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
March 4, 2008
Abel Pharmboy and Drugmonkey are having a conversation that I wish I could approach completely abstractly, about what parents ought to be telling their kids about drugs (whether legal or illegal) and their use. (Also, Page 3.14 has a reader's poll about whether teens can be scared off illegal…
March 3, 2008
A colleague of mine (who has time to read actual printed-on-paper newspapers in the morning) pointed me toward an essay by Andrew Vickers in the New York Times (22 January 2008) wondering why cancer researchers are so unwilling to share their data. Here's Vickers' point of entry to the issue:
[A]…
February 29, 2008
I recently received an email, prompted by my series about having a family and an academic career, asking for some input:
I am a mere first year in a Ph.D. program and am a bit older than the other students. I am wholeheartedly committed to the program I am also considering the seemingly traitorous…
February 29, 2008
At 6.5 and 8.5 years of age, the Free-Ride offspring sometimes seem more comfortable expressing their understanding of various ideas with drawings rather than just with words. I sometimes wonder where they pick up their visual vocabulary. For example, the younger Free-Ride offspring provides a…
February 28, 2008
All the cool kids were doing this particular round of navel-gazing yesterday and the day before, while I was either dreadfully ill and out of commission or somewhat better and working. (Today was also quite full of work stuff.) However, it's not an unimportant set of questions, and possibly you'…
February 27, 2008
Regular readers of this blog know that I am hoping to be on a sabbatical leave during academic year 2008-2009. Indeed, some of you have asked, "Where are you going to go?"
The answer:
My brand new desk at home.
As it turns out, it has been years since I've had a proper desk of my own at home.…
February 25, 2008
Coming on the heels of my basic concepts post about the norms of science identified by sociologist Robert K. Merton [1], and a follow-up post on values from the larger society that compete with these norms, this post will examine norms that run counter to the ones Merton identified that seem to…
February 23, 2008
There's another development in Aetogate, which you'll recall saw paleontologists William Parker, Jerzy Dzik, and Jeff Martz alleging that Spencer Lucas and his colleagues at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (NMMNHS) were making use of their work or fossil resources without…
February 23, 2008
A while back, I offered a basic concepts post that discussed the four norms identified by sociologist Robert K. Merton [1] as the central values defining the tribe of science. You may recall from that earlier post that the Mertonian norms of science are:
Universalism
"Communism"
Disinterestedness…
February 22, 2008
Seen in a comment on A Philosophy Job Market Blog:
... instead of writing "QED" at the end of proofs, I think we should all start writing "pwned." I want this change to be my legacy to philosophy.
February 22, 2008
In pondering the effects of nature versus nurture, the Free-Ride parents have become painfully aware that a large part of their offspring's environment is provided by the kids at school. This is how the sprogs came to be aware of the existence of The Disney Channel, whose offering seem to grate on…
February 19, 2008
Yesterday I published a post with suggestions for ways junior scientists could offer some push-back to ethical shenanigans by senior scientists in their field. While admittedly all of these were "baby-steps" kind of measures, the reactions in the comments are conveying a much grimmer picture of…
February 18, 2008
In the aftermath of my two posts on allegations of ethical lapses among a group of paleontologists studying aetosaurs, an email correspondent posed a really excellent question: what's a junior person to do about the misconduct of senior people in the field when the other senior people seem more…
February 16, 2008
Allegra Goodman's novel Intuition was published in 2006, and although I heard very good things about it, I was busy enough with other stuff that I didn't chase down a copy to read it. Finally, last November, my department chair lent me her copy, insistent that I had to read it when I got a chance…
February 15, 2008
Once again, Dave Ng at The World's Fair issues a challenge:
If you had to write your memoirs in 6 words, what would they be?
Writing that memoir today, here are mine:
Chemist. Philosopher. Parent. Blogger.
Grown-up? Someday.
Six words fit very nicely in the comments field -- what's your life…
February 15, 2008
Dr. Free-Ride: Do you guys have a view on which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Elder offspring: Do you mean the chicken or the chicken egg? Or just the egg the first chicken came out of?
Younger offspring: The first chicken came out of an egg, but it was an egg laid by some other kind of…
February 14, 2008
You've probably heard that UCLA scientist Edythe London, whose house was earlier vandalized to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by animal rights activists, has once again been targeted. This time an incendiary device was left on her front door.
Abel and Mark weighed in on this appalling…
February 12, 2008
"What is a disease?"
It would be nice to think that this is the kind of question where there are clear-cut, fact-based answers to be had. "Disease" is a term that seems to pick out a category of biological conditions, and biologists are pretty good with categorization.
A disease might be a…
February 12, 2008
Creek Running North » Am Spayed
Lapin noir.
(tags: rabbit)
Hope for Pandora: An Election Spoiler
The natural progression of primary season. (*Something* is rotten ...)
(tags: art science politics)
February 11, 2008
Today was the last day of the semester for students to add courses, and the last day to drop a course without it showing up on one's transcript was a week ago. (The order of these two dates, it seems to me, should be switched, but I don't make the rules around here.) In any event, enrollments for…
February 11, 2008
I'm passing on information about a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation for graduate students. The program, organized by the University of Montana Center for Ethics, is called Debating Science 2008, and here's how it's described on the announcement:
We are looking for graduate…
February 10, 2008
Hey, today is the third anniversary of my first post on "Adventures in Ethics and Science" at the original digs. I can honestly say that when I started the blog as a virtual extension of class discussions in my "Ethics in Science" I didn't imagine that it would continue past the end of the…
February 9, 2008
I hold in my hand a letter from our Provost informing me that my sabbatical leave for academic year 2008-2009 is awarded.
Of course, this is contingent on:
My actually getting tenure (something which will not be official, one way or another, until May 23).
My filing a promissory note (basically,…
February 8, 2008
Groundhog's Day
It's February again and what do you know -- the groundhog has made its appearance in school work!
It doesn't matter that the sprogs have discussed it before, the curriculum requires an annual reexamination of Punxsutawney Phil's predictive prowess.
Thankfully, there seems to be at…
February 7, 2008
In my earlier post, I described the feeling I had as I started my graduate training in chemistry that there was a huge pile of knowledge I would need to acquire to make the transition from science student to grown-up scientist. I should make it clear (in response to JSinger's comment that I seemed…
February 6, 2008
You may have been following the saga of intelligent design proponent Casey Luskin's use of the ResearchBlogging.org "Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research" icon in a way that didn't conform to the official guidelines for its use.
The short description on ResearchBlogging's mission says:
Research…
February 6, 2008
In the latest issue of The Scientist, there's an article (free registration required) by C. Neal Stewart, Jr., and J. Lannett Edwards, two biologists at the University of Tennessee, about how they came to teach a graduate course on research ethics and what they learned from the experience:
Both of…
February 5, 2008
I'm writing this post (and the posts following it, so the bites are of reasonable size) at the urging of Bill Hooker, with whom I've talked about these issues in real life.
The idea of becoming a grown-up in the scientific community is a thread that runs through a lot of my posts (and also guides…
February 5, 2008
The Questionable Authority : Blogging About Peer-Reviewed Research at the Discovery Institute.
Who knew Casey Luskin would swipe an icon an represent himself as living up to a standard he was clearly dodging? (Anyone who's been paying attention, of course.)
(tags: integrity)
Is this post…
February 4, 2008
As I was weighing in on aetosaurs and scientist on scientist nastiness, one of the people I was talking to raised the question of whether careerist theft and backstabbing of professional colleagues was especially bad in paleontology. (Meanwhile, a commenter expressed surprise that it wasn't just…