I’m not in the general habit of endorsing candidates for state office in districts where I don’t live, but I think I can make an exception in this case: In a unanimous vote, the Broome County Democratic Committee approved of Town of Triangle Councilman John Orzel to run for the state’s 52nd district, currently represented… Continue reading The Coveted Uncertain Principles Endorsement Goes to…
Category: Politics
Extremists Aren’t Interesting
Sean Carroll is miffed about a science-and-religion panel at the World Science Festival: The panelists include two scientists who are Templeton Prize winners — Francisco Ayala and Paul Davies — as well as two scholars of religion — Elaine Pagels and Thupten Jinpa. Nothing in principle wrong with any of those people, but there is… Continue reading Extremists Aren’t Interesting
Correlation, Causation, and Belief in Creation
Thinking from Kansas, Josh Rosenau notices a correlation in data from a Daily Kos poll question on the origin of the universe: Saints be praised, 62% of the public accepts the Big Bang and a 13.7 billion year old universe. Democrats are the most positive, with 71% accepting that, while only 44% of Republicans agree… Continue reading Correlation, Causation, and Belief in Creation
Links for 2010-05-27
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Thoughts on DIY U “Eleemosynary institutions have real and serious flaws, but they exist to empower the weak. They are necessary to empower the weak. If you rend them asunder, you will expose the weak to the predations of the strong. This is so fundamental that I’m surprised it… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-27
The Problem of “Theory”
When I was writing about the seemingly contradictory meanings of “adiabatic” the other day, I almost gave “theory” as an example of a word with nearly opposite meanings. After all, as anyone who has even glanced at the evolution-creation “debate” has heard, a “Theory” in science is something more exalted than a mere guess– it’s… Continue reading The Problem of “Theory”
Non-Dorky Poll: Vote Reporting
As James Nicoll is fond of saying, context is for the weak. So here’s a context-free poll regarding the reporting of election results: Releasing a rank-ordered list of candidates with vote totals after a contested election is:online survey If you’d like to explain what context you might imagine this to have in the comments, that… Continue reading Non-Dorky Poll: Vote Reporting
Infuriating Polls
I’m currently enjoying the high, thin whistle of an impending deadline, so here are a couple of poll questions about infuriating behaviors to pass the time. The first is about people: Which of these is more infuriating to read/watch/hear?online surveys The second about presentations: Which of these talks is more infuriating to listen to?Market Research… Continue reading Infuriating Polls
There’s More to Science Than Evolution
The National Science Board made a deeply regrettable decision to omit questions on evolution and the Big Bang from the Science and Engineering Indicators report for 2010. As you might expect, this has stirred up some controversy. I wasn’t surprised to learn this, as I had already noticed the omission a couple of months ago,… Continue reading There’s More to Science Than Evolution
Belated March Meeting Wrap-Up
I did one sketchy update from Portland last Tuesday, but never wrote up my impressions of the rest of the March Meeting– when I got back, I was buried in grading, and then trying to put together Monday’s presentation. And, for reasons that will become apparent, I was unable to write anything up before I… Continue reading Belated March Meeting Wrap-Up
It’s Not Just the Length, It’s the Content
The never-ending discussion of whether the Web can or should replace books has shifted into the corners of blogdom that I follow again, with Kevin Drum arguing for more books, Henry Farrell arguing for shorter books, and Jim Henley agreeing with Henry, and expanding it to fiction. They’re all at least partly right– more shorter… Continue reading It’s Not Just the Length, It’s the Content