Education
drorzel | May 11, 2007The bizarre saga of Rusi Taleyarkhan (which I've mentioned before) keeps getting stranger. Previously, Purdue University had announced that it conducted an investigation of Taleyarkhan's work and cleared him of any misconduct, without saying, well, anything much about the investigation. Now, after pressure from Congress on the question, the New York Times reports that they're opening a new investiagation.
The letter from Congress that triggered this contains the first real details of the earlier investigation, including this absolutely boggling couple of paragraphs:
Up to now, Purdue has…
aardvarchaeology | May 10, 2007[More blog entries about psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, anxiety, depression, parenting; psykologi, psykiatri, psykoterapi, ångest, depression, föräldraskap.]
I recently had a book on popular psychology recommended to me and found it absolutely dire. And today's paper reports that most of Sweden's university programs for psychotherapists have been found to be substandard and will be closed down unless they improve dramatically. This has inspired me to write something about late 20th century psychotherapy, a.k.a. humanistic psychology, a movement that has been a background presence for…
dmunger | May 10, 2007In education school, I was taught that the purpose of grading was to rank-order students -- to create a system whereby the highest-achieving students were ranked at the top and the lowest-achieving students were at the bottom. But recently there have been worries that grade inflation is making it difficult to use grades to rank students.
At most Ivy League schools, nearly 50 percent of grades given are A or A minus. When dozens of students have perfect GPAs, how do you determine who is best? If the average GPA at a school is 3.4, then what's the point of having a four-point scale: half the…
jstemwedel | May 8, 2007Since many of you were kind enough to suggest questions to ask of Margaret Spellings at SJSU's Founders Day "The Future of Higher Education" panel last Friday, I thought I should report back on that session.
First, the bad (but utterly predictable) news: while Margaret Spellings gave the keynote address, she didn't stick around for the panel discussion afterwards -- so she wasn't there for the question and answer period. However, the panel of experts certainly had something to say about the Spellings Commission report on higher education.
It was striking, as CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed…
clock | May 6, 2007
This 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…
sb admin | May 6, 2007By David Michaels
In the last few days, the national media has finally focused on the failure of OSHA to protect workers from devastating lung disease caused by exposure to artificial butter flavor. (The problem goes well beyond microwave popcorn factories, to the flavor industry and other snack food plants.) Articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times and The National Journal all compare OSHAâs inaction with the activities the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (or CalOSHA), which is moving toward a rule forcing employers to protect workers in the food industry…
clock | May 6, 2007Tatjana Jovanovic is a fellow escapee from Serbia and a fellow biologist. She got her MS in Biology at the University of Belgrade and has collected enough data before emigrating to be able to immediately get a PhD if someone would sponsor her here. She is currently in Arizona, but she is moving to North Carolina later this year. She will send you her impressive CV on demand - her publications range from immunology to pest control, but most of it is focused on small rodents, their avian predators and the dynamics of predator-prey relationships. She has combined lab and field work, from…
jrosenhouse | May 3, 2007Ed Brayton, Orac, and the Hoofnagles have already covered this story (click here, here, and here, respectively.) But why should they have all the fun?
Over at Uncommon Descent, Salvador Cordova discusses the MacCallum essay, Now, I've seen several of Salvador's public presentations. So I am well aware of his rather imaginative use of quotations. He almost seems to prefer quoting people inaccurately to giving his audience an accurate view of what was said.
But this one is low, even for him. MacCallum opens her essay with the following paragraph:
It is curious that Charles Darwin,…
oracknows | May 3, 2007If there's one undeniable aspect of "intelligent design" creationism advocates, it is their ability to twist and misrepresent science and any discussions of evolution to their own ends. Be it Dr. Michael Egnor's twisting of history to claim that eugenics is based on Darwinism, rather than the artificial selection (or, as we snarky ones like to call it, intelligent design), claims that "Darwinism" is a tautology and irrelevant to the question of antimicrobial resistance, or blaming evolution for atheism, the decline of Western mores, and, if you believe the ID advocates, bad breath, key to the…
worldsfair | May 2, 2007Well, Ben has beaten me to the punch on showing some of the marvelous pictures presented here at Paleo Future. But I've actually been interested in these images for the past two weeks (with a nod to BoingBoing), having had the chance to look at some current projects that aim to use future simulations to aid in things like urban planning or policy authoring (particularly if it can be aimed at either mitigating or adapting to the possible consequences of climate change).
So what's this about? Why is a geneticist looking into the academia of such things?
Well, there's actually a pragmatic…
evolgen | May 2, 2007The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) is experiencing a financial crisis. They have received financial support from the Department of Energy (DOE) for over fifty years. The DOE has cut funding, which may force SREL to close down. SREL operates as a unit of the University of Georgia, but depends on money from the DOE maintain operations. Besides basic and applied research, SREL is also involved in teaching, outreach, and environmental monitoring.
I have reproduced information from SREL on how you can help encourage the government to continue funding this important research station.
The…
tfk | May 2, 2007Reed Cartwright found out that a vital ecological research facility may be closed. The Savannah River Ecological Laboratory is operated by University of Georgia on land owned by the US Department of Energy. The DoE had a plutonium processing facility there, which is now closed. The unpopulated areas surrounding the facility has always been used for ecological research since the DoE started operations, and the site was designated as a National Environmental Research Park in the '70s.
The ecological research was initiated because the DoE wanted a way to evaluate the risks and dangers of…
thusspakezuska | May 1, 2007The Chronicle Review this week is essentially devoted to analysis of and commentary on the Virginia Tech massacre. The Chronicle asked a number of individuals what they would say if they were asked to speak to the Virginia Tech graduating class at commencement this year. Edward J. W. Park's contribution deserves special attention from everyone, I think. (no subscription needed)
Park's message to the graduating seniors - and to all of is - is about how racial and ethnic labels function in our society and in particular in the case of shooting incidents. It is about his hope that education…
pharyngula | May 1, 2007Minnesota had a coagulation of reactionary Republicans at our capitol last week. Their goals were clearly stated, and were thoroughly repugnant, but at least they also had a small turnout.
The Minnesota Family Council, EdWatch, Citizens' Council on Health Care, and Minnesota Majority (formerly Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage) came to the Capitol Thursday to advocate "less government, less taxes and less government spending" and to oppose legislation for domestic-partner benefits, medical marijuana, stem-cell research and comprehensive sex education.
I struggle to understand how…
clock | May 1, 2007Jake, Chad, Rob, Janet, Chad again and Chad again. have already written everything important about today's Buzz topic - the undergraduate research. What I will do is add a few examples and you draw conclusions why this worked (or not) for each one of them.
A Self-Starter
Kevin Messenger loved snakes all his life. He did his own research in high school, a standard survey of herps in the Sandhills area of North Carolina. He presented that at a meeting of the Herps society while a high-school senior. He went to college to NCSU because he wanted to work with Hal Heathwole. He got his own…
grrlscientist | April 30, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Burrowing owls, Athene cunicularia.
The photographer writes; While driving up to Colorado, I spotted a pair of Burrowing Owls trying in vain to stay dry in the drizzle. Highway 385 North of Brownfield, Terry County, TX.
Image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer, Jay Packer.
Birds in Science
Gone are the days when animals were classified to taxon based solely on bone structure (osteology), body structure (morphometrics) or behavior (ethology), or some combination of these characters. Currently,…
evolvingthoughts | April 27, 2007
I don't know from framing. Until the current to-do started up, I had merely heard the term used in the context of Lakoff, whose book I tried once to read but got too annoyed and moved on. But one thing I do think I know a bit about, based on experience in public relations, publishing, journalism (a miniscule and amateur bit, to be sure) and public debates, is communication. It's a pity I can't do it as well as I ought.
But here are some thoughts about the difference between communication and "spin". Others can tell if I am dealing with framing or not.
For a start, communication involves…
pharyngula | April 27, 2007Larry Moran thinks we need more rigorous admission requirements, and Donald Kennedy is not very happy with the state of creationist textbooks.
Kennedy is currently serving as an expert witness for the University of California Regents, who are being sued by a group of Christian schools, students and parents for refusing to allow high school courses taught with creationist textbooks to fulfill the laboratory science requirement for UC admission. After reading several creationist biology texts, Kennedy said he found "few instances in which students are being introduced to science as a process—…
sb admin | April 25, 2007By David Michaels
On the front page of todayâs New York Times, reporter Stephen Labaton highlights a trend that weâve been writing about here at The Pump Handle for some time: Occupational Safety and Health Administration has delayed or halted work on important standards for worker protection and put more of its energies into voluntary programs that let employers decide how far theyâre willing to go to protect workersâ health and lives.
Labatonâs article focuses on OSHAâs failure to protect workers from diacetyl, an artificial butter flavoring that numerous scientific studies have linked to…
jstemwedel | April 24, 2007The April 16 issue of Chemical & Engineering News has an interesting article about homeschooling families looking for chemistry curricula. (You need an individual or institutional subscription to view the article; it might be worth checking with your local library.)
I'm far from an expert on homeschooling (as we're availing ourselves of the public schools), but I'm fascinated by the ways some of the families featured in the article are piecing together what they need for their kids.
Why families choose to homeschool is an interesting question. From the article,
One common reason [to…