Links for 2011-01-25

“Completely unrelated to this was a session called “How Can We Maintain High Journalism Standards on the Web,” and it was attended mostly by the professionals. Most of the session focused on ethics standards and disclosure and avoiding the appearance of bias, which means Pepsigate came up (surprise!) and other related subjects as well. I get that most responsible journalists don’t want their work tainted by the appearance that they are endorsing a product or service, which can be questioned by links or undisclosed sponsorships or targeted ads. A lot of their credibility is tied up in their objectivity. But I think there’s more to it. One thing that was mentioned only briefly was knowing what you are writing about, and from the perspective of a scientist who happens to write a blog, that’s where my credibility is. And it wasn’t clear that the writers understood this, or to what extend they understood this, because the conversation never went in that direction.”

“Once we acknowledge that income is a poor metric for explaining the popularity of the doctorate at this historically un-propitious time in American economic history, we cast about for softer reasons like “quality of life.” But I’ve yet to see a survey that measures “smugness,” and until we wrestle the Smugness Angel to the ground we won’t get a handle on the doctoral overproduction problem (if there is one). It isn’t the hope of some future job satisfaction that pushes folks to burn a near-decade of life on a piece of paper, it is self-satisfaction. We live to do that which we ought not do, and when we do that forbidden thing despite all the good reasons not to, smugness descends upon us like a tongue of fire.”

“I’m not sure how Jay Cutler can even show his pouty, tear-stained face after what he did to the Bears yesterday. Did you see Cutler out there on the first series, drifting lazily upfield while Greg Jennings beat him for huge gains on back-to-back plays? And then the very next play, Cutler had position to stuff James Starks, and Starks just blew through his tackle for a six-yard gain. Jay Cutler is shamefully soft, and he put the Bears in a hole they could never manage to climb out of.
What? Jay Cutler doesn’t play defense? Oh. So that was some totally different set of guys in Bears uniforms who rolled over and let the Packers march 84 yards to start the game. And those guys, unlike Cutler, weren’t out there trying to play with blown medial collateral ligaments in their knees? Well!”

“Called Citizen Science, the new program is the brainchild of Bard’s president, Leon Botstein, who is himself an artist — the music director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Botstein has accused colleges of shirking their responsibility to create a well-rounded citizenry.

“The most terrifying problem in American university education is the profound lack of scientific literacy for the people we give diplomas to who are not scientists or engineers,” he said. “The hidden Achilles’ heel is that while we’ve found ways to educate scientists in the humanities, the reverse has never really happened. Everybody knows this, but nobody wants to do anything about it.””