Education
purepedantry | April 29, 2008The NYTimes Editorial Board wrote at piece lamenting the high prices of college textbooks and praising Congressional action to limit them:
College students and their families are rightly outraged about the bankrupting costs of textbooks that have nearly tripled since the 1980s, mainly because of marginally useful CD-ROMs and other supplements. A bill pending in Congress would require publishers to sell "unbundled" versions of the books -- minus the pricey add-ons. Even more important, it would require publishers to reveal book prices in marketing material so that professors could choose less-…
clock | April 29, 2008This is going to be a challenging post to write for several reasons. How do I explain that a paper that does not show too much new stuff is actually a seminal paper? How do I condense a 12-page Cell paper describing a gazillion experiments without spending too much time on details of each experiment (as much as I'd love to do exactly that)? How do I review it calmly and critically without gushing all over it and waxing poetically about its authors? How do I put it in proper theoretical and historical perspective without unnecessarily insulting someone? I'll give it a try and we'll see…
drorzel | April 27, 2008The big science-and-religion issue of the week has been Expelled, which The AV Club gave an F, writing:
Perhaps what Bruce Chapman of ID advocacy group The Discovery Institute says about Darwinists applies best to Expelled: "People who don't have an argument are reduced to throwing sand in your eyes." If only this movie could be washed away as easily.
I'm amazed at the number of otherwise sensible people who have paid to see this cinematic turd. Not only does it sound about as appealing as oral surgery, but I'm not willing to see one nickel of my beer money go to the dishonest swine who made…
pharyngula | April 25, 2008That former blot upon the fine educational system of Minnesota has ended up at "Harding University, a private Christian school in Searcy, Ark. She'll be the dean of graduate programs and an associate professor of education.". Good for her, and at least now her damage is limited to only 6,000 students at a time, rather than a whole state's worth.
sb admin | April 25, 2008Thereâs a lot going on right now with the FDA and drug regulation:
The Health Affairs Blog has posts by Scott Gottlieb (a former FDA official now at the American Enterprise Institute) and Jerome Kassirer (a former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal now at the Tufts University School of Medicine) giving two contrasting responses to FDAâs recently issued draft guidance that would let drug and device manufacturers give doctors journal articles about off-label uses of their products.
Ed Silverman at Pharmalot lets us know that more than half of the post-marketing studies pharamaceutical…
revere | April 24, 2008The art professor is finally cleared but a distinguished biologist was still punished by a ridiculous, mindless, cruel and utterly reckless use of raw power by the Bush administration:
A federal judge dismissed criminal indictments on Monday against an art professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who was charged four years ago with mail and wire fraud after receiving bacteria through the mail that he said he planned to use in his art projects.
Judge Richard J. Arcara of the U.S. District Court in Buffalo ruled that the indictment against the professor, Steven J. Kurtz, was "…
gregladen | April 23, 2008The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has, some time ago, filed for approval to run a masters degree program in life science education. The purpose of the degree is to train educators to present biology in a way that is consistent with Christian Biblical beliefs, as opposed to actual scientific knowledge. The Texas board in charge of these matters is taking the proposal under consideration this week. (Please sign the petition linked below!)
The Texas Freedom Network has recently conducted a survey of Texas colleges and university faculty to get their opinions on this proposal.
The…
drorzel | April 23, 2008As I may have mentioned in the past, we at Chateau Steelypips have benefitted greatly from Yale Law School's loan forgiveness program for graduates taking public service jobs. Since Kate shattered my dreams of a self-funded basement lab by deciding to use her pricey law degree for good rather than racking up billions as Evil Corporate Scum, the funds they provided to help pay off her loans were a crucial element of our finances for the first few years of our marriage. In fact, you could argue that they're the reason there's a physical Chateau Steelypips in the first place-- even in 2002, I…
catdynamics | April 21, 2008Welcome to classical football 101.
This class will cover classical football from a historical perspective, starting with 17th century english village contests.
We will then cover the development of association football and rugby football, through to the emergence of the modern conceptualization of the game in the late 19th century, with particular emphasis on the role of the grid, the introduction of the "forward pass" and the role of equipment improvement in improving the game in the early 20th century.
We will cover the early Ivy League, in detail, and the post-World War II rise of "…
laelaps | April 18, 2008
If creationists had their way, today would be the "Waterloo" of evolutionary science. Lab equipment would begin to collect dust, once proud scientists would have to find jobs flipping burgers, and creationism's Trojan horse (intelligent design) would successfully "reclaim America for Christ," all thanks to a little documentary called Expelled. The film has been surrounded by controversy from day one, not only for it's propaganda-like vibe, but also for the dishonest tactics employed by the creators of the film. Popular songs have been lifted without permission/under shady pretenses, computer…
nisbetmc | April 17, 2008In Expelled, Richard Dawkins recounts how learning about science "killed off" his faith. And PZ Myers tells us that the more science literacy we have in society, the less religion we will have, and the more science, resulting in a nice feedback loop.
Their comments reflect conventional wisdom among atheists that the more you learn about science, the less religious you will become. In fact, it's the working assumption as to why in comparison to the American public, scientists are less likely to be religious.
But as I have mentioned in several comment threads, it turns out that the linear…
drorzel | April 16, 2008
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Science Fairs and School Boards
"From looking at the other projects, this year's theme was baking soda volcanoes. " This year, and every year.
(tags: education science kid-stuff)
Physicists Claim to Have Found 'Dark Matter' Again - New York Times
"Juan Collar of the University of Chicago said people were excited about the new results. "You wouldn't put your hand on fire that this is wimps," he said, but agreed that some kinds of wimps were still among many possibilities, including that the e
(tags: physics astronomy precision-measurement quantum…
razib | April 15, 2008Sheril pointed me to this data rich release of Science and Engineering Indicators. I was interested to see this table:
Table 7-12
Perceptions of scientific nature of various fields: 2006
(Percent)
Field
Very scientific
Pretty scientific
Not too scientific
Not at all scientific
Haven't heard of field
Don't know
Medicine
81
16
1
--
--
1
Biology
70
24
2
1
--
2
Physics
69
21
3
1
2
4
Engineering
45
32
11
7
--
4
Economics
16
35
31
13
1
3
Sociology…
razib | April 11, 2008About 10 years ago Eugene Volokh wrote How the Asians Became White. I think it's aged rather well. Volokh starts:
Don't believe me? A recent MSNBC news headline announced a "Plunge in Minority University Enrollment" at the University of California, with UC Berkeley reporting that "minority admissions had declined 61 percent." Actually, the total percentage of racial minority students at Berkeley, Asians included, fell from 57% to 49%. If you exclude the burgeoning group of people who decline to state their race, the minority percentage fell only three percentage points, from 61% to 58%.…
evolvingthoughts | April 11, 2008
I've been pretty preoccupied this week with lectures and meetings, so this is my first post for a bit.
Yesterday I attended a meeting at my university which pretty well aimed to wind up the disciplines of my school (history, philosophy, religion and classics) and present a single school with five majors and no departments. It set me thinking: why has it come to this? It's not unique to the university I work at - all around the world, the humanities, and in particular the "core" humanities like philosophy and history, have been increasingly wound back in favour of science, technology,…
clock | April 7, 2008
This post is perhaps not my best post, but is, by far, my most popular ever. Sick and tired of politics after the 2004 election I decided to start a science-only blog - Circadiana. After a couple of days of fiddling with the templae, on January 8, 2005, I posted the very first post, this one, at 2:53 AM and went to bed. When I woke up I was astonished as the Sitemeter was going wild! This post was linked by BoingBoing and later that day, by Andrew Sullivan. It has been linked by people ever since, as recently as a couple of days ago, although the post is a year and a half old.…
clock | April 5, 2008You must have noticed that there wasn't too much effort on this blog over the past couple of weeks (except for the elaborate and too successful April Fools hoax). I've just been so busy lately. So, here is a quick recap, and some pictures.
Back on March 21, I went to Duke University to participate in a panel called Shaping the world, one job at a time: An altruistic/alternative career panel. From education, to public health in the developing world, to science journalism, writing, blogging and publishing. The room was full (80 people? Perhaps 100?!). I am not sure one hour was enough for…
esiegel | April 4, 2008First things first: this week's Carnival of Space is up at Brian Wang's site, Next Big Future. You can find my post on Mars or Arizona? up there.
Now, what comes next for me, since I don't like it here in Arizona? Well, the Dangerman audition didn't work out (I never heard back), and I've been scoping out the Portland, OR area, which could work out well. But I got an email earlier this week about a job vacancy at ESO (the European Southern Observatories). They are looking for someone to take on the role of being head of the ESO public outreach office! Really, this would be a wonderful…
tqa | April 1, 2008
Given that today really is April 1st, let me start by saying that although Behe is a fool, this post isn't a joke. Everything you're about to read is real. This is the third part of my post on the summary judgment decision in the California Creationist Case. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.
It would seem that Mike Behe has, once again, managed to shoot an own goal in the courtroom. The last time that he was an expert witness, during the Dover case, the judge quoted extensively from Behe's testimony, but not in a way that he particularly liked. Ultimately, it seems that he scored more…
drorzel | March 31, 2008
Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer
People suck.
(tags: internet computing medicine evil stupid)
Word Munger » One-letter google searches
The alphabet, according to Google.
(tags: internet computing silly)
The Gashlycrumb Tinies
"M is for Maud who was swept out to sea/ N is for Neville who dies of ennui"
(tags: books comics silly art literature)
Researchers study why high school boys dodge 'Phys Ed'
'"Often boys who don't feel at ease are terrified to go to the locker room or class, fearing they will be mocked for their size, their lack of athletic prowess, or that they…