Social Sciences
cevans | February 8, 2011
To prepare for a "Book Sprint" I'm participating in at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie-Mellon University next week, I've been doing lots of research about notable historical interactions between art, science, and technology. In suit, Universe fringe benefits!
First, I'd like to tell you about "9 Evenings," organized in 1966 by a very interesting engineer named Billy Klüver with the help of the great American artist, Robert Rauschenberg.
Klüver is a fascinating character, a brilliant engineer who saw the potential in the integration of art and technology, and noticed an absence…
tfk | February 6, 2011Martin Cothran, the bigoted, anti-semite defending, Holocaust-denial whitewashing, misogynistic, homophobic, creationist, authoritarian, logic-impaired mouthpiece for the Kentucky theocracy movement wonders Is Internet access a human right?:
In what sense is Internet access as a "right"?
I listened to this week to an interview on NPR in which a guest--some expert on the Internet--was telling the NPR interviewer that Internet access is a "right"--not just any right but a "basic human right."
This is the sort of incisive reporting we read Cothran for. "Some expert" said something or other, and…
drorzel | February 6, 2011
Evolution in Science Education - Bill Nye on Evolution in Science Education - Popular Mechanics
"Science education: We should support it. Especially elementary school science. Nearly every rocket scientist got interested in it before they were 10. Everybody who's a physician, who makes vaccines, who wants to find the cure for cancer. Everybody who wants to do any medical good for humankind got the passion for that before he or she was 10. So we want to excite a new generation of kids--every generation--about the passion, beauty and joy--the PB&J--of science. These anti-evolution people…
pharyngula | February 1, 2011Once again, I have proven my ability to drive people into a frothing rage against me. Only this time it isn't a mob of religious fanatics and anti-choicers who have called me pond scum who will go to hell, an insect souled vile man, a black-souled amoral monster, pure evil, morally depraved, with a depraved mind, descend[ing] down the various stages into madness, and so forth…but I have this time managed to antagonize a bunch of atheists. Feel my pain.
All right, to be honest, it really doesn't sting that much.
The godless raged at me on youtube and twitter, thanks to the recent broadcast of…
tfk | January 31, 2011Sean Carroll reads Jerry Coyne so you don't have to. His summary of Jerry Coyne's post about his talk at the First United Methodist Church of Chicago is decidedly kinder than John Pieret's, or my own last post, and so it serves as a good starting point for the promised kinder, gentler reaction to Coyne's piece.
As you recall, Coyne went to the church to talk with a book group there about his book Why Evolution Is True. Sean summarizes:
You can guess what happened â or maybe not. There was a productive two-hour conversation in which both sides learned something.
There was indeed a lot of…
oracknows | January 31, 2011Breast implants have been the subject of controversy since they were first developed in the 1960s, with the controversy reaching a head in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when thousands of women with silicone implants reported a variety of ailments, including autoimmune disease and a variety of other systemic illnesses. These reports led to a rash of lawsuits and, ultimately, the banning of silicone breast implants for general use for breast augmentation in 1992. After that, silicone breast implants were only permitted in women requiring breast reconstruction or women enrolled in clinical…
jtoney | January 27, 2011
Education reform may be one of the most important initiatives of our generation. It is a complex and sensitive topic, with a wide range of views from families, teachers and their unions (if public), states, the federal government and from think tanks.
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has recently produced a series of videos that discuss education reform. Narrated by Sir Ken Robinson, the imperative for reform is laid out using a compelling graphic story line.
In case you are not already familiar, I highly recommend it as a resource to enhance…
drorzel | January 27, 2011
The Myth of Charter Schools by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books
"If we are serious about improving our schools, we will take steps to improve our teacher force, as Finland and other nations have done. That would mean better screening to select the best candidates, higher salaries, better support and mentoring systems, and better working conditions. Guggenheim complains that only one in 2,500 teachers loses his or her teaching certificate, but fails to mention that 50 percent of those who enter teaching leave within five years, mostly because of poor working conditions, lack of…
drorzel | January 25, 2011
Swans on Tea » Blogging: You're Doing it Wrong! (Part III)
"Completely unrelated to this was a session called "How Can We Maintain High Journalism Standards on the Web," and it was attended mostly by the professionals. Most of the session focused on ethics standards and disclosure and avoiding the appearance of bias, which means Pepsigate came up (surprise!) and other related subjects as well. I get that most responsible journalists don't want their work tainted by the appearance that they are endorsing a product or service, which can be questioned by links or undisclosed sponsorships or…
sa smith | January 24, 2011Friday, I was walking down the hallway when a professor friend waved me down--
PF-- Hey! Are you still involved with that pitbull rescue?
Me-- LOL! That wasnt a 'rescue'... I just sorta find pitbulls and find them homes... LOL!
PF-- I know a family that wants to adopt.
Me-- O.o (I figured she found one that needed a home)
PF-- Well... they found this girl pit on the street... shes a sweetheart... and she had this bulge in her belly, like people get when theyre starved? They thought it was just that she was starved nearly to death. But they kept feeding her and it didnt go away... She…
drorzel | January 24, 2011
Scientists discover snowflake identical to one which fell in 1963 | NewsBiscuit
"'It's one of the last remaining challenges known to science and we've cracked it at last,' said lead researcher, Professor Kenneth Libbrecht. 'The team will soon disband to pursue other major scientific challenges, such as the unresolved toast-butter conundrum, and whether or not my baldness makes me a better lover.'"
(tags: science physics silly)
Coding Horror: The Bad Apple: Group Poison
"Groups of four college students were organized into teams and given a task to complete some basic management decisions…
oracknows | January 23, 2011Most of the woo I write about, fortunately, I don't have to deal with directly close to home. This is a good thing indeed, because it means that where I practice is blissfully free (for the most part) of pseudoscience. Unfortunately, earlier this year, I was in for an unpleasant surprise when I found out that there was going to be a showing of a rather annoying movie. It also occurred to me that I had never, to my memory, discussed the topic of this movie, namely the health claims of raw ("living") food veganism. The vitalism at the heart of this movie and its accompanying "educational" DVD…
drorzel | January 22, 2011
$1,000 to do something Awesome. « The Awesome Foundation - Toronto
"Further details below, but the basic idea is that 10 Torontonians have committed to showing up each month, stuffing $100 each into a paper bag, and giving that bag to the person we think has the best chance at achieving something awesome.
No reporting, no strings, no oversight. Just $1,000 to do whatever it is you think is worth doing.
Deadline for submission is February 15th."
(tags: awards culture society internet world)
Oliver Twist's Workhouse Discovered - Telegraph
"[A] buzz surrounds the new claim by Ruth…
lborkowski | January 18, 2011by Rena Steinzor, cross-posted from CPR Blog
Sixteen months ago, President Obama stood in the well of Congress and issued a ringing call for a progressive vision of government. Working to persuade Members of Congress to adopt health care reform, he said that
"large-heartedness...is part of the American character." Our ability to stand in other people's shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand."
Many took comfort from that vision, the first avowedly affirmative one we had heard from a President…
mikethemadbiologist | January 17, 2011As the ongoing assault against public sector employees continues, it's worth remembering why Martin Luther King was in Memphis when he was assassinated: he was supporting striking sanitation workers. Due to conservative revisionism, we seem to have forgotten the radicalism of King, that he detested both war and economic rampant inequality. There was much to King than the phrase "the content of their character." From a speech he gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18, 1968 (italics mine):
My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and…
pharyngula | January 13, 2011Back in the dim and ancient days of usenet, I used to take astrologers apart for fun. They had such goofy ideas, and they were so serious about it. But fortunately for us, astrology is unlike creationism in that it is mostly powerless and unpersuasive, and only the deeply gullible and ignorant can fall for it any more. And it's so darned inconsistent — even the rationale that forms the foundation of the belief doesn't hold up. I've tended to ignore the irrelevancies of astrology most of the time, but the Star Tribune had a short piece on astrology, and it's nicely dismissive — so I'll mention…
jdupuis | January 13, 2011Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure.
The Australian
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Independent
Bad Ideas?: An arresting history of our inventions: How Our Finest Inventions Nearly Finished Us Off by Robert M. L. Winston
Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society: 350 Years of the Royal Society and Scientific Endeavour by Bill Bryson
January Magazine
Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby
Here's Looking at Euclid: A…
kbonham | January 13, 2011Have you ever been wrong? Well then, this book is for you.
It's a trick question, because everyone is wrong all the time. A more detailed review after the jump, but the bottom line: read it.
I'm barely exaggerating when I say that reading Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error by Kathryn Shultz should be compulsory for anyone and everyone that ever that has ever thought they know the truth, which is to say everyone. Drawing from history, philosophy, science, current events and a smattering of personal reflection, Shultz takes us through what it means to be wrong, why we get things…
kbonham | January 10, 2011It might seem strange at first to use reflection on the recent shooting in Arizona to make a point about progressive politics, but it's absolutely compelling. Go read this, seriously:
Instead our shadow in this country is economic greed, and there is a constant pull to unfetter business, to disallow regulation, and to let business do the business of business no matter the social cost. I have no brief against business and economic activity. It is a human thing. It can be glorious. And, it has deep shadows, including the inclination for the rich to simply continue getting richer while the poor…
sastyk | January 7, 2011Just a reminder to everyone that we'll be starting Kurt Cobb's _Prelude_ on Monday. I have several people who have copies available for circulation, so if you'd like to read along with the group, please drop me an email at jewishfarmer@gmail.com and you'll get a copy in the mail, with only the requirement that you pass it on if more people want it! Kurt is going to be able to participate in our discussion as well! But first, I promised a discussion of sex and gender in The Witch of Hebron.
I said I'd write another post about _The Witch of Hebron_, this time explicitly addressing the sex…