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.
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Posts by this author
Happy Hallowe'en and welcome to the last day of the 2009 Social Media Challenge. With your help, ScienceBlogs bloggers have raised more than $56,000 to help public school teachers pay for classroom supplies, fund field trips, and support activities to help their students learn.
Today is the end of…
No, I'm not going to be able to get away with claiming that truth is beauty, and beauty, truth.
The first issue in understanding truth is recognizing that truth is a property of a proposition. (What's a proposition? A proposition is a claim.) A proposition that is true has a certain kind of…
The Free-Ride offspring have been rather busy recently, what with the approach of Hallowe'en and the rapidly approaching end of their regular soccer season. (The post-season, of course, falls after this weekend's time change, which means practices will either be earlier or darker.) Still, each of…
In a recent post, I issued an invitation:
I am always up for a dialogue on the issue of our moral relation to animals and on the ethical use of animals in scientific research. If folks inclined towards the animal rights stance want to engage in a dialogue right here, in the comments on this post,…
The times in question being, in this case, the last days of October.
Once upon a Tuesday morning, while I wandered, cold and yawning,
Up the grimy stair steps winding skyward toward my office door,
On the wall's bile-greenish surface, noticed I a note whose purpose
Took more consciousness to…
As I noted earlier this week, Hewlett-Packard is going to be distributing another $200,000 in the DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge. They're dividing up that pool of money according to how much each challenge has raised as a proportion of the total funds raised by this Sunday. In other…
Dr. Free-Ride: So, you know this Friday is Mole Day.
Elder offspring: It is? What does that mean exactly?
Dr. Free-Ride: Do you remember what a mole is? Not the animal, but the quantity.
Elder offspring: Not really.
Dr. Free-Ride's better half: It's a convenient unit of measure for things like…
Because, of course, tomorrow is Mole Day. According to the National Mole Day Foundation:
Celebrated annually on October 23 from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m., Mole Day commemorates Avogadro's Number (6.02 x 10^23), which is a basic measuring unit in chemistry. Mole Day was created as a way to foster…
Since being tenured, I've tried to shift to a pattern of only coming in to campus three days a week, working from home on Mondays and Wednesdays (and giving the earth a little break by not doing my freeway commute on those days).
However, today, a Wednesday, I figured I should go in to campus to…
Back before I was sucked into the vortex of paper-grading, an eagle-eyed Mattababy pointed me to a very interesting post by astronomer Mike Brown. Brown details his efforts to collaborate with another team of scientists who were working on the same scientific question he was working on, what…
It's day 20 of the 2009 Social Media Challenge in which generous ScienceBlogs readers (among others) help raise funds through DonorsChoose for books, supplies, field trips, and other classroom projects in cash-strapped U.S. public schools.
So far, we've made impressive progress, with 13 challenges…
Over at Starts with a Bang, Ethan Siegel expressed exasperation that Nature and New Scientist are paying attention to (and lending too much credibility to) an astronomical theory Ethan views as a non-starter, Modified Netwonian Dynamics (or MOND):
[W]hy is Nature making a big deal out of a paper…
From my friend Vance, on Facebook, a link that announces an option for your Hallowe'en entertainment:
Halloween Book Burningâ¨
Burning Perversions of God's Word
â¨October 31, 2009
7:00 PM - Till
Great Preaching and Singing
Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like…
This, in turn, means that members of the public who strongly disagree with your stand may decide to track you down and let you know they disagree with you.
Apparently, this may become an issue for those who signed the Pro-Test petition in support of ethical and human scientific research with…
The Free-Ride offspring try to explain what it means for an organism to be adapted to its environment, and why it matters:
Dr. Free-Ride: OK, so you've been learning in school about?
Younger offspring: Different adaptations.
Dr. Free-Ride: Can you explain what an adaptation is?
Younger offspring:…
Our month-long drive with DonorsChoose to raise funds for public school classroom projects has been under way for almost two weeks now. At the moment, the ScienceBlogs leaderboard show a total of $15,890 from 121 generous donors, benefiting 6,971 public school students.
That's pretty good work so…
At dinner last night, the younger Free-Ride offspring told us about a science lesson from earlier this week:
Dr. Free-Ride: You were going to tell me about a science activity you did, we think, on Tuesday in school?
Younger offspring: Mmm-hmm.
Dr. Free-Ride: Tell us what it's called.
Younger…
After my last class today, I participated in a Future Faculty Seminar at Stanford. I was on a panel about negotiating faculty jobs, dealing with the two-body problem while on the academic job market, balancing work and life once you have a faculty job, and so forth. It was a fun panel, and lots…
About 5 hours ago, "HP from Palo Alto, California" just rocked our world (and helped a bunch of public school classrooms) by plunking down $50 on each of the 13 challenges mounted by ScienceBlogs bloggers in the DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge. That's a total of $650!
I'm thinking there's…
Today is the one week mark in our month-long drive with DonorsChoose to raise funds for public school classroom projects, and it is no surprise that ScienceBlogs readers have been generous in their support. As I write this post, the ScienceBlogs leaderboard indicates:
Thirteen challenges mounted…
Actually, it might be a philosophical question.
Younger offspring: One of my classmates told me that you fart every second.
Dr. Free-Ride: What, me personally?
Younger offspring: No, humans.
Dr. Free-Ride: Each individual human farts every second?
Younger offspring: Yeah.
Dr. Free-Ride: No, I don'…
Thursday, October 8, at 8 pm, the Firebird Ensemble will be performing The Origin Cycle, eight selections from Charles Darwin's work Origin of Species set to music. The performance will be at Stanford University's Campbell Recital Hall, and tickets are free, but you'll want to reserve your seats…
Via Twitter, PalMD wondered if I'd seen this brief item on the New York Times Idea of the Day blog.
Writing in The Philosophers' Magazine, Brooke Lewis says tallies of full-time faculty at top American and British colleges show women make up less than a fifth of philosophy departments in Britain…
Here's a quick update on how the ScienceBlogs contingent is doing in the DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge.
Since we kicked off the challenge on Thursday, three more blogs have mounted challenges:
A Blog Around the Clock (challenge here)
Christina's LIS Rant (challenge here)
Thus Spake Zuska…
Oh joy, it's time to grade more papers!
At the moment, in fact, I have two batches of papers (approximately 400 words each, approximately 100 papers per batch) to grade, since I hadn't finished marking the earlier ones before the next ones came due. And of course, owing to the piles of smoking…
A few weeks ago, the elder Free-Ride offspring was anxiously awaiting the feeding of Ziggy, the classroom ball python. Sadly, that feeding was delayed on account of the elder Free-Ride offspring's teacher having jury duty.
Feeding the classroom snake, apparently, is not a task you leave to a…
I don't usually go looking for a fight, but there are some cases where I'll make an exception.
You know, of course that I'm a big fan of DonorsChoose. And you'll recall that PETA's tactics make them a problematic organization as far as I'm concerned regardless of what your views on animal welfare…
At Uncertain Principles, Chad is motivating his readers to donate to his DonorsChoose challenge by offering a big reward:
Last year, I famously got $6,000 in contributions by offering to dance like a monkey, but I'm not sure what would follow that. So,
What should I offer to do if I manage to…
You already know that we're working with DonorsChoose to raise some money for public school teachers who are trying to give their students the engaging educational experiences they deserve (and who, owing to dismal state and local budgets, need our help more than ever). You also know that our…
Around this corner of the blogosphere, folks frequently bemoan the sorry state of the public's scientific literacy and engagement. People fret about whether our children is are learning what they should about science, math, and critical reasoning. Netizens speculate on the destination of the…