Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.
mikethemadbiologist
Posts by this author
February 26, 2010
To follow up on the economics underlying the training of PhDs, I've been meaning to respond to this post by ScienceBlogling DrugMonkey. In it, he writes:
As a student I was a big fan of the breadth exam, either written as closed-book or as oral exam. My rationale was basically what I saw as the…
February 25, 2010
We're in full Schlump season here. Links for you. Science:
Misunderstanding Darwin: Natural selection's secular critics get it wrong
History in the Remaking: A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.
In which I dream of revolution
Math…
February 25, 2010
...if you're not a tenure-track PhD (and that will be most of you. Sorry). I'll have more to say about ScienceBlogling DrugMonkey's training post tomorrow, but one of the disturbing things in the comments of his post was the high numbers of people who viewed PhD training only in light of…
February 24, 2010
In an otherwise not-too-bad post about the value added tax (VAT), Edmund Andrews goes off the rails:
I would submit that many middle-income people (including me) SHOULD pay more. The government needs to raise more revenue to provide the services that voters demand, and middle-class people…
February 23, 2010
Last week, I defended pseudonymity. Well, the Epicurean Dealmaker has the best defense of pseudonymity EVAH!:
...in the United States, schizophrenic home to both the largest number of elite universities in the world and the broadest-based strain of anti-intellectualism known to Western democracy,…
February 23, 2010
By way of Elana Schor, we read that the MBTA's Silver Line extension proposal, which would be a "one mile tunnel connection between the existing Silver Line/Washington Street Service (Phase I) and the existing Silver Line/Waterfront Service (Phase II)", is in trouble. According to the Department…
February 22, 2010
Merry Monday. Links for you:
Red pen, or track changes?
Inside-out, or Outside-in, multi-level selection "vs." inclusive fitness debate
The Long Goodbayh
Monster
Make Up Your Mind: He Can't Be All Four
Without a clutch
What stands in the way of "forcing" a filibuster?
Another Dumb Right-Wing Idea…
February 22, 2010
Apparently, if the high-profile, exhaustively peer-reviewed journal Men's Health [/snark] is to be believed, Boston is the least boozy city in the country (italics mine):
Fresno, Calif., tops Men's Health magazine's list of America's "drunkest" cities while Boston, home to the "Cheers" bar where…
February 21, 2010
And if this ever becomes part of a movie, I would give the lecture for free. This is brilliant
February 21, 2010
Or it's not the messaging, it's the actual policy. John Aravosis was recently invited to the White House along with some other 'progressive' bloggers who were called out on the carpet for not supporting the stimulus enough (funny, I didn't realize they were paid political operatives...). Aravosis…
February 20, 2010
Saturday links. With Extra Bonus Video! Science:
The Spotless Garden
Australia uses cat food in fight against cane toads
The Mushroom that Sleeps with the Fishes
The Basques may not be who we think they are
Climate change affecting Kenya's coffee output
What average genetic variation can tell us…
February 20, 2010
By way of Mocha Mama, we find a superb spoof of that really annoying Super Bowl commercial--the Dodge "Last Stand" one--which described how men are supposedly being emasculated (here's a helpful hint for you if you're feeling emasculated: stop watching so much fucking television, and go do…
February 19, 2010
There's an ongoing exhibit of photographer Jules Aarons' work at the Boston Public Library, "Man in the Street: Boston Photographs by Jules Aarons" that is worth seeing. From the BPL blurb:
In 1997, the Boston Public Library began collecting the work of Boston photographer Jules Aarons (1921-2008…
February 19, 2010
Add this to the "People have to like this crap" file. Over at AMERICAblog, John Aravosis asks Cornell economist Steven Kyle to comment on this figure distributed by Organizing for America:
Kyle:
It is a good illustration of exactly what many of us economists have been saying - the stimulus was…
February 18, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, The Washington Post ran a piece by Gerard Alexander about how liberals are condescending towards conservative ideas, because those ideas suck ass. With that, by way of Digby, I give you a speaker from CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference):
At CPAC this morning,…
February 18, 2010
It appears that the season known as Schlump has arrived. Time for links. Science:
Sex, science and statistics
Energy-Efficient Lighting Made Without Mercury
Our world may be a giant hologram
Be a Beetle Rancher!
Fixing journalism
Other:
Stimulating Hypocrisy: 111 Lawmakers Block Recovery While…
February 18, 2010
And you thought fixing the renminbi was bad. By way of Glyn Moody, we find that The Guardian has a very disturbing report about antibiotic resistance in China (italics mine):
Chinese doctors routinely hand out multiple doses of antibiotics for simple maladies like the sore throats and the country'…
February 17, 2010
ScienceBlogling Abel Pharmboy asks two questions about collegiality and tenure:
1. Do you think that lack of collegiality is grounds for denial of tenure for a candidate that otherwise meets the basic quantitative criteria outlined in university guidelines?
2. Do you feel that collegiality - or…
February 16, 2010
In the political bloggysphere, there's been some discussion about former Congressman and Two Million Dollar Man Billy Tauzin losing his job as the top lobbyist for Big Pharma. I follow this stuff a lot more than most--my observation that much of what our great congressional solons do is geared…
February 16, 2010
...make sure you know what the hell you're talking about. Jacob Weisberg had a recent post at Slate, "Down With the People: Blame the childish, ignorant American public--not politicians--for our political and economic crisis", which argues, well, what the title says. Now, we do have a…
February 15, 2010
ScienceBlogling Matt Nisbet throws down the gauntlet about anonymity:
Much of the incivility online can be attributed to anonymity. And with a rare few exceptions, if you can't participate in a dialogue about issues without using your full name and true identity, then what you have to say is…
February 14, 2010
It's a rather sunny Sunday here, which inspired some links. Science
The Winkler County Nurse Trial, An Alleged Massive Conflict of Interest, and Morgellons
If you're going to do good science, release the computer code too: Programs do more and more scientific work - but you need to be able to…
February 14, 2010
By way of the Universal Hub, we find that Ross Levanto has good news--MA Governor Patrick has signed into law the Green Ticket Law:
The law that is now in place (whoo hooo!) will allow the City to better penalize trash scofflaws. The City will now be able to put in place procedures that attach…
February 13, 2010
Happy Saturday. Links for you. Science:
Robot Snowplow from Japan Eats Up Snow, Poops Out Bricks
Immunization for Addiction: the Cocaine Vaccine
Why are demented women still getting mammograms?
Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything
Is the Evolution Debate Over?
Parsing…
February 13, 2010
One thing about Big Shitpile that seems to have gone under the radar is the potential for--and, increasingly, the reality of--debtor revolt. That is, people who owe more than their home is worth refuse to pay without a renegotiated mortgage. Sean Broderick thinks that "a debtor's revolt is going…
February 12, 2010
There's been some recent discussion about what eBooks will mean for publishing (ScienceBlogling Chad Orzel has a good roundup). As it often is, my take on this is 'follow the money.'
Maybe my reading habits are skewed*--or more accurately, my book acquisition habits are skewed--but about eighty…
February 11, 2010
...Japanese industry decides that it needs to move away from making things people usually like to buy. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot:
Many economists and business executives say they hope that Toyota's trauma will be the unsettling blow that Japan needs to understand that its reliance on manufacturing and…
February 11, 2010
While I'm not that big a fan of the project trying to find commonalities between economics and biology, largely because I think explanations of specific phenomena often reduce to those stupid fucking natural history facts, I was struck by this argument by economist Samuel Bowles about the…
February 10, 2010
Not too bad with the snow here. Links for you:
A nation full of people trying to have their cake and eat it too
At what price "progress"? Macro- and Micro-publishing Economies
It Takes a Village to Raise a Racist
Should Economists Be Sued for Malpractice?
On Being an Asshole
Debt Collector's…
February 10, 2010
I guess this is what a libertarian paradise looks like:
COLORADO SPRINGS -- This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark…