Category: Pop Culture

Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, by Randy Olson

The forthcoming Sizzle, Randy Olson’s follow-up to the well-received A Flock of Dodos, is a movie that’s trying to do three things at the same time: 1) provide some information about global warming, 2) make a point about how scientific information is presented to the public, and 3) experiment with new ways of presenting scientific… Continue reading Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, by Randy Olson

Graduate Networking and Science Cartoons

A couple of links about things that have turned up in my email recently: — As a follow-on to yesterday’s post about grad school, I got an email a little while ago about Graduate Junction, a social networking/ career building site aimed at graduate students. I’m coming up on ten years of being out of… Continue reading Graduate Networking and Science Cartoons

Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos

John Allen Paulos’s Innumeracy is one of those classics of the field that I’ve never gotten around to reading. I’ve been thinking more about these sorts of issues recently, though, so when the copy I bought a few years ago turned up in our recent book-shuffling, I decided to give it a read. Unfortunately, I… Continue reading Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos

Science Blogs: What Are They Good For?

Over at Science After Sunclipse, Blake has a very long post about the limitations of science blogs. Brian at Laelaps responds, and Tom at Swans On Tea agrees. You might be wondering whether I have an opinion on this. Since I’m going to be talking about it at a workshop in September (first talk, no… Continue reading Science Blogs: What Are They Good For?

Biographers (and Physicists) Are Pigs

I’m deep in book revisions at the moment, which largely accounts for the relative blog silence. This is expected to continue for a while yet, broken by the occasional post when something comes up that is irritating enough to push me to write about it. Such as, well, now. In the chapter on the Copenhagen… Continue reading Biographers (and Physicists) Are Pigs

Mark Alpert, Final Theory [Library of Babel]

I’ve gotten a fair number of free science books in the last few years, from publishers looking for bloggy publicity, but Mark Alpert’s Final Theory is the first time that I’ve been asked to review a novel on ScienceBlogs (I’ve gotten advance copies of some other novels, but I’ve specifically requested those). Mark Alpert is… Continue reading Mark Alpert, Final Theory [Library of Babel]

Science Festivals, Science Books, and Science Funding

The World Science Festival happened while I was at DAMOP (I missed getting to talk to Bill Phillips, because he left shortly after his talk to go to NYC), and by all reports it was a success– they claim 120,000 attendees on their web site, and sold more tickets than expected for several events, and… Continue reading Science Festivals, Science Books, and Science Funding

Heads in the Sand by Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias‘s first book arrives burdened with one of the longest subtitles in memory (“How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats”), which is a little off-putting. Of course, it also features a back-cover blurb from Ezra Klein calling it “A very serious, thoughtful argument that has never been… Continue reading Heads in the Sand by Matthew Yglesias