On the subject of silly things said about academia, Matt Yglesias does a quick pass over “assessment,”, and in the process recommends Alan Kruger’s research that claims the benefits of elite colleges are all from selection effects. He links a Newsweek article on the topic, which contains this paragraph: Dale and Krueger then compared graduates… Continue reading Class Is Not a Footnote
Author: Chad Orzel
Academic Science Isn’t That Bad
For some reason, the infamous “Don’t Become a Scientist” rant by Jonathan Katz has bubbled up again, with Scott Aaronson giving his take. I commented on this a while back, and the intervening year and a half hasn’t really improved my opinion of the piece. The discussion in Scott’s comments is better than the rant… Continue reading Academic Science Isn’t That Bad
The Infamous 123 Meme
That “post three sentences from page 123 of the book closest to you” Internet “meme” has come around again, with Bora calling me out in hopes of getting a short preview of Bunnies Made of Cheese (or whatever the book ends up being called). Unfortunately for him, I blog from a desk heaped with books,… Continue reading The Infamous 123 Meme
links for 2008-02-26
SMU’s Deal With Bush :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education ‘”What self-respecting university would accept a censored library?” said Rev. William McElvaney, a professor emeritus of preaching and worship at SMU’s theology school, and one of the leading critics of the library.’ (tags: US politics academia stupid)… Continue reading links for 2008-02-26
Social Networking… of SCIENCE!
There’s been some discussion recently of ScienceBlog reader get-togethers, and the question was raised of what ScienceBlogs ought to do to facilitate this. Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that Facebook is useful for, and there is, in fact, a ScienceBlogs Facebook group. If you’re a Facebook user, and interested in that… Continue reading Social Networking… of SCIENCE!
Theory of Blogging Faculty
Over at evolgen, RPM is wondering about the disciplinary distribution of bloggers: I have an intuition, backed up by absolutely no evidence, that my particular area of interest (evolutionary genetics) has more faculty blogging about stuff related to their research than other fields. This is most likely the result of my interest in those blogs,… Continue reading Theory of Blogging Faculty
Roller Coaster Pregnancy
Thanks again to all the people who left congratulations and well-wishes on last week’s ultrasound picture post. The positive thoughts are much appreciated, especially since it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster here in Chateau Steelypips. As you can guess from the fact that the ultrasound looks fairly baby-ish, we’ve known about this for quite… Continue reading Roller Coaster Pregnancy
links for 2008-02-25
Starship Kimchi: A Bold Taste Goes Where It Has Never Gone Before – New York Times “Three top government research institutes spent millions of dollars and several years perfecting a version of kimchi that would not turn dangerous when exposed to cosmic rays or other forms of radiation and would not put off non-Korean astronauts… Continue reading links for 2008-02-25
Random Oscar Thoughts
There was some back-channel talk about the Academy Awards this past week, in which another ScienceBlogger opined that the Oscars were stupid and that we, as Serious Intellectuals, ought to have better things to talk about than a pop-culture award show. I think that’s well over on the “pompous ass” side of things, so here’s… Continue reading Random Oscar Thoughts
Sunday Mighty Hunter Blogging
Here we see the mighty hunter returning from a successful pursuit of the elusive Red Snow Squid.