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 26, 2007
On the post in which I resorted to flowcharts to try to unpack people's claims about the process involved in building scientific knowledge, Torbjörn Larsson raised a number of concerns:
The first problem I have was with "belief". I have seen, and forgotten, that it is used in two senses in…
February 24, 2007
Jim Gibbon has opened voting on his academic haiku contest. I urge you to check out all the 17-syllable distillations of scholarly works, but especially those in the physical sciences category.
Two of those haikus are mine. (Technically, one of them ought to be in the humanities category, but I…
February 24, 2007
This is another attempt to get to the bottom of what's bugging people about the case of Marcus Ross, Ph.D. in geosciences and Young Earth Creationist. Here, I've tried to distill the main hypotheticals from my last post on the issue into flowcharts*, in the hopes that this will make it easier for…
February 23, 2007
It willl be no surprise to regular readers on this blog that the Free-Ride offspring like books. At this point, it is even possible that their books outnumber their parents' books, which is almost alarming. (Please send compact shelving and a librarian who can break out some Dewey Decimal on our…
February 22, 2007
Following up on my query about what it would take for a Young Earth Creationist "to write a doctoral dissertation in geosciences that is both 'impeccable' in the scientific case it presents and intellectually honest," I'm going to say something about the place of belief in the production of…
February 21, 2007
By now, you may have heard (via Pharyngula, or Sandwalk, or the New York Times) about Marcus Ross, who was recently granted a Ph.D. in geosciences by the University of Rhode Island. To earn that degree, he wrote a dissertation (which his dissertation advisor described as "impeccable") about the…
February 20, 2007
Score another point for my mother.
My mother is a really good cook. She is also an unrepentant violator of recipes. My earliest cookbook related memory involves noticing that, while Mom had a recipe in front of her, she was flagrantly measuring different amounts of ingredients than those called…
February 19, 2007
Yesterday, while transporting the sprogs to Science Scouts aquatic training maneuvers, I caught a few minutes of a City Arts & Lectures interview with Lewis Black. In the part of the interview I heard, Black discussed his efforts (over the course of eight years) to make it as a playwright, and…
February 16, 2007
Both Free-Ride offspring are charter members of the Order of the Science Scouts Special Children's Auxiliary. They have not, as yet, built their own fire, either in a fire pit or a laboratory. However, a discussion this week about the strange vapor seen emanating from a car's tailpipe one morning…
February 14, 2007
Yes, Valentine's Day is in the top three Hallmark holidays of the year. No, it is not a holiday actually created by Hallmark, despite what half a dozen people have independently asserted to me in the last 48 hours. I am appalled that the commercialization of this holiday has people keeping score…
February 12, 2007
Scientists move through the world without needing badges to indicate their various achievements.This does not mean, however, that scientists might not want badges. If scientists all wore sashes of badges over their lab coats, it might well facilitate communication by letting them determine the…
February 11, 2007
I figured it was time I weighed in on a basic concept from chemistry, so let's talk about what defines an element.
As far as chemists are concerned, the world is made up of atoms and various assemblies and modifications thereof. Those atoms and modifications of atoms are, in turn, made up of…
February 10, 2007
In my basic concepts post on theory testing, I set out what I take to be a fairly standard understanding of "theory" in philosophy of science discussions:
... a theory is a group of hypotheses that make claims about what kind of entities there are and how those entities change over time and…
February 9, 2007
Last weekend, the sprogs and I were delighted to attend a late Australia Day/early Darwin Day party. Our hosts apologized for "not having much interesting kid-stuff" on hand. Little did they suspect that the abundance of cookies (not just ANZAC cookies, but rolled ginger and lemon cookies in the…
February 8, 2007
Uttered by my dean as an intense, two hour long committee meeting was adjourning:
"There's a lot of untapped administrative talent in this room."
Help!
February 8, 2007
As part of my graduate coursework in chemistry, I took a biophysical chemistry course from Professor Wray Huestis -- not because my research was in biophysical chemistry, but because I was curious. Possibly my best move ever in choosing my classes, since she gave us one of the smartest and most…
February 7, 2007
I'm following up on yesterday's post on where scientists learn how to write (and please, keep those comments coming).
First, Chad Orzel has a nice post about how he learned to write like a scientist. It involves torturing drafts on the rack, and you owe it to yourself to read it.
Second, I'll be…
February 6, 2007
During my office hours today, a student asked me whether, when I was a chemistry student, the people teaching me chemistry also took steps to teach me how to write. (The student's experience, in an undergraduate major in a scientific field I won't name here, was that the writing intesive course…
February 6, 2007
Dave Munger tagged me with a meme about (among other things) the effect blogging has had on my life. The questions seem worthy of relection, so I'm game:
What have you learned so far from visitors to your blog? I've learned that there are a lot of people who aren't paid to "think for a living"…
February 5, 2007
I'm a little cautious about adding this to the basic concepts list, given that my main point here is going to be that things are not as simple as you might guess. You've been warned.
We've already taken a look at what it means for a claim to be falsifiable. Often (but not always), when scientists…
February 3, 2007
In a guest-post at Asymptotia, Sabine Hossenfelder suggests some really good reasons for scientists to communicate with non-scientists -- and not just to say, "Give us more research funding and we'll give you an even smaller iPod." She really gets to the heart of what's at stake:
I find it kind…
February 3, 2007
During the discussion after my talk at the Science Blogging Conference, the question came up (and was reported here) of whether and when tenure and promotion committees at universities will come to view the blogging activities of their faculty members with anything more positive than suspicion.…
February 2, 2007
Last night, while tucking the Free-Ride offspring into bed:
Dr. Free-Ride: Tomorrow is Groundhog's Day.
Elder offspring: I really hope the groundhog doesn't see his shadow this year so we can have an early spring.
Younger offspring: Yay! Spring could start tomorrow!
Dr. Free-Ride: Hold on now, "…
February 1, 2007
The faculty where I teach is at a bargaining impasse with the administration of our university system over our contracts. We are hoping that the administration will come back to the table for a real negotiation*, but in the event that that doesn't happen, there are plans for a system-wide "rolling…
January 31, 2007
I simply cannot accept the final judgment in Bravo's Top Chef (season 2). Marcel should have won.
Sure, I didn't actually taste the two meals. But simply on the basis of innovation (especially given that the panel of judges seemed to have really good things to say about the flavors of both meals…
January 31, 2007
Here's another basic concept for the list: what does it mean for a claim to be falsifiable, and why does falsifiability matter so much to scientists and philosophers of science?
Actually, it's not just falsifiable claims that the science crowd cares about, but also falsifiable theories. Let's…
January 30, 2007
There's been some blogospheric blowout (see here, here, and here for just a taste) about a recent PETA ad that many viewers find gratuitously sexist. To me, the ad and the reaction to it are most interesting because they raise a larger issue about how we promote our values and how we choose our…
January 29, 2007
As my first contribution to the growing list of basic terms and concepts, I'm going to explain a few things no one asked about when I opened the request line. But, these are ideas that are crucial building blocks for things people actually did ask about, like falsifiability and critical thinking,…
January 29, 2007
Since classes for our Spring semester started just last Wednesday, my approach to the university this morning (from freeway exit to parking garage) involved a huge line of cars, creeping very slowly. It also involved campus police directing the movement of long lines of cars at what is, in normal…
January 27, 2007
I took the quiz to find out which science fiction writer I am, and this is the result:
I am:John Brunner
His best known works are dystopias -- vivid realizations of the futures we want to avoid.
Which science fiction writer are you?
Is this a good thing? Is this something that seems consistent…