Social Sciences
laelaps | June 5, 2008As I've been working on my book on evolution I've been posting updates about my progress (most of those updates can be found here), and I am certainly pleased to note that reactions have generally been positive. I am truly grateful for all the support I've received from readers, fellow bloggers, writers, and friends, the encouragement definitely motivating me to keep working. I have received some critical comments, however, and I feel that one in particular requires a detailed response. Responding to my last update, commenter James wrote;
Brian, what are you thinking? You don't even have an…
drorzel | June 4, 2008
Christian Demand: Inflated phrases - signandsight
"Texts on art rarely explain what they profess to explain; they simply simulate the explainability of their theories."
(tags: art culture humanities)
Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 and 2003 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2006
"This First Look presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) spring 2007 data collection, which included four components: Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 & 2003 Cohorts;…
jstemwedel | June 2, 2008Following up on the post in which I examined how the SVP Ethics Education Committee responded to the allegations of unethical conduct that have come to be known as "Aetogate," this post will discuss what the committee identifies as the "lessons learned" from this investigation. Once again, I'll be drawing from the Statement from the Executive Committee (PDF). The third post will consider the "best practices" (PDF) proposed by the committee.
The Statement from the Executive Committee enumerates seven "lessons learned," couching these in terms of ways "these conflict might have been avoided…
laelaps | June 2, 2008My time writing was cut a little short this weekend (my wife rescued me from the doldrums by suggesting we take a late-night trip to the beach) but I still was able to flesh out the sections dealing with the early history of paleoanthropology. I have the feeling that I'm going to have to edit both down (I'm already at the 19 page mark for the chapter and I haven't even gotten to A. afarensis yet, much less Orrorin and Sahelanthropus) but I'm going to leave that for another time. Indeed, the human evolution chapter may end up splitting into two at some point as there is so much material to…
terrasig | May 31, 2008Our quick post yesterday cited Jonathan Alter's Newsweek essay this week on the sad state of cancer research funding in the context of Hamilton Jordan's recent death and Ted Kennedy's recent glioblastoma diagnosis. Like many areas of US federal research funding, cancer research support has been flat under the Bush administration and, in fact, declined in real dollars since 2004.
But when one hears a federally-funded researcher like me whining about this situation, one might think I am solely acting in a self-serving fashion, caring only about the preservation of my career and that of my…
jstemwedel | May 30, 2008Over at Philosopher's Playground, Steve Gimbel asks why the philosophy of chemistry is such a recent discipline given how long there has been serious activity in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of physics.
He floats a few possible answers -- as it happens, the same options those of us who actually do philosophy of chemistry encounter fairly regularly. After responding briefly to these possible reasons for thinking that there shouldn't be a distinct philosophy of chemistry, I'll offer a brief sketch of what a philosophy of chemistry might be about.*
(1) There are no big questions…
sb admin | May 30, 2008A study just published in the journal PLoS Medicine (and written up in the LA Times) suggests a link between childhood lead exposure and adult arrests for violent crimes. Studying 250 adults for whom they had prenatal and childhood blood lead level measurements, University of Cincinnati researchers found that each 5-microgram-per-deciliter increase in blood lead levels at age 6 was associated with a nearly 50% increased risk of arrest as a young adult (the risk ratio was 1.48).
The good news is that overall, U.S. childrenâs blood lead levels have dropped dramatically since manufacturers…
aardvarchaeology | May 29, 2008Me and Junior just got home from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. First we were shown the portrait collection and the main meeting room where a lot of Nobel prizes have been decided. Then, under the joint auspices of the Academy and the Swedish Skeptics Society, we heard an hour's lecture by one of the Society's long-time members: astronaut Christer Fuglesang.
It was a good talk in plain Swedish, ranging from abstruse physics to everyday practicalities of life in space. (If you lose something small inside a space station, just wait a day or two and then look for it near the intake of…
drorzel | May 28, 2008A little while back, Matthew Hughes offered a free copy of his forthcoming novel Template to online reviewers via his web site. I wasn't able to read it fast enough to get in on James Nicoll's review-a-thon, but I finished it a few days ago.
Template is set in the same basic world as Majestrum, a human civilization many millennia in the future, where Old Earth is ruled by an Archonate, and the high aristocrats have worked so hard to refine their perception of rank and status that they have difficulty even noticing the presence of ordinary citizens.
The new book doesn't start off on Old Earth…
drorzel | May 27, 2008
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Academe and Parenting
"Part of the problem, I think, is the potentially infinite demands of the job. How much time does it take, per week, to prep and grade a typical class?"
(tags: academia kid-stuff society culture education)
The Traveling Taps Brigade - washingtonpost.com
""[F]aking taps just isn't good enough," Baldo said. "We're talking about people who served and sacrificed for our country. They should be buried with dignity and honor."
(tags: society culture war music)
Basics - New Curriculum Designed to Unite Art and Science - NYTimes.com…
hrynyshyn | May 26, 2008I love Alaska. I really do. Not the political jurisdiction; the geographical entity that Michelle shocked felt compelled to remind her fans is the largest in the union. It's full of spectacular, mostly pristine wilderness. There's Denali, the fjords of the panhandle, its salmon, whales, eagles and bears, incomparable glaciers and some of the best aurora viewing on the planet. Too bad, then, that its human population seems hell-bent on doing everything it can to destroy what makes the place special.
The latest affront to reason to emerge from Alaska comes in the form of a lawsuit challenging…
clock | May 25, 2008A couple of days have passed and I had a lot of work-related stuff to catch up with, but I thought I better write a recap now while the iron is still hot and I remember it all. Here we go....
Surprise #1 Last time I went to a SRBR meeting (or for that matter any scientific meeting) was in 2002. I started my first blog in 2004. I started writing about science, specifically about Chronobiology, in January of 2005.
Before last week's meeting I knew of one chronobiologist who reads my blog regularly. I knew of one other chronobiologist who contacted me to ask to use some of the material for…
sa smith | May 25, 2008During last weeks Battle of the Titans, I got several comments and emails from readers with the same question:
Where do these kooks come from? How do you go from being a PhD, or MD, or DDS, and turn into a complete whackjob?
Well, I cant say what Horowitzs deal is. That is the job of a mental health professional. And it would be rather pretentious of me to talk about the sociological/educational/cultural forces behind HIV Denialism in Africa/homosexual community/society at large. I could guess, but thats not my specialty either.
What I can comment on is how science/scientists operate, and…
drorzel | May 23, 2008
Easily Distracted » Blog Archive » In My Day...
"[I]t would help, if you want to complain about the declining quality of the humanities, to not be a historical dunderhead on a fantastic scale, to demonstrate some degree of erudition."
(tags: academia humanities history society culture education)
sb admin | May 23, 2008By Sarah Vogel
On Wednesday, May 14 the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing on Plastics Additives in Consumer Products to discuss the safety of two chemical compounds, bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, in consideration of new legislation and calls for regulatory reform. Both of these chemicals are used in plastics production and have long been known to be endocrine disruptors. In response to mounting evidence of the harmful health effects of BPA at very low doses of exposure, some manufacturers, the Canadian government, the State of California, and now…
tfk | May 22, 2008Former congressman Jim Ryun's baby boy Ned opines on marriage equality in California. He calls for state and federal constitutional amendments, saying:
if the other side on this debate wants to push their agenda down our throats thru the judicial system, we push back.
But what, exactly, is being pushed down his throat? How does it affect him whether a gay couple has the right to call themselves husbands or wives, or to get the benefits afforded to married heterosexual couples?
We can set aside the various anti-constitutional blathering about how courts shouldn't overturn laws that have…
cortex | May 21, 2008Iceland, apparently, is the happiest country on earth:
Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index…
edyong | May 20, 2008
In the late 19th century, asbestos became a building material of choice. Resistant to heat, electricity and corrosion, it found many uses including home insulation, brake pads and ship-building. By the time that the first health problems were reported, the material was commonplace. In the UK, the material was only restricted in 1983 after thousands of people were exposed during the post-war era. The result is a latent epidemic of related diseases including a rare type of cancer called mesothelioma, which is becoming more common and is only expected to peak in incidence over the next…
clock | May 20, 2008Fifth in the five-part series on clocks in bacteria, covering more politics than biology (from May 17, 2006):
In the previous posts in this series, I covered the circadian clocks in Synechococcus, potential circadian clocks in a couple of other bacteria, and the presence of clock genes (thus potentially clocks) in a number of other bacteria. But what happened to the microbiological workhorse, the Escherichia coli? Does it have a clock? Hasn't anyone checked?
Believe it or not, this question is colored by politics. But I have to give you a little background first. Latter half of the 19th…
drorzel | May 19, 2008Kevin Drum wades into a discussion over a claim that religion leads to happiness (started by Will Wilkinson and picked up by Ross Douthat), and offers an alternate theory for why religious people are happier in America by unhappier in Europe:
This is way outside my wheelhouse, but here's another possibility: Europe has suffered through centuries of devastating religious wars that didn't end until fairly recently. If you live in Western Europe, there's a pretty good chance that you associate strong religiosity with death, destruction, and massive societal grief, not with church bake sales. So…