The posts selected for the 2009 edition of The Open Laboratory, collecting the best writing on science blogs for the year, have been announced. My We Are Science post made the list, which is nice. Amusingly, this showed up in my inbox at the same time that the ScienceBlogs front page is featuring this Bloggingheads… Continue reading Bloggers and Journalists and Editors, Oh My!
Category: Academia
It’s a Great Job, If You Can Get It
Over at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau calls out unnamed ScienceBloggers for cognitive dissonance: I think scientific training is of great intellectual and practical benefit to students with the interest and ability to pursue it. I would like to see more people choose to study science (whether at the undergraduate level or beyond). However, I am amused… Continue reading It’s a Great Job, If You Can Get It
Why Do I Bother?
I generally enjoy Gregg Easterbrook’s football writing– he gets a little repetitive, and the shtick is starting to overwhelm any insight, but he makes some good points, and is usually entertaining. For example, I really enjoyed his take on the Dallas Cowboys at the end of this week’s column (schadenfreude is a powerful thing). Easterbrook’s… Continue reading Why Do I Bother?
Sports, Test Scores, and the Difference Between Science and Journalism
Inside Higher Ed has an article on athletics and admissions based on an investigative report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The report compares the SAT scores of football and basketball players to those of other students, but what it really highlights is the difference between science and journalism. The basis of the report is pretty simple:… Continue reading Sports, Test Scores, and the Difference Between Science and Journalism
What Makes a Dissertation?
ScienceWoman has a post about plans and publications that opens with a comment about what makes a dissertation that struck me as odd: Three papers, an introductory chapter and some broad conclusions. Those are the ingredients of a Ph.D. dissertation in it’s simplest form. […]My first PhD paper was published in 2006, shortly after I… Continue reading What Makes a Dissertation?
Intellectual Ignorance Knows No Bounds
I’ve said a number of harsh things here about the bad attitude of people who consider themselve Intellectuals toward math and science. After reading this New Yorker discussion about a Young Adult novel, I may need to change my stance a bit. It’s not that they’re better than expected when it comes to math and… Continue reading Intellectual Ignorance Knows No Bounds
Tenure Is Not the Problem
Steve Hsu has a nice post on teaching, following up on the Malcolm Gladwell piece that everyone is talking about. Steve took the time to track down the Brookings Institute report mentioned in the piece, and highlights two graphs: The top figure shows that certification has no impact on teaching effectiveness. The second shows that… Continue reading Tenure Is Not the Problem
The Perils of Competence
Day four of the power outage, with the added angry-making twist that the people across the street from us have their power back. Staring across the road at their warm, shiny lights, I could feel the beginning of the sort of rage that fuels torch-and-pitchfork mobs storming medieval castles. Only, you know, there was just… Continue reading The Perils of Competence
Teachers, Quarterbacks, and Markets
Will Wilkinson has some comments about an article by Malcolm Gladwell from The New Yorker. I basically agree with him about Gladwell, but I’m bothered by the last paragraph: Now, there’s no point in saying things that will make your readers think you are an evilcrazy person, so I can understand why Gladwell wastes words… Continue reading Teachers, Quarterbacks, and Markets
Publishers Weekly Snubs Science
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