I’m running way behind this morning for a variety of reasons, so I’m going to swipe another easy question and throw it back to the audience. this one’s from Eric Lund, who asked: If you could attend a dinner with any major political figure in the world, who would it be, and why? The answer… Continue reading Stolen Question: Who’s Coming to Dinner?
Category: Society
What People Think About Scientists
Just in time to feed into the discussion surrounding Unscientific America, there’s a new Pew Research Poll about public attitudes toward science. As is usually the case with social-science data, there’s something in here to bolster every opinion. The most striking of the summary findings, to me, is the second table down, in which the… Continue reading What People Think About Scientists
This Is My Job
I got a weirdly hostile comment to my popularization post last night: You have some chutzpah. You are being paid, probably quite well, to do research! Journalists are paid, not nearly so well, to popularize research. It takes some nerve to take an extra year’s salary, and to take time away from your real job—and… Continue reading This Is My Job
Wikis Are Not the Answer
Matt Leifer had a good comment to yesterday’s post about how the editing function, in my opinion, adds considerable value to a book that you don’t get with a blog. I got distracted and didn’t reply to it, and since a day in blog-time is like a week in the real world, I’ll promote it… Continue reading Wikis Are Not the Answer
Geniuses Don’t Fail Out
Over at Skulls in the Stars, gg has a very good response to the polemic about the dullness of modern science that I talked about a few days ago. He takes issue with the claim that modern science is “dull” compared to some past Golden Age, and does a good job of it– go read… Continue reading Geniuses Don’t Fail Out
Answers Matter More than Questions
The smart-people blogosphere is all abuzz about questions from the French college entrance exams, with comments from Matt Yglesias, Dana Goldstein, and Kevin Drum, among others. The general tone of the commentary is summed up by Goldstein’s question: Could you ever imagine the SAT or ACT asking students to write an essay on such complex,… Continue reading Answers Matter More than Questions
Festive Science
There’s a nice write-up about the World Science Festival in the New York Times today: The second annual World Science Festival, a five-day extravaganza of performances, debates, celebrations and demonstrations, including an all-day street fair on Sunday in Washington Square Park, began with a star-studded gala tribute to the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson at… Continue reading Festive Science
Anonymity and Pseudonymity
Somebody recently asked me whether I had figured out who Female Science Professor is. I truthfully replied that I haven’t even tried. That was the first thing that came to mind when some jerk from the National Review revealed the identity of “Publius”, kicking off another round of discussion about the etiquette of revealing identities… Continue reading Anonymity and Pseudonymity
Academic Poll: Forms of Address
This may be too late in the day to generate much action, but I thought of it just a little while ago. Two questions: 1) If you were writing a letter of recommendation for a student, would you refer to them as “Firstname” or “Mr./Ms. Lastname”? 2) Does your answer depend on the level of… Continue reading Academic Poll: Forms of Address
There’s No Escaping Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell has a number of public responses to the sort of thing I ranted about the other day— not to me specifically, mind, but to the same general points– on his own blog and on ESPN’s Page 2. It’s pretty much the same argument others made in the comments to my post. Taking a… Continue reading There’s No Escaping Malcolm Gladwell