jstemwedel

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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.

Posts by this author

March 3, 2010
The semester must be in full swing, because suddenly I have an abundance of papers to grade. So I'm using a brief pause (between grading one stack of papers and grading another stack of papers) to share a grading-aid I just figured out at the end of last semester. Typically, by the time the stacks…
March 2, 2010
At Dot Physics, Rhett Allain discusses his philosophy about class meetings: Here is the point I am trying to make - class is for students. Class is not for me. Students pay for classes, so they should get them. Here is the other point. If a student chooses not to come to class, that is the student…
February 28, 2010
I take it that a good number of animal rights supporters feel that their position is philosophically well-grounded, intuitively appealing, and compatible with the flourishing of humans as well as of non-human animals. As such, I would argue that animal rights supporters can, and should, advance…
February 27, 2010
Earlier this week, I related a situation I found alarming in which a scientist and his children were targeted for harassment because he dared to express the view that research with animals plays an important role in answering scientific questions that matter to scientists and to the public. I was…
February 26, 2010
Younger offspring: Hey, look what I grew! Dr. Free-Ride: Wow, those are tall. Younger offspring: It's a bean plant. Dr. Free-Ride: I recognized the shape of the leaves. From the looks of it, you actually have more than one bean plant growing in there. Younger offspring: When it gets warmer, we…
February 24, 2010
We don't have to agree about whether animal research is ethical or scientifically valuable to agree that some tactics for pursuing your view are harmful to civil society. Bruins for Animals, the student organization at UCLA that was instrumental in organizing the recent dialogue about the science…
February 24, 2010
When I told you about the infuriating tactics extreme animal rights activists are turning against Dario Ringach for even daring to express his view that animal research can be important, a number of you asked in the comments, "What can we do besides signing petitions and writing blog posts?" David…
February 23, 2010
I need to share with you a situation that is infuriating. It's infuriating to me, and I believe it should be infuriating to anyone who values a civil society worth the name. Harassment drove UCLA neurobiologist Dario Ringach out of primate research in 2006. This was not just angry phone calls and…
February 22, 2010
From a recent article in the New York Times considering University of Alabama-Huntsville shooter Amy Bishop's scientific stature and finding it lacking, this comment on why so many denizens of the internet think they can understand why she did what she did: Why did people who knew Dr. Bishop only…
February 22, 2010
By email, a reader asks for advice on a situation in which the personal and the professional seem like they might be on a collision course: I am a junior at a small (< 2000 students) liberal arts college. I got recruited to be a TA for an upper division science class, and it's going swimmingly.…
February 20, 2010
MommyProf wonders whether some of the goings on in her department are ethical. She presents two cases. I'm going to look at them in reverse order. Case 2: Faculty member is tenure-track and he and I have collaborated on a paper. He was supposed to work on the literature, and sends me a…
February 19, 2010
As promised, here's the video of the February 16, 2010 panel discussion at UCLA about the science and ethics of animal-based research, sponsored by Bruins for Animals and Pro-Test for Science. UCLA Panel on Science and Ethics of Animal Research from Dario Ringach on Vimeo. The video runs for about…
February 19, 2010
Although I swear that the Free-Ride offspring have not read the relevant prior posts! While walking home from school: Younger offspring: From now on, in the sprog blogs, can you call me "the small, silent one"? Dr. Free-Ride: Why? You're neither small nor silent. Elder offspring: Definitely not…
February 18, 2010
The panel discussion took place, as planned, on the evening of Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at UCLA. The hall was well-populated, if not completely packed, with members of the UCLA community. (Honestly, for week 7 of a 10-week quarter, during a spell of lovely weather, I'm impressed they had such a…
February 16, 2010
On the post where I asked you what made you feel welcome to comment on blogs and polled you on what would make you unlikely to comment on a post, friend of the blog Eva notes in a comment: One of the bloggers at nature network is currently polling (silent) readers about what makes them not comment…
February 15, 2010
Abel has a thoughtful post on the horrific faculty meeting shooting at University of Alabama Huntsville this past Friday. New information seems to come out every few hours on the shooter, Dr. Amy Bishop, a biologist at the university who had been denied tenure, and I'm nowhere near ready to weigh…
February 14, 2010
Dr. Isis considers a downside to having coauthors and an ethical question it raises: Imagine a hypothetical postdoc that has just left graduate school, although this could easily be an assistant professor that has just left a postdoc. She has some minor publications either published or in press.…
February 13, 2010
I'm not looking for a general theory of what sets up the right room for dialogue as opposed to an argument, nor even for a fine grained analysis of whether dialogue or argument is what most blog readers and commenters are looking for. If you're reading this post, I'm interested in knowing what you…
February 12, 2010
Matthew C. Nisbet put up a post today titled The Right Room for a Dialogue: New Policy on Anonymous Comments. In it, he writes: I've long questioned the value of anonymous blogging or commenting. Much of the incivility online can be attributed to anonymity. And with a rare few exceptions, if you…
February 12, 2010
On account of Valentine's Day being right around the corner, and inspired by Sheril's almost-through-the-edits book on the science of kissing, I thought I'd ask the Free-Ride offspring (now 8.5 and 10.5 years old) whether they had any questions about kissing that they thought science might be able…
February 11, 2010
Following DrugMonkey's lead, I'm going to play along on the meme proposed by Female Science Professor: What tradition or other general characteristic of academia would you like to see eliminated completely? According to the rules, which I just invented, the things to be eliminated have to be of a…
February 10, 2010
Earlier today, I had this conversation with my better half. Dr. Free-Ride's better half: (with a look of deep concern) So, I saw something in your post today. Dr. Free-Ride: Oh? (Wondering if a heinous typo got through cursory attempts at editing) Dr. Free-Ride's better half: Yes. Dr. Free-Ride:…
February 10, 2010
Five years ago today, I put up the first post on a blog that was mean to capture the overflow of discussions and ideas from my "Ethics in Science" class. Back then, I wasn't entirely sure that I'd manage to maintain the blog through the end of the semester. It just goes to show you that you can't…
February 9, 2010
Here are some of the thoughts and questions that stayed with me from this session. (Here are my tweets from the session and the session's wiki page.) The session was led by John McKay and Eric Michael Johnson. John posted the text of his presentation and Eric posted his presentation a la YouTube…
February 8, 2010
Here are some of the thoughts and questions that stayed with me from this session. (Here are my tweets from the session and the session's wiki page.) This was sort of an odd session for me -- not so much because of the topics taken up by session leaders Tamara Krinsky and Jennifer Ouellette, but…
February 5, 2010
In my earlier post about the findings of the Penn State inquiry committee looking into allegations of research misconduct against Michael Mann, I mentioned that the one allegation that was found to merit further investigation may have broad implications for how the public understands what good…
February 5, 2010
The elder Free-Ride offspring is lobbying to try an experiment this weekend. The working title of the protocol is "homemade soda*" but I suspect it may be described differently in the final report. Dr. Free-Ride: Tell me about the experiment that you proposed to your teacher. Elder Free-Ride…
February 4, 2010
Remember "ClimateGate", that well-publicized storm of controversy that erupted when numerous email messages from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) webserver at the University of East Anglia were stolen by hackers and widely distributed? One of the events set in motion by ClimateGate was a formal…
February 3, 2010
Here are some of the thoughts and questions that stayed with me from this session. (Here are my tweets from the session and the session's wiki page.) Among other things, this panel took up the article panelist Lindsey Hoshaw wrote about the garbage patch for the New York Times and some of the…
February 3, 2010
Recently in my inbox, I found a request for advice unlike any I'd received before. Given the detail in the request, I don't trust myself to paraphrase it. As you'll see, I've redacted the names of the people, university, and government agency involved. I have, however, kept the rest of the query…