bcohen | January 4, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
The title above is a quote from the book, Objectivity, subject of the prior two posts. Below the fold is an extended quote following that line. It circles back to a common topic at the blogs and at this one in particular, at the bottom.
(How do I know what/where/why my head is?)
All epistemology begins in fear - fear that the world is too labyrinthine to be threaded by reason; fear that the senses are too feeble and the intellect too frail; fear that memory…
bcohen | January 3, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
The last post (Scientific Objectivity has a History) was about an article from 1992 called "The Image of Objectivity," by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison.
Daston and Galison, 15 years later, have now written a book-length treatment of the topic, Objectivity (MIT Press, 2007). It argues that "To pursue objectivity--or truth-to-nature or trained judgment--is simultaneously to cultivate a distinctive scientific self wherein knowing and knower converge.…
bcohen | January 3, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
Title page of William Cheselden's (1733) Osteographia; or, the Anatomy of the Bones, showing an artist drawing a half skeleton through camera obscura.
Students end up having favorite readings from their schooling. For graduate students, these are sometimes pivotal works in their own scholarship, influencing later doctoral writing and research and steering patterns of thinking one way or another. Other times, they're just a good and memorable read, bringing…
bcohen | January 2, 2008There is no precise category for this post, because it is about La Laboratoire, a new effort housed in Paris that explicitly and actively undermines the impoverished art/science divide. NPR ran a story about it last week, while Science published a review of it the week before that.
The "lab" was founded by Harvard bioengineer David Edwards. It is meant to foster opportunities for "artscience," wherein the center (to quote the Science review of it) "aims to give scientists space for creative thinking outside the constraints of specialization and grant applications." Sounds interesting…
bcohen | December 28, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS | FINAL GAME: Darwin v. HIV
Now that d-Orbitals are sitting at home doing the work of orbitals while TiVoing the Darwin-HIV match-up, it's hard for some to believe that they once looked to take it all. But this scrappy bunch of, of whatever d-Orbitals are (besides being the premier orbital of the 2007 season, obviously), took it to Acids and put their stamp on this year's Showdown.
Dave captured the spirit here, noting in particular that:
This game really had it all, it was dynamic, it had equilibrium, it had fluid transition, and it was catalytic. It…
bcohen | December 27, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS | FINAL GAME: Darwin v. HIV
This is how tournaments go. You end up with some of the classic games in the middle, you find a monster match-up in the Sweet Sixteen. And that's how it went down when Corporate met Darwin, as Rich called it over at Evolgen.
As Rich said,
Yesterday's game between Corporate and Charles Darwin was a battle between free market capitalism and the greatest naturalist of all time. The Corporate team is loaded with the world's top pharmaceutical and chemical companies. Darwin is the author of important works such as On the Origin of…
bcohen | December 26, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS | FINAL GAME: Darwin v. HIV
It was Particle versus F=ma in the Sweet Sixteen, and BBC Radio 4 LW was broadcasting with those charming accents. Fortunately, geologist Chris Rowan was there to translate. Mostly.
This is what we heard when we first dialed in...
JA: Welcome back to the final session of this very special Science Spring Showdown one day international: we've just reached the end of the tea break, and the Particle batsmen are just making their way to the crease; the F=ma team are already in position in the field, poised, eager almost.
For those of…
bcohen | December 25, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS | FINAL GAME: Darwin v. HIV
And then there was a slew of action in the Mortar and Pestle Region. Janet Stemwedel, ethicist to the stars, was there to give the pre-game rundown. Her sense of the science's strengths and weakness proved prescient.
It began like this...
Here are the first round match ups:
Acid vs. Base: It's not a surprise to find these teams here, as they're standbys in the Chemistry Conference. While tournament games are all played inside, we hear that Acid has been practicing out in the rain to get ready for these games. It's worth noting…
bcohen | December 24, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS | FINAL GAME: Darwin v. HIV
What began as a field of 64 highly competitive teams has ended with just Darwin and HIV. With the tournament's Final game currently underway, we look back on a Science Showdown like no other. Some of the best play in the early rounds came from the Physics, or Orbit, Region. Chad Orzel, of Uncertain Principles, caught all the action.
It all began with this...
Anchor 1 (voiceover): The Showdown begins! Four regions, eight games each, sixty-four top science concepts in a fight to the finish.
Anchor 2: In today's Orbit region…
worldsfair | December 22, 2007A good one too, by Spike Milligan.
CHRISTMAS 1970.
A little girl called Sile Javotte
Said 'Look at the lovely presents I've got'
While a little girl in Biafra said
'Oh what a lovely slice of bread'.
bcohen | December 21, 2007"And each generation, full of itself,/ continues to think/ that it lives at the summit of history" -- so ends Affonso Romano de Sant' Anna's poem "Letter to the Dead" (as posted here last year).
In the same spirit of questioning Modern Exceptionalism, here is a quote by the German author Daniel Kehlmann from his book Measuring the World (a novel using Humboldt and Gauss as main characters, a novel, I might say, about epistemology):
It was both odd and unjust...a real example of the pitiful arbitrariness of existence, that you were born into a particular time and held prisoner there whether…
worldsfair | December 20, 2007
Well judging by the slowing down of comments, it would appear that the holiday internet slowdown is upon us. Which also means that it's time to put out a post that is a little on the light side.
For me, one of the things I'm curious about is musical preferences - especially since I was once (way back in my undergrad days) one of those audio geeks who reveled in finding that great band that nobody else had heard of. Nowadays, I don't have much time to find new music and usually resort to relying on my brother or hearing something awesome on CBC radio (CBC is great for that), or maybe even…
worldsfair | December 20, 2007Well it's been 9 months going and 64 teams from the beginning, but it's come down to this folks - a battle between two giants in the scientific world.
DARWIN vs HIV
So how does it look?
Well, Darwin has never been a quiet one, and some say he's just gearing up for his 200th birthday. Conversely, this year's worldwide infection count downgrade of 40 million to 33 million doesn't fool anyone - as all indications suggest that HIV is definitely ready for action.
Anyway, click on this bracket image below if you need a reminder of the amazing gameplay over the last 9 months. It'll take you a…
worldsfair | December 19, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
In a stunning development, HIV advances to the final by default. Neither HIV nor Fossil Fuels could be reached for comment.
Looks like the final is Darwin versus HIV.
- - -
bcohen | December 19, 2007I'm taking this from past guest blogger Oronte Churm, who has asked the following over at his blog:
John or Paul, and why?
Later, we may diffract the query to ask if the John/Paul split maps onto the Stones/Beatles split.
worldsfair | December 19, 2007It has come to our attention here at Pole Headquarters that something disastrous is occurring in regards to the Earth. It seems that there have been too many bad little boys and girls polluting the atmosphere with the byproducts of carbon fuels, causing world temperatures to rise.
And so it continues. Worth a read.
bcohen | December 19, 2007I had the fortune to be a bit experimental in the classroom this semester. Curricular innovation, they call it. More precisely, in one of my courses (called "STS 200: Technology, Nature, and Sustainable Communities"), the students wrote an entire book. These are engineering students. All engineers. They wrote a book. A book about relationships between technology and nature as exemplified in a local UVA sustainable housing project called ecoMOD. A full, cohesive, compelling, well-argued, well-researched book. We were glad to see a nice write-up of the project linked from the university…
worldsfair | December 18, 2007Let's do some pre-game chatter.
Because the winner of this semi final in the SCIENCE SHOWDOWN 2007 (can you tell, we're trying to finish up before the end of the new year) will earn a spot in the final - and against Darwin no less. What do you think? When push comes to shove, which is the badder baddie?
The horror of HIV, or the ominous nature of fossil fuels?
Game time: Wednesday am...
worldsfair | December 18, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
What a game! What a game! Unbelievable from the start to the finish! I mean who could've imagined such drama in a match that pitted tentacles against viral particles. But this baby was action packed all the way. HIV was cocky from the get go...
"I am sooo gonna kick ass. I am unstoppable. Folks call me a travesty, folks call me a genocide, and there's nothing you can do about it. Even my merchandise is better than those pansy soft invertebrates. They got nothing on me. Nothing!"
And while the dig about the merchandise may have been true, it was…
bcohen | December 17, 2007Elizabeth Musselman, an historian of science at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX, produces a wonderful series of podcasts called The Missing Link. You should all know about it.
(It's Bertrand Russell)
Of The Missing Link, she writes that it is:
A monthly program about science and its delightfully strange history. For people who are scared of science but deeply intrigued by it. For scientists who know there must be a better back story than what's told in the sidebars of their textbooks. And - oh yes - for those three dozen of you out there who, like me, actually make a living as…