Culture
cagapakis | April 29, 2010I got the chance to attend a panel discussion about science and the media presented by the UK-based charity Sense About Science. The audience was primarily scientists, many of whom were angry about how science is presented in the media: the outlandish claims, the hype, presenting "both sides" of stories where there is clear scientific consensus. The panel included a professional scientist who teaches about communicating with the public, an editor at the journal Cell, and a science reporter for the Boston Globe.
The panel was mostly about "traditional" media, with a little shout-out to blogs…
drorzel | April 27, 2010Dennis Overbye has a piece on "The Big Bang Theory" in today's New York Times, taking the "Is this good or bad for science?" angle:
Three years later some scientists still say that although the series, "The Big Bang Theory" (Monday nights on CBS), is funny and scientifically accurate, they are put off by it.
"Makes me cringe," said Bruce Margon, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explaining, "The terrible stereotyping of the nerd plus the dumb blond are steps backwards for science literacy."
But other scientists are lining up for guest slots on the show, which has…
jgoldman | April 15, 2010Do animals create art? So far, this seems a uniquely human ability.
But do animals have a sense of the aesthetically pleasing? What about the ability to judge and critique art? Can an animal decide if a given work of art is beautiful or ugly? What is beauty in the first place? All good questions.
Shigeru Watanabe of Keio University in Tokyo wanted to investigate the questions, with pigeons. Did he introduce them to the works of Picasso? Or Rembrandt? Romero Britto? No. He used art created by children.
Figure 1: Your kid's newest art critic.
Before we get into his experiment, lets take a…
cagapakis | April 12, 2010I got a lot of interesting responses to my post about DIYbio and how modeling innovation in biotech on computer hacker culture may lead to a science that is less "democratized" than what is being proposed. My friend Adam pointed me to Jaron Lanier's work criticizing the "open" and "free" culture movements online as both unfair and leading to cultural stagnation. While I don't agree with all of Lanier's arguments about the prospects of an open digital culture, he makes a lot of really important points that resonate with my feelings about the future of science based on the open online model, in…
drorzel | April 9, 2010There's no rest for the wicked, as last weekend's hectic running around is followed by another busy weekend, with some on-campus stuff on Sunday as part of our annual Accepted Students Days. More importantly, though, I will be on a panel at the Empire State book Festival on Saturday from 12:45-1:30 pm:
BLOOK: Going from Blog to Book
Empire State Convention Center, Meeting Room 4
Books derived from blogs are a publishing phenomenon of the past few years. Why is there an audience for previously digital content in analog form, and what does this say about the future of the book? Hear from a…
grrlscientist | April 6, 2010tags: How to Combat Modern Slavery, philosophy, morality, ethics, behavior, poverty, culture, slavery, human rights, human values, Kevin Bales, TEDTalks, streaming video
In this moving yet pragmatic talk, Kevin Bales explains the business of modern slavery, a multibillion-dollar economy that underpins some of the worst industries on earth. He shares stats and personal stories from his on-the-ground research -- and names the price of freeing every slave on earth right now.
Kevin Bales is the co-founder of Free the Slaves, whose mission is to end all forms of human slavery within the next 25…
razib | March 24, 2010That's all I have to say to Eric Michael Johnson's post, Ann Coulter, Hate Speech, and Free Societies. OK, seriously, from what I recall Eric is an American, though resident in the forgotten north. American absolutist stances on free speech are not shared by most Western societies, so demanding total free speech is quixotic and culturally tone deaf. Granted, Europe or Canada are not barbaric like China or Muslim societies when it comes to speech, so that communication about this issue is possible. But here are the exceptions to free speech enumerated in the European Convention on Human Rights…
cagapakis | March 24, 2010Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Today we blog to celebrate women in technology and science and remember Ada Lovelace, the woman considered to have written the world's first computer program back in the 1840's.
So to celebrate, here's a clip of an interview with Rita Levi-Montalcini, one of my favorite Sassy Bitches of Scienceâ¢. At age 100, she is the oldest living Nobel laureate, sharp as a tack, still working, and a sassy dresser to boot. Her story is incredible and inspiring (especially in light of what I wrote about yesterday on DIYbio, oppression, and opportunity). Turned away from her position…
razib | March 23, 2010You've probably heard about the research in the press, but please see Derek Lowe for perspective. The difference between high fructose corn syrup and sugar as an additive may, or may not, be problematic. But the uncertainty in this area is why I try and avoid excessively processed foods*, there's just so much we don't know. If you're poor and short on cash perhaps the high ratio of calories per cent of processed foods are simply necessary, but for people of even modest means I don't think it is that difficult to cut most consumables which come out of boxes from your diet.
Again, I want to…
razib | March 23, 2010Not Exactly Rocket Science, authored by a certain Edmund Yong. Congratulations Mr. Yong, but I will admit being less than surprised.
Update: And also, congratulations to all the other winners, several of whom are in my "regular reads."
cagapakis | March 23, 2010I read R.C. Lewontin's Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA over the weekend and was struck in particular by one line in his wonderful diatribe against biological determinism and reductionism:
"Intellectuals in their self-flattering wish-fulfillment say that knowledge is power, but the truth is that knowledge further empowers only those who have or can acquire the power to use it."
This is something that was really hard to read at first, especially as someone who is overeducated and clearly spends a lot of time thinking about educating other people about science. But I realized that it…
grrlscientist | March 23, 2010tags: Science CAN Answer Moral Questions, philosophy, morality, ethics, behavior, brain, neurobiology, religion, culture, well-being, human rights, human values, Sam Harris, TEDTalks, streaming video
Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.
Adored by secularists, feared by the pious, Sam Harris' best-selling books argue that religion is ruinous and, worse, stupid -- and that questioning…
razib | March 17, 2010A week ago I observed that commenting was being transformed with the spread of Disqus and Echo. The Big Money has now introduced Echo:
The comments themselves are also more interactive. Any of your postings can be shared with your friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, or any of your connections on the other supported services. You can also reply to fellow commenters, tell them you like their posts, or flag any inappropriate or spam messages that you see. All commenters have their own profiles, which you can find by clicking on their profile names and viewing their details. There you'll…
razib | March 16, 2010A few weeks ago I had dinner and drinks with an old friend who works for the firm which invented the x86 series of microprocessors. He's doing well financially right now, and was very bullish on his firm. More specifically it seems that they're on a hiring binge (he knows because he's been on hiring committees). So a while back he forwarded a resume of a graduate school acquaintance to human resources. His boss came up to him later and told him that there were remunerative benefits to forwarding resumes. If the individual gets hired:
- There is a entry-level $2,000 bonus to the referrer
- But…
razib | March 16, 2010How Privacy Vanishes Online. Pretty banal actually. Social networking has really changed things. As I've said before I'm fascinated by the large number of people who, even those who want to be anonymous, enter in their real email addresses when leaving a comment. There seems a default "trust unless you shouldn't trust" setting, so we naively input our information assuming it isn't being mined by someone. In any case, a bigger issue in the future I think will be stupid government officials who scan up documents which they shouldn't scan up. It's happened a few times so far, but I think it'll…
razib | March 13, 2010Via a comment, a site which you will love, or which will drive you insane, Complete Small Dogs Guide. I found this story about a chihuahua carried away by a large bird, only to return to its owner.
razib | March 13, 2010This comment from Chris is interesting:
I would speculate that the the massive productivity gains were due to a massive resorting of American society along cognitive lines; from 1940 to 1970 a large number of high ability people who were previously locked into agriculture and industry were able to sort themselves into more innovative positions. This would lead to a massive burst of innovation, which led to increases in productivity, as previously unlocked talent was put to use.
From 1970 to 1990 this resorting was mostly winding down and productivity in the economy was heavily constrained by…
razib | March 13, 2010In Hard Times, Lured Into Trade School and Debt:
At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition exceeding $30,000 a year.
...
The Apollo Group -- which owns the for-profit University of Phoenix -- derived 86 percent of its revenue from federal student aid last fiscal year, according to BMO. Two years earlier, it was 69 percent.
For-profit schools have proved adept at capturing Pell grants, which are a centerpiece of the Obama…
razib | March 11, 2010The New York Times has a scary but numerically rich piece on the impending pension crisis in Europe. As in the days of yore Greece looks to be a pioneer. Here's an interesting pair of numbers:
According to research by Jagadeesh Gokhale, an economist at the Cato Institute in Washington, bringing Greece's pension obligations onto its balance sheet would show that the government's debt is in reality equal to 875 percent of its gross domestic product, which is the broadest measure of a nation's economic output. That would be the highest debt level among the 16 nations that use the euro, and far…