The Mad Biologist, like 80% of ScienceBlogs, is mad at Chris Mooney: Here’s the problem: you keep coming to evolutionary biologists with a problem (the perception of evolutionary biology), and you don’t have a solution. Do you think there’s a single evolutionary biologist who is happy with public opinion regarding evolution and creationism? But you’re… Continue reading Scientists Don’t Have to Do Everything Themselves
Category: Science
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… Continue reading A Flock of Dodos
God and Physics
Via the Zeitgeist, the Templeton Foundation has asked a bunch of famous smart people “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” I wouldn’t ordinarily note this, but if you scroll down a little, you’ll find my thesis advisor, Bill Phillips, who offers an “Absolutely Not!”: [A] scientist can believe in God because such belief is… Continue reading God and Physics
Physics to Finance
We had a talk yesterday at lunchtime from an alumnus who graduated with a physics degree, got a Ph.D. in Physics, did a couple of post-docs, and then decided to give academia a miss, and went to Wall Street where he’s been a financial analyst for the last 12 years. He talked, mostly for the… Continue reading Physics to Finance
A Stable Heavy Element?
Via Swans on Tea, a new article on the arxiv reports the possible discovery of a new stable element: What they did was fire one thorium nucleus after another through a mass spectrometer to see how heavy each was. Thorium has an atomic number of 90 and occurs mainly in two isotopes with atomic weights… Continue reading A Stable Heavy Element?
A Pro-Science Film Festival: Why Not?
Over at Shifting Baselines, Randy Olson posts a comment suggesting how to combat anti-science movies like Expelled: You want to know how to start — why doesn’t somebody run a film festival for pro-evolution films? THAT is how you reach out to tap into new voices, new blood, new perspectives. THAT is what is desperately… Continue reading A Pro-Science Film Festival: Why Not?
What a Drag
I went for a bike ride this morning, the first real bike ride of the year (I’ve biked to and from work a couple of times, but this was the first real ride just for the sake of riding). There was some pissy drizzle at the start, but by the time I got on the… Continue reading What a Drag
Notes Toward “Science in the 21st Century”
The organizers of the Science in the 21st Century conference at the Perimeter Institute have started to collect talk abstracts for the meeting. Actually, they started a couple of weeks ago, but I’m a Bad Person and haven’t gotten around to writing anything for them yet. It doesn’t help that this sort of thing is… Continue reading Notes Toward “Science in the 21st Century”
Abstraction, Compartmentalization, and Education
Given the amount of time I’ve spent writing about academic issues this week, it’s only fitting that the science story getting the most play is about math education. Ed Yong provides a detailed explanation, and Kenneth Chang summarizes the work in the New York Times. Here’s Ed’s introduction: Except they don’t really work. A new… Continue reading Abstraction, Compartmentalization, and Education
The Japanese Directions Theory of Pedagogy
We had a great time on our visit to Japan last summer, but we had one incredibly frustrating experience, on our first day in Yokohama. We couldn’t bring three full weeks’ worth of clothing with us, so we brought a bit more than one week’s worth, and planned to get things cleaned there. The hotel… Continue reading The Japanese Directions Theory of Pedagogy