Education
tsmith | September 19, 2007You've heard about the depressing state of funding today in biomedical science. That's only part of the reason why increasingly, graduate students and post-docs are looking outside of academia for jobs, as discussed recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education:
Researchers today have access to powerful new tools and techniques -- such as rapid gene sequencers and giant telescopes -- that have accelerated the pace of discovery beyond the imagination of previous generations.
But for many of today's graduate students, the future could not look much bleaker.
They see long periods of training…
apalazzo | September 19, 2007From today's email:
Dear Colleague:
NIH is inviting health professionals engaged in biomedical and behavioral research to apply online for a loan repayment award. The loan repayment programs (LRPs) are a vital component of our nation's efforts to recruit and retain highly qualified professionals to careers in research.
NIH annually awards loan repayment contracts to approximately 1,600 health professionals with an average award of $52,000. More than 50% of the awards are made to individuals less than 5 years out of school. Approximately 40% of all new applicants are funded and 70% of…
sb admin | September 18, 2007Yesterday, the University of California at Irvine announced that it was reappointing Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of its new law school. Chemerinsky had been offered the job, but then the University withdrew the offer after the LA Times published a Chemerinsky op-ed critical of the Bush administration. After an outcry from scholars and an in-depth conversation between Chemerinsky and UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake, Chemerinsky was re-offered the position.
This incident has spawned 163 news articles (according to Google News), while another case involving academic freedom gets far less…
purepedantry | September 12, 2007
In 1922, John Dewey, pragmatist philosopher and champion of Progressive education, wrote an article in The New Republic entitled "The American Intellectual Frontier." The subject was William Jennings Bryan's attack on evolution that would later culminate in the Scopes trial. The argument that Dewey made was not what you would think, however. Though he was most definitely part of the the Northeastern liberal establishment at the time, he did not dismiss Bryan's attacks as indicative of rural ignorance.
Instead, he made the argument that while he disagreed with Bryan, liberals had to take…
catdynamics | September 12, 2007A WaPo op-ed unveils a new skulk of the usual suspects.
On the starboard side, mateys.
MindingTheCampus.com
"Dedicated to the revival of intellectual pluralism and the best traditions of liberal education at America's universities."
"best"? "liberal"? Really?
With a Horowitz article right on the frontpage...
Sponsored by The Manhattan Institute - http://www.manhattan-institute.org
and its "Center for the American University" - http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cau.htm
I never knew they cared.
Why .com, and not .org for the subsidiary?
On a completely unrelated issue UC Irvine hires…
bcohen | September 12, 2007Part 1 | 2 | 3
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Part III, our final installment with Shobita Parthasarathy, author of Building Genetic Medicine, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series can be found here.
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WF: I cut you off at the end of the last Part. Here, I'll let you continue with the connection between women's health movements and the rise of BRCA testing.
SP: When BRCA testing came on the horizon, US and British advocates behaved somewhat differently. In the US, NBCC and other advocacy groups were (and continue to be) skeptical about the technology. They felt that the technology was still…
sb admin | September 9, 2007By David Michaels
The popcorn festival has just ended in Marion, Ohio (nickname: âpopcorn capital of the worldâ), attended by more than 100,000 revelers. The Orville Redenbacher Parade is one of the festivalsâ highlights. Redenbacher, who developed the hybrid corn strain that pops so uniformly, was actually from Indiana, but ConAgra Foods manufactures the best selling microwave popcorn brand âOrville Redenbacherâsâ (along with Act II brand) at its factory in Marion.
I didnât get to the festival, but you can be sure that there was a lot of talk about the first reported case of âpopcorn lungâ…
thusspakezuska | September 6, 2007It's almost September 17th, and you know what that means - Constitution Day! Do you have your festivities all planned out yet? No? Don't you remember there's a federal law mandating that all schools which receive federal funds have got to put on a program about the constitution for their students on September 17 every year? And federal employees in the executive branch have to receive some training on the constitution on Constitution Day? I suppose Dick Cheney would naturally be exempt, not being part of the executive branch of government and all.
Which brings me to this handy article…
sb admin | September 4, 2007By David Michaels
Updated Below
For the past several years, news articles and Congressional hearings have reported on a deadly, irreversible lung disease â bronchiolitis obliterans â that is caused by workersâ exposure to food flavoring chemicals, and more specifically by exposure to a butter-flavoring chemical called diacetyl. So far, attention has focused on worker exposure, rather than on possible health problems affecting consumers who pop popcorn in their microwave ovens. That focus may be changing, however, with a warning sent by one of the countryâs leading lung disease experts.
The…
j7uy5 | September 3, 2007Usually the LA Times does not print things this awful.
Usually these things don't bother me so much. The
problem is not just that the author is wrong, or that he develops his
argument poorly -- although both are true. What bothers me is
the pointlessly malicious tone of the piece.
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-bawer2sep02,0,833953.story?coll=la-home-commentary">The
peace racket
A growing movement is pushing a worldview that ignores
history's lessons about strength and appeasement.
By Bruce Bawer
September 2, 2007
'If you want peace, prepare for…
oracknows | August 31, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on October 19, 2005. Enjoy!
Somehow I didn't find out about this story about a football coach who resigned because the school district ordered him not to lead his team in prayer at dinners before each game until several days after it had happened. Consequently, I had been debating about whether or not to write about it, its being old news…
jrosenhouse | August 30, 2007Chris Mooney has a link to this analysis of recent polling data. The analysis was written by David Masci. The subject: How Americans feel about science and faith. Mooney thinks the data supports the Matt Nisbet line that people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens hurt the cause. I disagree.
Here's Mooney main comment:
So here's my contribution: I merely wish to point out a good analysis of polling data over at Pew that strongly supports the broad Nisbet perspective. The gist: The American public doesn't generally perceive a necessary conflict between religion and science; but…
tqa | August 30, 2007
From the archives - the following article was originally posted on my old blog back in August of 2005. For reasons that will become clear shortly, I've been reposting this series of stories over here. This is the final old post, and I'll have a follow-up post on more current events going up shortly. In that post, I will respond to the comment that someone from the Association for Christian Schools International just left on two of the reposted articles.
As I continued my review of the complaint filed in the California creationist lawsuit, I came to a passage that was completely stunning…
tqa | August 30, 2007
From the archives - the following article was originally posted on my old blog back in August of 2005. For reasons that will become clear shortly, I've been reposting this series of stories over here. There's one more after this, and I'll have that up over here later today.
Someone named Emma kindly provided a couple of links to PDF files relevant to the California creationist lawsuit. One of the links is to a propaganda piece written by the Association of Christian Schools International, which is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. The second link is to a copy of the actual complaint that…
tqa | August 29, 2007
From the archives - the following article was originally posted on my old blog back in August of 2005. For reasons that will become clear shortly, I'm going to repost this and a couple of follow-ups to the story over here.
It appears that yet another creationism-related lawsuit is in the works. This time, the venue is in California, and it is the Creationists who are doing the suing. Apparently, the Association of Christian Schools International and Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murietta are no longer satisfied with being able to teach their students creationism instead of real…
jrosenhouse | August 27, 2007Have a look at this op-ed from today's Washington Post, by Susan Goodkin and David Gold :
With reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act high on the agenda as Congress returns from its recess, lawmakers must confront the fact that the law is causing many concerned parents to abandon public schools that are not failing.
These parents are fleeing public schools not only because, as documented by a recent University of Chicago study, the act pushes teachers to ignore high-ability students through its exclusive focus on bringing students to minimum proficiency. Worse than this benign…
pharyngula | August 27, 2007Classes start this week at UMM and next week at our branch campuses in the Twin Cities, and it looks like we might get to deal with a clerical workers' strike. AFSCME Local 3800 is taking to the picket lines to protest the inadequate pay raises offered to them. We're all tightening our belts in our underfunded universities — we've had salary and hiring freezes in the few years I've been here, and we're seeing cuts to library services and teaching lab support; you could argue, I suppose, as university president Bruininks does, that we're all in this together and that everyone should compromise…
sb admin | August 22, 2007Last April, I received this nice letter from Mark Mathis.
Hello Mr. Myers,
My name is Mark Mathis. I am a Producer for Rampant Films. We are
currently in production of the documentary film, "Crossroads: The
Intersection of Science and Religion."
At your convenience I would like to discuss our project with you and to see
if we might be able to schedule an interview with you for the film. The
interview would take no more than 90 minutes total, including set up and
break down of our equipment.
We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the
disconnect/controversy that exists in…
pharyngula | August 22, 2007Last April, I received this nice letter from Mark Mathis.
Hello Mr. Myers,
My name is Mark Mathis. I am a Producer for Rampant Films. We are
currently in production of the documentary film, "Crossroads: The
Intersection of Science and Religion."
At your convenience I would like to discuss our project with you and to see
if we might be able to schedule an interview with you for the film. The
interview would take no more than 90 minutes total, including set up and
break down of our equipment.
We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the
disconnect/controversy that exists in…
sb admin | August 20, 2007By Liz BorkowskiÂ
Although work has begun on a fifth borehole into the Crandall Canyon mine, officials acknowledged yesterday that the six miners may not be found. This LA Times article describes the anguishing choice between leaving the miners underground â a notion âakin to soldiers leaving comrades on the battlefieldâ â and risking more fatalities in a rescue operation thatâs already claimed three lives.
In todayâs Washington Post, Karl Vick and Sonya Geis report that the focus has now shifted to determining the cause of collapse, and the retreat mining techniques being used are the first…