Academia
jstemwedel | February 8, 2007As 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 useful writing assignments I've ever encountered.
The task was to write a proposal for a novel piece of research in biophysical chemistry.
To start, you had to read around to figure out what the outstanding problems were. You also had to read around to get a sense of what kinds of experimental…
drorzel | February 8, 2007Inside Higher Ed reports that Indiana State is eliminating physics and philosophy, among other majors, in a move to streamline their programs. These programs have very few majors relative to the number of faculty (physics has five faculty and nine majors, philosophy four faculty and 19 majors), so they're on the block due to an accreditor's comment that they have too many programs.
The discussion in the article centers on the question of whether you can really call a university a university if it doesn't teach physics or philosophy. Several people in comments object that they're only…
drorzel | February 7, 2007Janet asks "Where do scientists learn to write?" Well, actually, being a good academic, she asks many more questions than that:
Do scientists need to write well? If so, in what contexts and for what audiences? If not, why not?
Where do scientists really learn to write? What kinds of experiences shape their writing? Are these teaching scientists to write clearly and effectively? Are they entrenching bad habits?
Where do you think scientists ought to learn to write? What are the most important things they need to learn about writing in a scientific context? What are the best ways to…
omnibrain | February 6, 2007In association with Credentialix and our friend Brian, Omni Brain is offering online degrees!
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omnibrain | February 5, 2007Does this seem very outlandish? I can't imagine in a million years that someone at MIT would be denied tenure because of their race. Especially in todays P.C. academic environment. Does anyone in his field know what his qualifications were and whether he probably should have gotten tenure?
A black MIT professor began a hunger strike Monday to protest the university's decision to deny him tenure, which he claims was based on race.
James Sherley, a stem cell scientist, said he tried for two years to persuade administrators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to reverse the…
jstemwedel | February 3, 2007During 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.
SteveG and helmut both offer some interesting thoughts on the issue.
SteveG takes up the idea that academic blogging can often be a productive way to communicate the knowledge produced in the Ivory Tower to the broader public. Arguably, public outreach is part of the larger mission of institutions…
drorzel | February 2, 2007
Time spent locating the parts for the Compton Effect experiment: 15 minutes.
Time spent dragging lead bricks for radiation shielding into the lab: 10 minutes.
Time spent bulding little lead houses for the hot 137Cs source and Photo-Multiplier Tube (PMT): 15 minutes.
Time spent trying to find somebody who knew the administrator password for the computer: 20 minutes.
Time between saying "What happens if you just click 'Cancel?'" and getting the computer working: 2 seconds.
Time spent connecting the detector, amplifiers, and high-voltage power supply: 5 minutes.
Time spent swapping…
jstemwedel | February 1, 2007The 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 strike", with staggered two-day walkouts at each of the 23 universities in the system.
This prompted some opinion pieces in the school newspaper, including this one. There's a lot I could say about the claims in this piece (the university is going to hire replacement teachers or drop courses from…
omnibrain | February 1, 2007The Guardian has started publishing a column by Marc Abrahams who is editor of the bimonthly magazine Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel Prize. Check it out! The first article is called "Fizzy Logic" which covers the Coke vs. Pepsi debate. He also has a blog here.
Here's a little sample of the column in the Guardian:
The nagging question of which is better, Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, sprang from an earlier, more basic question: Can anyone tell the difference?
Professor Nicholas H Pronko and colleagues at the University of Wichita, Kansas, conducted a series of…
clock | January 31, 2007Graduate school is expensive, even with grants and loans. Perhaps if a lot of A-listers linked to this, it could be possible to collect enough. (via Chickpea Science)
jstemwedel | January 29, 2007Since 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 circumstances, a four-way stop. It has been this way since last Wednesday, and it will continue to be this week for probably another week.
In about a week, as if by magic, campus police will no longer be needed to move the traffic, and the lines of cars at any given moment will be reduced by at…
drorzel | January 29, 2007This is kind of sticking with the "Journal of Unsurprising Results" theme, but Inside Higher Ed today reports on a new study of student evaluations finding, well, more or less what you would expect:
One explanation could be that good students are earning good grades, and crediting their good professors for their learning. The Ohio State study, however, provides evidence for the more cynical/realistic interpretation -- namely that professors who are easy (and aren't necessarily the best teachers) earn good ratings. The way the Ohio State team did this was to look at grades in subsequent…
omnibrain | January 27, 2007From Thom Parks:
The American Chemical Society is rich ground for blogging.
Scientific American has a piece about the American Chemical Society
spending close to half a million of membership dollars hiring two
lobbyists to defeat open access.
PBS just aired a documentary about a journalist at the American
Chemical Society who was fired for reporting that the White House was
suppressing federal scientists for speaking about the link between
hurricanes and global warming.
http://www.thirteen.org/air/111/latest.html
You can watch the episode, which is titled "Science Fiction."
http://www.…
clock | January 27, 2007There are also more responses to the U of California lawsuit described by Sara Robinson the other day.
See what Amanda and PZ Myers have to say about it.
Edit: and Mike
tfk | January 26, 2007Afarensis asks Dembski on Open Access: Is He Hypocritcal, Stupid, or Both?
Both.
This is the simple answer to that simple question.
The broader issue of open access is not so simple. While Dembski's understanding of the issue is both hypocritical and stupid, the issue of whether commercial science publishers are hypocritical and stupid remains to be seen.
Evidence for hypocrisy is fairly easy to identify.
Scientists give those publishers their research, typically signing over copyright for that work to the publisher. In many cases those scientists also pay page charges to those same…
omnibrain | January 25, 2007These companies/groups are all on everyones shit list.
Nature has learned, a group of big scientific publishers has hired the pit bull to take on the free-information movement, which campaigns for scientific results to be made freely available. Some traditional journals, which depend on subscription charges, say that open-access journals and public databases of scientific papers such as the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) PubMed Central, threaten their livelihoods.
This group includes Elsevier and Wiley among others.
This groups consultant:
also recommended joining forces with groups…
drorzel | January 25, 2007Inside Higher Ed reports today on a new study of junior faculty job satisfaction showing that faculty satisfaction doesn't correlate with institutional prestige:
The collaborative, known as COACHE, last year released aggregate findings from its survey of thousands of faculty members at dozens of participating institutions. That analysis found that junior professors placed increasing importance on issues such as the clarity of tenure policies or the availability of support for balancing work and family life when evaluating their job satisfaction. This week, the project is identifying the…
evolgen | January 25, 2007We've got Phil Skell, and we can't get rid of him. Both Michael Behe and William Harris have rolled through my parts in the past few years. Tonight we get disciples of Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya), the muslim creationist described in this article on creationism in Turkey. He's also an alleged holocaust denier.
When I got my "Invitation to attend Evolution lecture tonight" (reproduced below the fold) from the president of the Muslim Student Association, I didn't know what to think. I'm not sure if I'll be attending the talk (I've got real work to do), and Oktar won't even be there; he's sending…
clock | January 24, 2007Most of our anti-Creationist battles are over efforts to infuse Christian religion into K-12 education. One common battlefield is the courtroom where our side has (so far, until/unless the benches get filled with more clones of Priscilla Owen) won. But another place where we can stop them is the college admission office.
Sara Robinson of the Orcinus blog (which everybody should read daily) revisits, in more detail than I ever saw on any science blogs at the time this first started, the legal battle between the University of California and the Calvary Chapel Christian School over what…
jstemwedel | January 24, 2007Larry Moran posts a response to my response to his earlier post on the advisability of putting ethical discussions into science classes. Careful fellow that he is, he's decided to stick to a single issue per posting, so he starts with "the relationship between science and technology and where 'ethics' fits in". Larry opines:
Part of what we need to do as science teachers is to make sure our students understand the difference between science and technology -- between the uses of science and the accumulation of scientific knowledge. ...
The goal, as far as I am concerned, is to convince…