Academics
pharyngula | March 17, 2008A far right wing wanker is suing Ohio State University for discrimination. I hate to say it, but if this account is at all accurate, he might have a case.
In 2006, Savage agreed to serve on a committee to determine required reading for incoming freshmen at the Mansfield campus.
Savage said the books considered by the committee were too liberal and suggested The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian.
Professors James F. Buckley and Norman W. Jones filed a sexual-harassment complaint against Savage, saying he was homophobic for suggesting the book. The complaint was dismissed as unfounded.…
pharyngula | March 17, 2008From among our most German friends, I found this article on WeiterGen on women in science that led to an article by one of my favorite scientists, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, that I found rather disappointing.
She describes her experiences as a woman in science of a previous generation, in which the discrimination was much more overt. She experienced seeing her work given to the credit of her male peers, of working under bosses who told her that women couldn't do as well in science, and of working to the top of her profession to find a paucity of female colleagues and to find herself as the…
pharyngula | March 17, 2008
You know, when you stop to think about it, this strip really isn't that funny — it's cutting a little too close to the truth. Ladies of the readership, you may vent your frustration here.
pharyngula | March 8, 2008Several people have asked me to dig into this and post something on Pharyngula, but I really don't want to — the more I look at it, the more I recoil in baffled disgust. Cedarville University, one of those bizarre Christian colleges that just makes me want to gag in the first place, has terminated the contracts of two tenured faculty, David Hoffeditz and David Mappes, in their biblical studies department. Right away, I oppose the action of the university on general principles: short of engaging in some kind of criminal behavior, it's a key part of academic freedom that tenure means the…
pharyngula | March 6, 2008Teachers, come to Minneapolis this summer! Not for the Republican convention, but for the other great big important meeting that will be taking place: Evolution 2008.
Teachers in particular get a really good deal: a special workshop is planned, specifically on the teaching of evolutionary biology in the schools. We've got some good speakers (and me) lined up, and the registration cost of a mere $20 not only gets you into the workshop, but into the regular meetings as well. Here are the details:
Evolution 101 Workshop for K-12 Educators
Friday, June 20, 2008
Bell Museum of Natural History…
pharyngula | February 25, 2008
The Ecological Society of America has just published an article that surveys the state of science teaching in the US. Some of the results are somewhat reassuring — the majority of our college-bound high school students are at least getting exposed to evolution to some degree — but they're also getting taught creationism to an unfortunate degree. Here's the abstract to give you the gist of the story.
How frequently and in what manner are evolution, creationism, and intelligent design taught in public high
schools? Here, I analyze the answer to this question, as given by nearly 600 students…
pharyngula | February 21, 2008RPM has put up an amusing bestiary of typical science seminar attendees — it's all true, I've seen all of those people.
But you know what the problem is? It's a collection of pedants and old people! Where are the celebrities misbehaving in our talks? Maybe we'd get more attention for science if we had a Paris Hilton vamping around, or a Britney Spears breaking down and flashing her anatomy, or a Mel Gibson getting drunk and haranguing the speaker about his Jewish background, followed by a Chris Crocker histrionic shrieking at everyon to leave the speaker alone.
Scientists are a pretty dry and…
pharyngula | February 18, 2008Full-Time, One-Year Faculty Position in Biology
University of Minnesota, Morris
The University of Minnesota, Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education, to fill a full-time, one-year position in biology beginning August 18, 2008. Responsibilities include: teaching undergraduate biology courses including an introductory level survey of organismal biology (with lab) and a core ecology course (with lab); advising undergraduates; and sharing in the governance and advancement of the biology program as well as the campus at-large.
Candidates must be at least A.B.D…
pharyngula | February 12, 2008The Warda and Han paper has been officially retracted, and the editor has made an official statement, as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
The paper has drawn a blizzard of criticism in the blogosphere about the peer-review process at the journal, Proteomics. The editor of the journal, Michael J. Dunn, a professor at University College Dublin's Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, told The Chronicle last week that the paper had passed peer review.
Today's announcement says that the two authors of the article, who are scientists at Inje University, in South Korea,…
pharyngula | February 11, 2008I've received email from one of the authors of that bafflingly bizarre paper on mitochondria. I'm still confused.
Dear Dr. Myers
First of all, I am very sorry for that trouble for you.
I found the serious mistakes in the paper during the process of edits, which I confused between the early drafts and the latest versions: I did not check the use of the sentences in the references (more than 200 references). Finally I made serious error to make the final version.
In order to rectify an error, I requested to retract the paper to the editorial office of Proteomics.
Thank you very much for…
pharyngula | February 10, 2008I brought that Washington state 'academic freedom' bill to your attention a while back. I've been hearing from lots of readers from the Pacific Northwest that the bill died in committee. Perfect!
pharyngula | February 6, 2008The beautiful state of Washington, my native home and still home to many of my family members, has some people ready to enact some major legislative stupidity. David Horowitz was a right-wing nut who was making noise a few years ago with his witch hunt for evil leftists (Hi, Michael!) and his promotion of an Academic Bill of Rights, which was basically a ham-handed attempt to force academia to grant special privileges to intellectually bankrupt ideas, all under the guise of "fairness". The Washington bill reeks of that familiar stench.
This bill aims to impose the ideological biases of…
pharyngula | February 6, 2008A dismaying update: the paper in question contains a significant amount of outright plagiarism, and large chunks of text are taken literally from Butterï¬eld et al. 2006, "Oxidative stress in
Alzheimer's disease brain: New insights from
redox proteomics," European Journal of
Pharmacology 545: 39-50. I hope we hear from Han and Warda sometime; they've got a lot of 'splaining to do.
Mitochondria are fascinating organelles. They are the "powerhouses of the cell" (that phrase is required to be used in any discussion of their function) that generate small, energy rich molecules like ATP that are…
pharyngula | January 29, 2008I don't know how I missed it, but I was just made aware of OESE, Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, another great group of smart people rising up to fight for good education. I presume all the Oklahomans in my readership will now inform me that they've known about this forever, and it's about time I highlighted their good work?
pharyngula | January 25, 2008I've been tagged with a teaching meme: I'm supposed to answer the question, "Why do you teach and why is academic freedom critical to that effort?". We science types are late to the game; there are already several examples online, mostly from those humanities people.
First, I'll be forthright in one thing: teaching was not my initial goal, nor was there anything in my training to encourage teaching. Especially if you get into a program with biomedical funding, there's active dissuasion from pursuing teaching: I was a TA for 3 quarters in my first year of graduate school, and then got put on…
pharyngula | January 22, 2008It's Tuesday, the 22nd of January, and this is the first day of classes at UMM. I'm teaching the introductory biology course again (Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development), my big core lab course in genetics, and an upper level class in science writing, and that's enough.
As is usual for me, I tremble in a state of dread at the start of the long season of lectures and labs, but once I charge in and get started I'll probably be surprised when I look up and notice it's May already.
pharyngula | January 9, 2008This is the time — you can give feedback on the Minnesota science standards, and you can also apply to be on the standards writing committee. Here's where you have a chance to make a difference.
The Minnesota Department of Education is now soliciting feedback from the public on the current Science Standards via an online survey. The survey will be open until February 21, 2008.
First, review the current Science Standards on the Science Standards Web page.
Then take the Science Standards online survey.
Applications are also being accepted for individuals interested in serving on the Science…
pharyngula | December 15, 2007I'm not too impressed with the curriculum, but heck, they've got a great mascot, so I'm sure students will apply.
pharyngula | December 10, 2007The Fall semester is winding down — this is the last week of classes — so it's time to start thinking about the Spring term.
Ugh. I don't want to. This term has been driving me sufficiently insane as it is.
But anyway, if you're a student thinking about all the money you'll have to be spending on textbooks, here's a list of what you'll need to get if you're taking my courses. Feel free to order them from some other source than the university bookstore. I don't get a penny from the U bookstore, but I have to confess, the links below do tie into affiliate programs that give me a few pennies in…
pharyngula | December 9, 2007I'm giving my students a take-home exam tomorrow, and one of the questions references this paper:
Stoleru D, Peng Y, Agosta J, Rosbash M (2004) Coupled oscillators control morning and evening locomotor behaviour of Drosophila. Nature 431:862-868.
I'm just providing the link here to simplify finding the paper — if you aren't in my neuro class, you can ignore this.