Janet D. Stemwedel
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
jstemwedel
Posts by this author
Today is Ada Lovelace Day.
Regular readers of this blog may recall that I am a tremendous Luddite. Obviously, this should not be taken to mean I am against all technological advances across the board (as here I am, typing on a computer, preparing a post that will be published using blogging…
Protocol Breach Reported in Biederman Study of Preschoolers - Health Blog - WSJ
How big a protocol breach is "too big"? And what kind of "expectations" should a physician-scientist entertain before a clinical trial commences?
(tags: medicine research-with-humans ethics)
jfleck at inkstain »…
Some commenters on my last post seem to be of the view that it is perfectly fine for scientists to pull numbers out of thin air to bolster their claims, at least under some circumstances.
I think it's a fair question to ask: In which circumstances are you comfortable giving scientists the go-ahead…
When scientists make claims with numbers they have clearly pulled out of thin air. For example:
Ultimately, success is only about 0.01% based on 'strategies' like those espoused on this blog, and 99.99% on simply doing good science and explaining a good plan well.
Is commenter Dave making a…
As Friday was the first day of spring (for my hemisphere, anyway), I went out to the back yard to survey the local level of springiness.
I didn't make a quantitative measure of the spring constant, but qualitatively, things seem to be on their way.
The pink jasmine is starting to bloom:
Its…
This week at Bloggingheads.tv, PalMD and I have a chat about science, ethics, and alternative medicine. Plus, we have a little disagreement about what constitutes paternalism.
Go watch!
Today I decided to play with some chemicals I ordered to try to spherify V-8. It's the molecular gastronomy thing where you mix a liquid with sodium alginate, then drip it into an aqueous solution of calcium chloride to get the juice-alginate mixture to gel, forming a skin around a liquid center.…
It's a proud day for any parent when offspring start getting interested in formal proofs. So I felt a little thrill when the elder Free-Ride offspring sat down with Dr. Free-Ride's better half to consider whether it was possible for there to be a largest prime number:
:
Not just a proof, people…
This Friday marks the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Accordingly, in SprogCast #5, the elder Free-Ride offspring marks the change of season by describing a local release of trout-fry.
You can download the sound file and pretend that the bathtub sounds are the gentle tides of the…
Everyday Practice of Science: Where Intuition and Passion Meet Objectivity and Logic.
by Frederick Grinnell
Oxford University Press
2009
Scientists are not usually shy when it comes to voicing their frustration about the public's understanding of how science works, or about the deficits in that…
The younger Free-Ride offspring's admiration for and appreciation of the work of Jonathan Coulton continues unabated.
In fact, JoCo songs have become the subject of painstaking drawings that the younger Free-Ride hopes Mr. Coulton might encounter while Googling himself (as one does).
The latest…
Over at Neurotopia, SciCurious has a fabulous post on the question of who is a scientist. Her discussion really teases out a lot of important nuances, and I think her analysis is spot on.
I'm going to add my two cents simply to connect Sci's discussion with an issue I've pondered before: the…
Orac takes issue with a pair of posts I wrote yesterday about the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). I gather he thinks I've been far too trusting as far as the information provided on the NCCAM website, and that I'm misrepresenting the issues the critics of NCCAM…
In my last post, I started wading into the question of what kinds of ethical questions arise from clinical trials on "alternative" medical treatments, especially clinical trials supported by the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The ethical questions include…
A little while ago, PalMD put up a post at Whitecoat Underground about the current state of the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), especially at a moment in history when the federal government is spending loads of money (and thus maybe should be on the lookout for…
I'm couching the question in terms of the academic milieu, but I suspect people in other types of organizations face a similar kind of choice.
Behind door #1:
The micro-manager from Hell is in a position such that you have to interact directly with him/her. Your good ideas, your empirical grip on…
One of the jellies we saw during our February visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium is especially important to biologists. The crystal jelly (Aequorea victoria) is not only an interesting critter in its own right, but also serves as a source of green fluorescent protein (GFP), used to mark genes.…
Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde: Science would be so great, if it weren't for other people
Trying valiantly to avoid getting scooped.
(tags: science-communication tribe-of-science)
Need to Keep My Mouth Shut « Transient Reporter
The trouble you can get into by voicing enthusiasm.
(tags: science-…
We've been watching some episodes of Blue Planet here, marveling at the beautiful cinematography, as well as at how emotionally gripping they can be.
Especially in the Frozen Seas episode, I found myself feeling almost wrung out by the dramatic roller-coaster. This is definitely nature red in…
Here are my entries to the ScienceBlogs Pi Day Bake-off:
End-of-winter fruit pie
Apples and amaretto-soaked dried fruit in a nut crust. Dense and rich.
'I want to taste springtime!' violet custard pie
Delicate, creamy, and a little bit fantastic (seeing as how it requires harvesting petals from…
Of all the Pi Day pies I have offered to you here, I'm pretty sure this one is my favorite. It has a fabulous mix of flavors (sparingly sweet chocolate, almonds, a hint of cinnamon) and textures (creamy custard in a crisp meringue shell).
And, since people have been telling be that pi are squared…
This week, in SprogCast #4, the younger Free-Ride offspring sings and then suggests that the song bears on the planetary subject of the very first Friday Sprog Blogging entry, which also involved singing.
You can download the sound file for the a cappella performance and the discussion that follows…
Oh. Boo. Hoo. at Kindly Póg Mo Thóin
Babies through the lens of tort law, where the Last Clear Chance displays a gendered asymmetry.
(tags: law reproduction gender)
Anonymous Blogging Guide | Citizen Media Law Project
Includes section on legal protections for anonymous speech.
(tags: law…
Saturday is Pi Day, and I figure we need at least one dinner pie to precede the parade of dessert pies currently on hand. (It's the whole parental responsibility thing. I do not judge adults who eat dessert pie for breakfast, trust me!)
Since the Free-Ride household is vegetarian, the pie Wilkins…
The headlines bring news of another scientist (this time a physician-scientist) caught committing fraud, rather than science. This story is of interest in part because of the scale of the deception -- not a paper or two, but perhaps dozens -- and in part because the scientist's area of research,…
Given that we have an enthusiastic lemon tree, a lemon pie for Pi Day was inevitable. The kind of berries you use will change the character of the finished pie. My recommendation is to go with berries that are fresh and as local as you can get them.
Gingersnap crust:
Pulverize 6-8 ounces of…
In an op-ed by Tim Rutten in today's Los Angeles Times:
No sensible person dismisses the humane treatment of animals as inconsequential, but what the fanatics propose is not an advance in social ethics. To the contrary, it is an irrational intrusion into civil society, a tantrum masquerading as a…
Rhubarb seems to be one of those foods that people either love or hate. I love it, but I didn't feel like using it for strawberry-rhubarb pie, the pie that introduced me to rhubarb.
Instead, I decided to make a pie whose filling is essentially a rhubarb fool. The pie itself is easy to prepare,…
Again, at UCLA, a researcher has become the target of violence at the hands of animal rights activists.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the firebombing of a vehicle owned by a UCLA neuroscientist who was targeted by an anti-animal research group…
The wet weather in these parts led to an almost (but not quite) predictable cancellation of soccer games on the weekend that we were supposed to provide snacks. This means I ended up staring at a surplus of navel oranges and thinking, "What am I going to do with these?"
Marmalade presented itself…