You may be wondering whether the recent spate of blogging about science in popular media and peer review (by the way, you should definitely read Janet’s two posts on these issues) has any connection to my talk next month at the Science in the 21st Century workshop. Yes, yes it does– I figure that I’m […]
Category: Policy
Self-Esteem Is Not the Problem With Science Education
Arts & Letters Daily sent me to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the headline How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science. “Hey,” I thought, “Good to see this issue getting some more attention.” And, indeed, the article starts off well enough, with a decent statement of the problems in science […]
The Innumeracy of Intellectuals
I know nothing about art or music. OK, that’s not entirely true– I know a little bit here and there. I just have no systematic knowledge of art or music (by which I mean fine art and classical music). I don’t know Beethoven from Bach, Renaissance from Romantics. I’m not even sure those are both […]
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 […]
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 […]
Uncertain Principles, Certain Results
From yesterday’s snail mail: On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence about the President’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget. We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions. So, there you go. I’m appreciated and my suggestions are welcomed. Of course, it took me a while to figure out when I might’ve contributed […]
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 […]
A Flock of Dodos
Randy Olson’s movie A Flock of Dodos comes up again and again in the course of arguments about public communication of science, but I had never gotten around to seeing it. I finally put it on the Netflix queue, and ended up watching it last night. For those who have been living in caves and […]
Framing Stem Cells
With the “Vox Day” business winding down (one way or another), it’s time to unwind with something less contentious and controversial: Framing! No– seriously. Most of the really loud opponents have publically washed their hands of the whole topic, so I expect this will be relatively non-controversial. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, Janet is […]
Humorless Scold Smackdown
Inside Higher Ed notes in passing that several NCAA Presidents are complaining about alcohol advertising during the NCAA Tournament. The source for this is a study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest: According to CSPI’s analysis of broadcasts of the semifinal and championship basketball games, the NCAA is exceeding the limits on […]