Carl Zimmer sent me a message via Facebook, which made me think I might owe the New York Times an apology for last week’s ranting. Publishers Weekly has come out with their list of the best books of the year, and they do even worse than the Times: not one of the 27 books in… Continue reading Publishers Weekly Snubs Science
Month: December 2008
Photoelectric Follies
I spent most of yesterday helping out with an on-campus workshop for high school teachers and students. Seven high school physics teachers and seventeen high school students spent the day doing a half-dozen experiments to measure various physical constants. I was in charge of having them measure Plack’s constant using the photoelectric effect. The actual… Continue reading Photoelectric Follies
links for 2008-12-07
Grading Medical Students (and More on Grade Inflation) — Crooked Timber "But, if grade inflation is supposed to be analogous with price inflation, rising grades do not, in themselves, constitute inflation. Rather, grade inflation occurs when grades rise relative to the quality of the academic performance of the students. And because we do not keep… Continue reading links for 2008-12-07
Bailouts Explained
As always, if you want penetrating analysis of the news, you need to go to a comedian. Jon Stewart explains why Congress is willing to bail out Wall Street, but not Detroit: The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c Autoerotic Explanation Barack Obama InterviewJohn McCain Interview Sarah Palin VideoFunny Election Video… Continue reading Bailouts Explained
links for 2008-12-06
The Intersection: Announcing Unscientific America A new book, from Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, coming to fine bookstores everywhere in May (tags: science books writing politics society) PLoS Genetics: Taken to School: An Interview with the Honorable Judge John E. Jones, III The judge in the Dover "Intelligent Design" trial, in case you don’t recognize… Continue reading links for 2008-12-06
Shouting Heads of Science?
One of the links in the previous post was to Josh’s thoughts on the CNN science shutdown. Toward the end, he had an interesting note on why science doesn’t get more play: This is especially bad for CNN, since so much of their airtime is taken up by talking heads yelling at one another. Science… Continue reading Shouting Heads of Science?
Science Is Interested in You
A few days ago, I complained again about the relative lack of science books in the New York Times “Notable Books of 2008” list. Yesterday, one of the big stories was CNN axing its entire science unit, such as it was, which drew comments from lots of blogs (and more whose links I can’t be… Continue reading Science Is Interested in You
Thursday Baby Blogging 120408
The weekly baby pictures have been getting a little monotonous, so Kate graciously agreed to help out with this week’s shot. Here, SteelyKid is showing off her ability to “stand,” like a big girl: (She’s not really standing, but this is one of her new things. She enjoys being held upright in a standing position,… Continue reading Thursday Baby Blogging 120408
If Wishes Were Horses We’d All Be Eatin’ Steak
There’s a kind of tradition in theoretical physics of wacky “what if” papers. The whole “wormhole” thing is an example of this in action– somebody noticed that the structure of General Relativity would allow you to make tunnel-like structures between points in space, and then asked what you would need to make such a structure.… Continue reading If Wishes Were Horses We’d All Be Eatin’ Steak
A Beautiful Theory, Impervious to Ugly Facts
Via Matt Yglesias, another example of why I have a hard time taking economists seriously, talking about a measure of stock prices: [T]he “Q” ratio [is] the value of the stock market relative to the replacement cost of net assets. The basic logic behind “Q” is that capitalism works. If the “Q” is above 1.0,… Continue reading A Beautiful Theory, Impervious to Ugly Facts