The New York Times had another article on the environmental impacts of shale gas drilling, which reminded me that I had intended to write something else on the subject after February’s post on the fracking panel at AAAS, but never got around to it. The hook for the article is yet another study showing that… Continue reading My Feelings on Fracking
Category: Society
Wind Power Economics and the Ability to Focus
Kevin Drum re-posts a chart on wind power made by Stuart Staniford showing that the number of new wind power plants installed in 2010 was way lower than in 2009 or 2008: This is meant as a starting point for discussion about the big economic issues that might’ve caused this. One of the many, many… Continue reading Wind Power Economics and the Ability to Focus
Advertising Reveals Our Culture
I’ve been watching a lot of basketball lately, and between the channel-flipping and occasional single-game windows, it has not been possible to use the DVR to avoid seeing commercials. Which means I’ve seen a lot of the current paradigm of advertising in America, which seems to consist of two main modes: Smug and “dickish”: The… Continue reading Advertising Reveals Our Culture
Annual Mis-Reporting on Graduation Rates
It’s NCAA tournament time, which is time for everybody to break out the moralizing stories about the pernicious aspects of college athletics that they’ve been sitting on since the football season ended. The Associated Press (via the New York Times) clocks in with a particularly discreditable entry, a story on a study of racial disparities… Continue reading Annual Mis-Reporting on Graduation Rates
Science Stereotypes and Threats
One thing that I thought of while writing yesterday’s mammoth post about scientific thinking and stereotypes was the notion of stereotype threat, the psychological phenomenon where students who are reminded of negative stereotypes right before a test tend to score worse than they do when taking the test without the negative reminder. This is a… Continue reading Science Stereotypes and Threats
Scientific Thinking, Stereotypes, and Attitudes
A few more comments on the scientific thinking thing, because it’s generated a bunch of comments. As usual, some of them are good points, and some of them have completely misunderstood what I was trying to say. so let’s take another crack at it. While the post was worded somewhat strongly, I’m not really trying… Continue reading Scientific Thinking, Stereotypes, and Attitudes
Everybody Thinks Scientifically
Everybody’s favorite science blogger did a podcast with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and has been posting highlights of it. One of these, on scientific thinking, has a bit that I don’t quite agree with. Tyson says: I think the, if it were natural to think scientifically, science as we currently practice it would have been going… Continue reading Everybody Thinks Scientifically
Hoops and Abstract Principles
Brigham Young University dismissed one of its best post players, Brandon Davies, from the basketball team for violations of the university’s honor code. Reportedly, this was for sex, which is one of many enjoyable things forbidden by the school’s rules, which stem from the principles of the LDS church. This really kind of sucks, as… Continue reading Hoops and Abstract Principles
One in Three College Students Is Coasting. This Is News?
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing in academic circles this week over the release of a book claiming college students are “Academically Adrift” (see also the follow-up story here). The headline findings, as summarized by Inside Higher Ed are: * 45 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” during… Continue reading One in Three College Students Is Coasting. This Is News?
Bad Words and Great Books
There’s a new wrinkle in the endless controversy about Huckleberry Finn, with NewSouth Books preparing an expurgated edition replacing “nigger” with “slave” throughout. Sentiment in the parts of the Internet I frequent is mostly against the change, which has been made with the goal of getting it back on high school reading lists, which it… Continue reading Bad Words and Great Books