Steinn reports a new metric for research productivity that some people are using: the “H-number”: The H-score, takes all your papers, ranked by citation count; then you take the largest “k” such that the kth ranked paper has at least k citations. So, you start off with a H-score of zero. If your 5th highest… Continue reading Because I Need More Stress
Atheist Church Socials?
It’s mildly ironic that the recent Dawkins discussion has centered around whether he does or does not do an adequate job of addressing the logical arguments for the existence of God, because that’s one of the few areas where I probably agree with him. I don’t find any of those arguments particularly convincing, either. There… Continue reading Atheist Church Socials?
Professional Big East Preview
If my thoughts on the upcoming Big East basketball season aren’t good enough for you, the New York Times gets in on the act. Actually, that’s a story about the pre-season coaches’ poll, in which Pitt and Georgetown are picked to finish at the top, and Syracuse is picked third, with one first-place vote. So,… Continue reading Professional Big East Preview
Easterbrook on the Lancet
Lots of people are jumping on Gregg Easterbrook for his remarks on the Lancet study of deaths in Iraq. In particular, fellow ScienceBlogger Tim Lambert blasts him for saying: The latest silly estimate comes from a new study in the British medical journal Lancet, which absurdly estimates that since March 2003 exactly 654,965 Iraqis have… Continue reading Easterbrook on the Lancet
No Blog For You!
Our DSL was down for a good chunk of the evening, which means I didn’t get to pre-write any blog posts. It also means I haven’t been able to keep up with the comments on recent posts, which is actually probably a good thing, because given how tired I was last night, I probably would’ve… Continue reading No Blog For You!
Local Realism, Loopholes, and the God Delusion
The recent discussion of reviews of The God Delusion has been interesting and remarkably civil, and I am grateful to the participants for both of those facts. In thinking a bit more about this, I thought of a good and relatively non-controversial analogy to explain the point I’ve been trying to make about the reviews… Continue reading Local Realism, Loopholes, and the God Delusion
This Is My Hobby
Eugene Wallingford had a post last week about blogging, and popular misconceptions: When I first started writing this blog, several colleagues rolled their eyes. Another blog no one will read; another blogger wasting his time. They probably equated all blogging with the confessional, “what I ate for breakfast” diary-like journal that takes up most of… Continue reading This Is My Hobby
Where You’re At
Every now and then, I start poking at the stats in Google Analytics, and I almost always find something interesting. For example, in the last week, this site has been visited twice by someone from Mauritius, four times by someone from Iran, and six times by someone from Kyrgyzstan. I’m being read by somebody in… Continue reading Where You’re At
“Idea” is a Perfectly Good Word
The rant about “meme” being a stupid idea that I mentioned near the end of Monday’s Dawkins post turns out to be from Mike the Mad Biologist, who reposted it yesterday. Executive summary: The word doesn’t add much, obscures important phenomena, is imprecise, and is vitalistic. I’m sure you were dying to know this, but… Continue reading “Idea” is a Perfectly Good Word
An Appreciation
Easterbrook on Tiki Barber: At this point Tiki Barber, TTNY (“The Toast of New York”), should replace Brett Favre as the most admired player in the NFL, and as the one who exemplifies the best of football culture. This guy plays amazingly well — last night when the Giants needed power running, he even did… Continue reading An Appreciation