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
July 7, 2006
Younger offspring: If we lived near a stegosaurus's house and a tyrannosaurus's house --
Dr. Free-Ride: Did they really live in houses?
Younger offspring: If they lived in houses, their houses would be really big, and if we lived near them, they would be so big that they would scare us to another…
July 6, 2006
From Inside Higer Ed, there are reports that the end of regular increases in NIH funding (such that there will soon be a double-digit decline in the purchasing power of the NIH budget) are stressing out university researchers and administrators:
At Case Western Reserve University, a decline in NIH…
July 6, 2006
You know the thing about holiday weekends and kids? You end up feeling like you need some kind of vacation -- and here's the work week again. Wheeee!
Here are some of the things I've been reading and thinking about while trying to piece together enough continguous space-time bits to craft a…
July 3, 2006
Welcome to Philosophers' Carnival #32, a monthly blogospheric showcase of philosophical musings.
As you wander through the exhibit tents, experience the wonders created by minds with time to ponder (and keyboards with which to capture that pondering). Please remember that unused game tickets are…
July 2, 2006
Between the moment the drive kicked off on June 15 and the moment it closed last night, here's what generous ScienceBlogs readers accomplished:
195 of you made donations.
Together, those donations added up to $16,097.27.
You also helped 4 of the 19 challenges meet their goals, securing an…
July 1, 2006
The Evolgen bloggers challenge has been meet. More science for the kids!
Three more challenges may still be do-able and there are 7.5 hours left. Tell a friend.
July 1, 2006
The Questionable Authority bloggers challenge has been meet. Children in the Bronx will be getting their science on!
Four more challenges are in striking range and there are 11.5 hours left. Go the distance!
July 1, 2006
The Stranger Fruit bloggers challenge has been completed!
Now on to the other five that are still in reach. You're on a roll!
July 1, 2006
ScienceBlogs readers have raised $14,913.09 to help science teachers get the materials they need for engaging explorations of magnets, marine biology, electricity, and evolution. You've helped fund classroom equipment and field trips. You've helped stack the deck toward a future where fewer…
June 30, 2006
First I saw it at Feministe, and then at Pandagon, so I had to try the face recognition program that matches one's face to the faces of celebrities. I used the picture of me in the sidebar. Here's what I discovered.
Eva Peron. OK, I'm not entirely comfortable with this, but the people loved her…
June 30, 2006
Younger offspring: I drew this picture of the Earth!
Dr. Free-Ride: Wow, that's quite a picture. Will you tell me what's going on in it?
Younger offspring: Yes, but first scan it in.
Dr. Free-Ride: Hmm. Is it maybe not a coincidence that you're bringing home a picture like this on a Thursday…
June 29, 2006
Coming up on a long holiday weekend, you all are ready for another internet quiz, right?
I can't help wondering whether the "Birth Order Predictor" quiz is not well-grounded in the sociological facts, or whether there really isn't any such coherent set of sociological facts, or whether I'm just a…
June 29, 2006
A long time ago, I blogged about Dr. Eric T. Poehlman, formerly of the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He's no longer there because he was caught falsifying and fabricating data in the "preliminary studies" sections of numerous grant proposals submitted to federal agencies and…
June 29, 2006
Interesting news from Japan: Tohoku University has decided to launch an outreach effort to encourage more girls to pursue science. Rather than relying on secondary school science classes to whip up enthusiam for science, the university is recruiting its own women graduate students in the sciences…
June 29, 2006
It's been two weeks since we kicked off our first ever ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose drive to raise money for math and science classrooms. In that time, 172 generous readers have donated a total of $13,685.14 and SEED has kicked in $10,000.
But there are three days left of the drive, and I know you…
June 28, 2006
I'm not going to do this to death, partly because others will and partly because Churchill isn't a scientist. But, given that I'm working the ethics beat at ScienceBlogs, I ought to give you the ethical crib-sheet:
Plagiarism is bad.
Self-plagiarism (that is, recycling stuff you've written and…
June 28, 2006
I just got back from a 75 minute ethics seminar for summer researchers (mostly undergraduates) at a large local center of scientific research. While it was pretty hard to distill the important points on ethical research to just over an hour, I can't tell you how happy I am that they're even…
June 28, 2006
Following up from yesterday's post about how knowledge about the biological basis for X doesn't tell us whether X is to be valued or pathologized, I need to put a few more points (including some questions) on the table.
First, in the comments thread to the Feministing post that prompted my post, a…
June 27, 2006
Chad thinks it's a good point in the week for internet quizzes. So, since I saw it at Arbitrary Marks, I took a quiz to determine my ethical style. (No, "bossy" isn't one of the possible results.)
What the quiz says about me after the jump.
Jean-Paul Sartre (100%)
Kant (97%)
John Stuart…
June 27, 2006
Jessica at Feministing notices the BBC reporting on a study that conditions in utero may play a causal role in men's sexual orientation. But, as the title of this post suggests, I do not care what the biological bases for sexual orientation might be, nor indeed whether there are biological bases…
June 26, 2006
Reader Paul Suliin points me at a post at Pharyngula about the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Beyond the "Yay, Episcopalians!" it prompted from me (she was trained as an oceanographer!), the post has some interesting things going on in the…
June 25, 2006
This time they're going after Tara. So sad that a fundraiser would inspire such an underhanded attack. Someone must be feeling very desperate!
* * * * *
Reading Aetiology was fun -- but suddenly I was washing my hands obsessively, sending back rare hamburgers at restaurants, and turning down rest…
June 25, 2006
I was thinking some more about the Paul Root Wolpe commentary on how scientists avoid thinking about ethics, partly because Benjamin Cohen at The World's Fair wonders why ethics makes scientists more protective of their individuality than, say, the peer-review system or other bits of institutional…
June 24, 2006
Because I was in Sweden for my younger offspring's birthday, and because my older offspring's birthday is nowhere near the school year, we gave them a joint un-birthday party today. Each was allowed to invite eight friends. Of these, a total of five attended (plus a younger sib), but there was…
June 24, 2006
Sad to report, the Sb/DonorsChoose anti-biology attack ad seems not to have been an isolated incident. My anonymous source discovered another such ad, this one targeted at the brain sciences crowd.
What has become of our sense of scientific unity? Can we pull together despite attacks like the one…
June 23, 2006
I should have known it would come to this.
A week into our ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose drive to raise money for schools, the warm spirit of pan-science-harmony has started to erode.
An anonymous source has come into possession of the text of an attack ad targeting our biological brethren and…
June 23, 2006
It's no surprise that the scientific and medical research in which the public tends to show the most interest is the research that is somehow connected to practical issues, like living longer and healthier lives. Scientists who depend on public monies to support their investigations have gotten…
June 23, 2006
Dr. Free-Ride: Hey, how was Nature Study today?
Younger offspring: We went on a nature walk.
Dr. Free-Ride: What kind of nature did you see?
Younger offspring: We didn't see any.
Dr. Free-Ride: A nature walk without any nature?
Younger offspring: Uh huh.
Dr. Free-Ride: Isn't that just a walk?
In…
June 22, 2006
Hey readers, I don't mean to be nosy, but are any of you planning to be at:
BlogHer 2006 in San José, California?
BCCE 2006 in West Lafayette, indiana?
PSA 2006 in Vancouver, British Columbia?
If not, what else is going on that we should know about?
June 22, 2006
There's a nice commentary in the most recent issue of Cell about scientists' apparent aversion to thinking about ethics, and the reasons they give for thinking about other things instead. You may not be able to get to the full article via the link (unless, say, you're hooked up to a library with…