Education
jstemwedel | August 17, 2006That Julie and her challenges!
A few days ago, Guy [Kawasaki] wrote a post called Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Job in Silicon Valley But Didn't Know Who to Ask. Having spent several years in the mid-90s being a contractor, meaning every six or eight weeks I was off on an interview with someone or another, I can tell you his post is spot-on.
THE CHALLENGE...
All you academics who have been through the job market, how would you amend his list for academics?
I've looked at the tips. There are 15 of them! Tips 4, 5, 6, and 10 carry right over in a fairly straightforward way. I…
stcynic | August 16, 2006Lawrence Krauss, a physicist and astronomer from Case Western Reserve University, has an excellent essay in the New York Times yesterday about attempts to weaken science education by school boards with absolutely no understanding of science. He points to Kansas and the fact that the members of the state board of education pushing to change the science standards were utterly ignorant of the very subjects they were attempting to legislate on:
The chairman of the school board, Dr. Steve Abrams, a veterinarian, is not merely a strict creationist. He has openly stated that he believes that God…
jstemwedel | August 15, 2006In light of my earlier post on academia and capitalism, occasional commenter Jake asks what I think about the newish move, described in this story from the Associated Press, to cut textbook prices by putting advertisements in them.
So, I'll give you some key bits of the article with my thoughts interspersed.
Textbook prices are soaring into the hundreds of dollars, but in some courses this fall, students won't pay a dime. The catch: Their textbooks will have ads for companies including FedEx Kinko's and Pura Vida coffee.
Selling ad space keeps newspapers, magazines, Web sites and television…
stcynic | August 15, 2006Interesting article in the Kansan about the change in the Kansas school board with comments that confirm what our side has been saying all along, that weakening the teaching of evolution in that state would hurt the state's educational system and ability to recruit educated teachers and scientists:
Rob Weaver, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, whose discipline is molecular biology, also said the reputation of Kansas had been tarnished.
Weaver said that tarnished image had affected the University in two ways.
First, he said that professor recruitment suffered. He said…
hrynyshyn | August 15, 2006If only we could teach our kids what science is really about before they get too old, then they'd be better equipped to deal with intelligent design and other anti-intellectual propaganda that poisons the noosphere. At least, that's a common theory, one that's taken up again this week by Jonathan Osborne, the chairman of science education at King's College in London. There's nothing particularly new about his argument, but it's important to be reminded that the problem transcends North America, and that the case is worth making, repeatedly, until school board trustees get it through their…
stcynic | August 11, 2006A follow up on my earlier post about the equal access case involving Good News Club and access to a school take home flyer program. Marci Hamilton, a respected legal scholar from Yeshiva University, asks an interesting question:
How does one square this decision with the 4th Cir's willingness to permit the Wiccan woman to be excluded from delivering prayers at city council meetings? I'm blanking on the name of the latter case, but it would seem that equality is at issue in both cases, and the results would seem at first blush in conflict with each other.
A very intriguing question. The case…
hrynyshyn | August 10, 2006If any member of the medical profession wonders why more than a few people prefer to seek "alternative" treatments, wonder no longer. While ignorance and gullibility among the lay public are rampant, there is also the very serious problem that people simply don't believe that conventional, accredited doctors always have the patient's best interests at heart. Yesterday I came across a recent study that offers some good justification for that lack of confidence.
The paper, in the June 2006 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (subscription required), reports the findings…
hrynyshyn | August 7, 2006Here's a depressing way to start your week, courtesy of The New Statesman:
.."psychic schools have never been so busy, and it's not the Doris Stokes brigade who want to learn, but the young, the prosperous and the educated. Stephen Armstrong uncovers a paranormal boom."
If you don't know who Doris Stokes is, that's probably a good thing; those familiar with the name are more likely to have enrolled in the aforementioned schools. Plus, The New Statesman piece deals with the situation in England. But things aren't much better this side of the pond.
Earlier this year came the results of a…
j7uy5 | August 7, 2006When I was in medical school, back in the mid-80's, there was
a bit of a controversy about whether "tight" glucose regulation was a
good idea. Most people thought it was, but there was some concern that
attempts to control the glucose too tightly could lead to increased
risk of complications from getting the glucose too low.
If I recall correctly, the biggest concern was in patients who
had insulin-requiring diabetes, meaning that they either had type-I
diabetes, or that they had severe type-II diabetes.
I'm not an endocrinologist, so someone jump in and tell me if
I'm wrong, but my…
stcynic | August 5, 2006Paul Nelson has an interesting post at IDtheFuture following up on the the Kansas hearings and the relative importance of such things in the long run. I actually tend to agree with much of what he says. And despite the fact that I pointed to his statement as an example of trivializing what was so important to the DI the day before the Kansas elections, the truth is that Nelson has been pretty consistent in downplaying the political battles and focusing on the ideas.
Nelson was the one honest enough to say that there is no general theory of ID and that this was a big problem in terms of…
clock | August 3, 2006 I wrote this on March 03, 2005 on Science And Politics and reposted it on December 10, 2005 on The Magic School Bus. The title says it all...
I guess it is the time of year when college professors get their student evaluations back and, of course, some of those who blog have written about their experiences. For instance Bitch PhD cites some really hillarious ones, but concludes with this:
IMHO, while evaluations are important, one down side is that
they can and do encourage this kind of "customer service" attitude towards the
professoriate--an attitude that I think is inimical to really…
retrospectacle | July 27, 2006Adventures in Science and Ethics raised an interesting question today: How are graduate student getting their education funded? When I was first interviewing at graduate programs, I was astounded at the variability in their offered "recruitment package." It often had very little to do with prestige of the university, cost of living in the city, etc. But all of them offered something on which to live, tuition paid for, and health insurance. I feel quite comfortable on the stipend that Univ. of Michigan gives me (~$25k) and cost of living in Ann Arbor isn't so bad. My only complaint is no…
jstemwedel | July 27, 2006Bitch Ph.D. links an interesting op-ed piece in the Washington Post about the challenges of being a single parent and paying for grad school. Given the academia/parenting discussion we've been having here, I figured this was another relevant issue to consider.
I've mentioned before that the standard practice in science Ph.D. programs in the U.S. seems to be that students get tuition plus a stipend that, depending on the local cost of living, ranges from barely-adequate to almost-comfortable. There are also a good number of U.S. Ph.D. programs in the humanities and social sciences that offer…
clock | July 27, 2006 This post I first wrote on February 28, 2005, then re-posted here on December 10, 2005. About conservative relativism and the assault on academia:
I have hinted several times (here, here, here and here) before that relativism (including moral relativism) is not consistent with the liberal core model (in Lakoffian sense). Instead, postmodernism is used these days as a tactic by conservatives to push their pre-modern views within a modern society. In other words, faced with the reality of a modern world, the only way conservatives can re-intorduce their medieval ideas is by invoking…
clock | July 26, 2006 This is a long post from January 23, 2005, trying to tie in Creationism and conservatism through psychology:
I always loved animals and always loved science. I read the kids' science and nature books and encyclopedias, as well as adult stuff, like huge volumes about animals e.g., "The Life of Animals" by Alfred Brehm. The best present I ever got was a chemistry set my brother brought me from a trip to Egland.
I started learning English when I was five years old. No surprise here, as my parents met at the University, both studying English. It took a while until I was capable of reading…
drorzel | July 25, 2006I'm beginning to put my tenure review materials together, which means lots of angst about academia generally. Happily, there's the Internet, which can always make matters worse by providing more links:
For example, a couple of my ScienceBlogs colleagues are blogging about family issues and academic careers: Janet Stemwedel has the first three posts (one two, three) of what promises to be an exhaustive look at the subject of family and career, and Tara Smith adds her own story. And lest you think this is just a concern for the womenfolk, I'll note that this has been the subject of many…
sporte | July 24, 2006A few years ago, the General Biology students at the Johns Hopkins University began to interrogate the unseen world. During this semester-long project, they study the ecosystems of the Homewood campus, and engage in novel research by exploring the microbial ecosystems in different sections of the campus. Biology lab students gather environmental samples from different campus ecosystems, isolate DNA, amplify 16s ribosomal DNA by PCR, and check their PCR results by gel electrophoresis.
DNA samples are next sent to the university's Genetic Resources Core Facility , where scientific staff, in…
purepedantry | July 24, 2006The Chronicle of Higher Education is running a symposium on the benefits of academic blogging. This symposium addresses ostensibly the failure of Juan Cole, a prominent Middle East scholar and proprietor of the blog Informed Comment, to recieve tenure at Yale University. Many have attributed that failure to his publishing his views on the Internet, though Yale has thus far refused to comment.
Many of the contributors to the symposium also talk in depth about the benefits of academic blogging. Here are some choice morsels:
Brad De Long:
The hope of all of us who blog is that we will…
terrasig | July 23, 2006Reading the paper this morning reaction to murder charges being brought against a New Orleans doctor and two nurses post-Katrina makes me want to read a little more into the facts of the cases. However, my SiBling, Prof Shelley Batts at Retrospectacle, points out correctly that the circumstances surrounding the delivery of health care in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina may have led to the deaths of the patients involved.
Most certainly, those levying the charges had likely gotten out of town and were enjoying drinks, air-conditioning, and putting their feet up on a soft bed…
pharyngula | July 22, 2006Georgetown College in Kentucky has ended its affiliation with the Southern Baptists after the Baptists tried to dictate that a new hire be a biblical literalist. The Baptists wanted nonsense like this:
"You ought to have some professor on your faculty who believes Adam and Eve were the first humans, that they actually existed," Dr. York said.
They also refused to allow the college to hire more than 25% non-Baptist faculty, and what may have really been the deal-breaker is that the university's enrollment is less than half Baptist…so insisting on strict adherence to the principles of a…