science fair project? (Or am I too stuffed up?) * * * * * tenure…
March 17, 2010
Once again, I'm going to "get meta" on that recent paper on blogs as a channel of scientific communication I mentioned in my last post. Here, the larger question I'd like to consider is how peer review -- the back and forth between authors and reviewers, mediated (and perhaps even refereed by)…
March 16, 2010
There's a recent paper on blogs as a channel of scientific communication that has been making the rounds. Other bloggers have discussed the paper and its methodology in some detail (including but not limited to Bora and DrugMonkey and Dr. Isis), so I'm not going to do that. Rather, I want to pull…
March 13, 2010
Longtime readers of this blog may remember last year's orgy of pies on the run-up to Pi Day (March 14th, or 3-14). This March at Casa Free-Ride, there's been less pie making, in large part due to the fact that I'm no longer on sabbatical (either from my job or from coaching soccer). But the bake-…
March 12, 2010
Because there are some conversations you have to have with your kids even if you wish you didn't have to have them: Dr. Free-Ride: I wanted to talk to you about a situation that has come up for a friend of mine and is a little worrisome. So, you know I went down to UCLA the other week, right?…
March 11, 2010
Why is it that it's not until you're right in the middle of a class discussion, one where lots of people are actively engaged, asking good questions and raising important issues, and where you know that you are working against the clock to get all the contributions in, that you discover ... ...…
March 11, 2010
Back in January, at ScienceOnline2010, Sheril Kirshenbaum, Dr. Isis, and I led a session called "Online Civility and Its (Muppethugging) Discontents". Shortly after the session, I posted my first thoughts on how it went and on the lessons I was trying to take away from it. Almost two months later…
March 6, 2010
Which has a larger carbon footprint: An office that uses a photocopier or an office that uses carbon paper? How much difference does it make if you're using the carbon paper in an electric typewriter as opposed to a manual one? How much less is the environmental impact from being able to proofread…
March 5, 2010
It's been awhile since the Free-Ride offspring have shared their artwork. Today, we offer some of their drawings of animals. From the younger Free-Ride offspring: Tigers. They may look cute, but you don't want to get near them when they're hungry. Cheetahs. Same deal: cute, but deadly. A…
March 4, 2010
Let's say you're a book review editor for a large circulation science periodical. You receive books from publishers and you look for scientists with the relevant expertise to write reviews that really engage the content of the books they are reviewing. The thing with having the relevant expertise…