Education
nisbetmc | April 24, 2007This spring in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. (See reading list.)
For many college students who grew up "online," it's easy to take for granted the "virtual" society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life.
Therefore, one of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously…
nisbetmc | April 24, 2007This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. (Go here for reading list.)
For many college students, having grown up "online," it's easy to take for granted the "virtual" society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life.
Therefore, one of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically…
mixingmemory | April 22, 2007Below is the text of a post I wrote for the old blog back in March of '06. I'm putting it here now because, given the discussion of the new atheist-suffragist analogy, I think it will provide some much needed perspective. In the article below, you will see just what the women's rights movement was up against, and why rhetorical force was necessary for it to accomplish even the simplest of its goals. I apologize in advance for any typos and misspellings (some of the spellings are just outdated ones, though), because I typed the article out while reading it in a 136 year old journal in the…
petnoyer | April 20, 2007Story by Michelle Kinzel, OSU
How do you study the sperm whale, Physeter catadon, when they dive up to 3 km (1.9 miles) to the bottom of the ocean floor and stay submerged up to 90 minutes? Sperm whales reach lengths of 18 m (60 ft) and possess blood volumes up to 3 tonnes. The blood stores oxygen that enables the whale to dive to great depths to the ocean floor. Dives more than 2 miles deep are possible for sperm whales, but more typical dives are 30 minutes long and 300 to 400 m depth. The elusive behemoths spend a significant amount of time in the deep sea. Spatial technologies,…
nisbetmc | April 18, 2007If anyone should understand how to effectively communicate with the broader public about teaching evolution in schools, it's Dr. Steve Case. He's assistant director of the Center for Science Education at the University of Kansas and was co-chair of the science standards committee for the state of Kansas.
Case has been in the trenches and on the front lines for the past three decades. He probably has more experience working with science teachers and dealing with the news media than anyone in the country. Indeed, he is perhaps the most successful and savvy ambassador for science education…
jrosenhouse | April 18, 2007In my previous post on this subject, I described the main faults I see in the Mooney/Nisbet thesis regarding the importance of proper “franimg” in presenting science to the public. In this post I would like to focus specifically on their Washington Post article. In particular, I would like to chastise them for some rather ill-considered remarks contained therein.
We start at the beginning of the article:
If the defenders of evolution wanted to give their creationist adversaries a boost, it's hard to see how they could do better than Richard Dawkins, the famed Oxford scientist who had a…
jrosenhouse | April 17, 2007Here's Franklin Graham, from last night's Scarborough Country, reminding us of what's important about the VA Tech shooting:
First of all, we know that God loves us and God cares for us. And there is a devil in this world. There is evil, and we have seen this manifest itself today in the life of one individual who took the lives of these students. It's a tragedy. But God loves us very much, and I don't think we should ever forget his love for us that he has provided a way for us to be with him in heaven and that's through his son Jesus Christ.
And later:
Well, I don't blame God for it,…
oracknows | April 17, 2007From fellow ScienceBlogger Abel, I'm made aware of an excellent post on the Health Care Renewal Blog about the financial reality of being an academic physician in a modern U.S. medical school. It's an excellent overview of how medical schools view clinical faculty as, in essence, cash cows that have to bring in the cash and pay for themselves. The same thing actually applies to basic scientists as well, and I do have to quibble a bit with the internal medicine-centered view of the various ways that faculty are expected to bring in money, which do not necessarily apply to academic surgery…
pharyngula | April 16, 2007In my mail today, I received a copy of the Bell Museum's quarterly, Imprint, which contained a fine article on the Bell's strategy for addressing the creationists. After summarizing some of the museum's efforts and recent national events, it concludes this way:
Bell Museum programs are one way that University of Minnesota scientists are reaching the public--not through spin, but through thoughtful presentations about science and research, such as the lively Café Scientifique discussion held recently on the subject of evolution. To support science educators, Borrello, Lanyon, and several other…
pharyngula | April 16, 2007The Missouri House of Representatives has passed a bill that would impose new rules on state colleges to "protect diversity" that includes this most interesting clause:
(1) The report required in this subsection shall address the specific measures taken by the institution to ensure and promote intellectual diversity and academic freedom. The report may include steps taken by the institution to:
(a) Conduct a study to assess the current state of intellectual diversity on its campus, including diversity-related criteria used in admissions, scholarship awards, and hiring which shall…
purepedantry | April 16, 2007Thank you, Germany:
Passively listening to Mozart -- or indeed any other music you enjoy -- does not make you smarter. But more studies should be done to find out whether music lessons could raise your child's IQ in the long term, concludes a report analysing all the scientific literature on music and intelligence, which was published last week by the German research ministry.
The ministry commissioned the report -- surprisingly the first to systematically review the literature on the purported intelligence effect of music -- from a team of nine German neuroscientists, psychologists,…
sb admin | April 13, 2007By Susan Wood
Next week both the Senate and House are moving forward on legislation to reauthorize the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), along with other key FDA legislation. The Senate will be âmarking upâ a large omnibus piece of legislation that combines PDUFA with drug safety legislation, pediatric legislation, and medical device legislation. The version of the bill that has been released is nearly 300 pages long, and so far only takes small steps toward strengthening the Kennedy-Enzi drug safety bill introduced earlier this year.
If you want to learn some of the basics linking…
vhughes | April 13, 2007
(Dr. Porter discovers there's a physical world, too!)
Today meet Sandra Porter of Discovering Biology in a Digital World, a bioinformaticist, bioinformatics teacher, and expert detector of bull excrement.
What do you do when you're not blogging?
Lots of things!
Work-wise, I do a lot of things that revolve around teaching people how to use bioinformatics. This involves researching different kinds of problems, helping to design "bioinformatics" assays, overseeing and editing our user manual, testing software, and doing scientific consulting. I also have my own research grants (from the NSF…
terrasig | April 12, 2007I wish I could claim responsibility for this essay but the mega-props go to Roy M Poses, MD, of the team blog, Health Care Renewal (blog mission statement: "Addressing threats to health care's core values, especially those stemming from concentration and abuse of power.").
Last week, Roy wrote, "Med Schools to Faculty: Show Me The Money," based on an interview with Dr Lee Goldman, the Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine, and Executive Vice-President for Health and Biomedical Sciences at Columbia University.
From Goldman's "cold hard facts about academic medicine" are:…
cmcclain | April 12, 2007
Going on as we speak is an experiment of monumental proportions. It may not seem that way to you sitting in front of your computer this moment, but to a kid in middle or high school I guarantee that it is their world! At least the highlight of their school day anyways...
As part of the GLOBE program funded by NASA, NSF and the U.S. Dept. of State, the Pennsylvania State University. in cooperation with scientists from the RIDGE and InterRIDGE communities, is leading the way for students to explore science From Local to Extreme Environments (FLEXE). "FLEXE students study aspects of their…
nisbetmc | April 9, 2007Our Policy Forum article at Science has generated a monster blog discussion, one that is almost too much to keep up with. I continue to try to keep a summary here with my quick responses, where appropriate. I have also posted several comments at other blogs. I will continue to update as more blog commentary develops.
Reactions so far:
-->Over at The Intersection, a very strong endorsement from Flock of Dodos director Randy Olson:
Nisbet and Mooney are taking on the odious job of being the messengers of the new era for the world of science with their excellent essay in Science this week. I'…
j7uy5 | April 9, 2007Ordinarily,
I dislike fisking as a literary style, but it does have its
place. This is one of them. As noted in the two
previous posts,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/04/health_care_debate.php">(Part
One,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/04/health_care_debate_part_two.php">Part
Two) some authors from the Cato Institute managed to get an
opinion piece published in the LA Times:
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-tanner5apr05,1,6553974.story?ctrack=2&cset=true">Universal
healthcare's dirty little secrets. In…
revere | April 8, 2007To date, more than 90% of the bird flu victims have been under the age of 44. But what's the leading cause of death in people between the ages of 1 and 44 in the US? And the fifth leading cause of death (after heart disease, stroke, cancer and chronic respiratory disease) for overall? And largely preventable? Answer below the fold.
Injury. And working teenagers are among the victims:
Despite federal regulations intended to protect them, many teenagers in the U.S. use dangerous equipment or work long hours during the school week, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study…
dmunger | April 5, 2007In a recent opinion piece appearing in the Washington Post, Jason Johnson argues that in today's cut-and-paste world, the term paper is becoming irrelevant:
Today I plagiarized multiple documents at work. I took the writing of others and presented it to my supervisor as if it were my own. It was an open secret that my entire report, written "by Jason Johnson," had been composed by others and that I had been merely an editor. Instead of a reprimand, I was rewarded with a post-briefing latte.
In the fast-paced world of today, Johnson claims, no one has time to worry about who the real "author"…
tfk | April 2, 2007Billy Dembski's "research" assistant Joel Borofsky writes, Don’t teach the Holocaust! It might offend people!:
From the "London Times"
Teachers are dropping controversial subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades from history lessons because they do not want to cause offence to children from certain races or religions, a report claims.
A lack of factual knowledge among some teachers, particularly in primary schools, is also leading to "shallow" lessons on emotive and difficult subjects, according to the study by the Historical Association.
The report, produced with funding from the…