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
February 3, 2008
By way of Abel and DrugMonkey (among others), I see that today is Blogroll Amnesty Day. Jon Swift has the must-read post on the origins of the day and what it means now:
The idea that links are the capital of the blogosphere seems so obvious that you would think an economist like Atrios of…
February 3, 2008
Christina's LIS Rant: Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
What's at stake in deciding whether to blog under a pseudonym or under your real name?
(tags: blogosphere)
Hope for Pandora: Double Dipping
What's worse than mouth bacteria? Hand bacteria. (Do you know where those…
February 2, 2008
Via Greg Laden, I see that there is now some research to support our primal revulsion toward double-dippers:
Last year the food microbiologist's [Clemson University professor Paul L. Dawson] undergraduate students examined the effects of double dipping using volunteers, wheat crackers and several…
February 2, 2008
Good Math, Bad Math : Idiot Math Professors, Fractions, and the Fun of Math
What good is it to master the mechanics of arithmetic if you don't understand it?
(tags: education math)
February 1, 2008
In response to my earlier post on the allegations of ethical lapses among a group of paleontologists studying aetosaurs, a reader sent me a message posted to a public mailing list of vertebrate paleontologists. The message gives a glimpse of an attitude toward others in one's professional…
February 1, 2008
Revere already flagged this story, but I'm going to try to move beyond the forehead slapping to some analysis of why a journal's confidentiality rules might matter. (I'll leave it to Bill, Bora, Jean-Claude, and their posse to explain how a thoroughgoing shift to "open science" might make such…
February 1, 2008
Elder offspring: Do you know why eggs are egg-shaped?
Younger offspring: Because they're eggs?
Dr. Free-Ride: Indeed, it would probably be surprising if eggs, of all things, weren't egg-shaped.
Elder offspring: (sighing) What I meant was, do you know why eggs have the particular oval shape that…
January 31, 2008
A recent news item by Rex Dalton in Nature [1] caught my attention. From the title ("Fossil reptiles mired in controversy") you might think that the aetosaurs were misbehaving. Rather, the issue at hand is whether senior scientists at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science were…
January 30, 2008
Laelaps : I don't quite get the same impression...
The science blogosphere may not be so "bloggy" as other quarters (at least, given one stereotype of blogginess).
(tags: blogosphere)
The Voltage Gate : Defining Bloggers by Medium
Maybe not being stereotypically "bloggy" is a good thing (not…
January 29, 2008
Since much of what I write about the responsible conduct of research takes them for granted, it's time that I wrote a basic concepts post explaining the norms of science famously described by sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1942. [1] Before diving in, here's Merton's description:
The ethos of…
January 25, 2008
PZ tagged me with a teaching meme. The question is "Why do you teach and why is academic freedom critical to that effort?"
Unlike PZ, I knew I had a thing for teaching long before I had a clue what discipline I would end up pursuing. (My first official paycheck for a teaching gig was issued in…
January 25, 2008
A bath-time conversation:
Younger offspring: The water is pretty warm.
Dr. Free-Ride: Is it too hot? I could add some more cold water.
Younger offspring: No, it's good. I'm just going to ooze in, like a snail oozing into its shell.
Dr. Free-Ride: Because easing in would be too conventional.
Five…
January 24, 2008
Via Bint Alshamsa, this is a version of a "social class awareness experience" used in the residence halls (and possibly also classrooms?) at Indiana State University by Will Barratt et al. In the classroom, students are asked to take a step forward for each of the statements that describe them;…
January 23, 2008
Maybe you saw the story in the New York Times about new research that may show that ingesting too much caffeine while pregnant increases the chances of miscarriage. And, if you're like me, one of the first things you did was try to track down the actual research paper discussed in the newspaper…
January 23, 2008
One of the things that came out of the discussion of the ethics of blogging about science at the 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference was a clear sense that we don't yet have general agreement about what kinds of ethics should guide science blogging -- in part, because we haven't come to an…
January 23, 2008
It's been pretty quiet here. Not only have I been engrossed in preparations for the Spring semester (classes start today), but I also went to the 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference. So it seems like a good time to ruminate a bit on how conferences fit into the patterns of (my) academic life.
The…
January 18, 2008
Walking to school on a cold morning:
Elder offspring: I'm going to steal your warmth!
Dr. Free-Ride: Oh really?
Elder offspring sticks hands in Dr. Free-Ride's coat pockets, where Dr. Free-Ride's hands are.
Elder offspring: Brrr! Your hands are really cold!
Dr. Free-Ride: Yes, they are. Mwah ha…
January 12, 2008
The Republic of T. » Blog-Related Stress Disorder
An interesting discussion about how what we think we need to do for our readers or our connection to the blogosphere can create stress for us and impinge on our non-virtual lives.
(tags: blogosphere)
As a Favor to Me, Do This Favor For Ben «…
Research with vulnerable populations: considering the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (part 2).
January 11, 2008
In an earlier post, I looked at a research study by Nelson et al. [1] on how the cognitive development of young abandoned children in Romania was affected by being raised in institutional versus foster care conditions. Specifically, I examined the explanation the researchers gave to argue that…
January 11, 2008
Last Friday, the Free-Ride family was visiting friends in Santa Barbara. It was a very rainy day, so we decided that a trip to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History made more sense than a hike or a trip to the beach.
Within minutes of our arrival, there was an announcement that a planetarium…
January 10, 2008
Saying you've seen everything is just asking the universe to do you one better. So I won't. Still, this story nearly required grubbing around the floor on my hands and knees to find the location to which my jaw had dropped:
Bogus university scam uncovered
Investigation
By Nigel Morris
BBC London…
January 10, 2008
"Why don't they make a birth control pill for men?"
There are important considerations from medical ethics that might explain why a birth control pill for men has not happened yet.
You'd think that there would be an ethical impetus for the development of a birth control pill for men, given that…
January 10, 2008
Creek Running North » If there is hope, it dies with the trolls
Excellent discussion about responsibilities within comment threads -- potentially useful for my Science Blogging Conference session.
(tags: blogosphere communication)
The Missing Link
Monthly history of science podcasts! Cool…
Research with vulnerable populations: considering the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (part 1).
January 9, 2008
The Neurocritic alerted me, in a comment on an earlier post, to a pair of papers in the 21 December 2007 issue of Science that raise some difficult ethical questions about what sorts of research are permissible. Quoth the Neurocritic:
This may be a little off-topic, but I was wondering if you…
January 9, 2008
see jane in the academy: one by one.
An interesting addition to the tenure dossier: a public talk on one's research.
(tags: academia tenure)
Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog: "As a profession, is philosophy in a better or worse state than it was in 1997?"
I think the philosophers quoted have…
January 8, 2008
Regular readers of this blog know that I teach an ethics class aimed at science majors, in which I have a whole semester to set out ethical considerations that matter when you're doing science. There's a lot to cover, so the pace is usually more breakneck than leisurely.
Still, it's rather more…
January 8, 2008
Matt Thurling on the concept of science.TV « Pimm - Partial immortalization
"Science" seems to mean very things to scientists and non-scientists, which complicates the project of communicating about science.
(tags: science-communication)
Recognition and Alleviation of Distress in Laboratory…
January 7, 2008
Happy 2008! Let the bullets commence:
*I am now to the point of totally refusing to acknowledge this interstitial period between semesters as a proper break. Far too much of it has already been taken up with matters from last term, and there's no end of that in sight. Meanwhile, certain details…
January 4, 2008
Younger offspring: In the summer, we went to Yosemite and stayed in a cabin. We had to be really careful about bears. We couldn't leave any food outside at all -- not even a food wrapper in the car, because sometimes bears get into cars if they think they smell food.
Elder offspring: We also had…
December 31, 2007
There are less than seven hours left in 2007 as I write this post, and as yet, my better half and I have no idea what we're doing tonight.
If we manage to get out, chances are good that a cover band may be involved.
In general, cover bands aren't really my thing, but every now and then a cover…