Category: Society

Earmarks and the Ridicule of Science

There’s an interesting exchange over at the Reality-Based Community around the topic of “earmarks” for science, like the grizzly bear DNA study McCain keeps mocking. Michael O’Hare argues that science should not be funded by earmarks: Almost any piece of scientific research, especially in biology, that isn’t called “Cure cancer!” is liable to the kind… Continue reading Earmarks and the Ridicule of Science

Science21 Highlights: Open Access and Public Accessibility

I have never been a huge proponent of the Open Access and Open Data movements in science publishing, because they’ve always struck me as wasted effort. I’ve never really seen what value is supposed to be added by either project. When I think about the experiments that I’ve been involved with (see, for example, the… Continue reading Science21 Highlights: Open Access and Public Accessibility

We Are Science

If you listen to people talking about (or read people blogging about) new ways of doing things, you’ll frequently hear references to Science or Academia as if they were vast but monolithic entities existing in their own right. Statements like “The culture of Science does not reward open access…” or “Modern Academia does not reward… Continue reading We Are Science

Talking to My Dog About Science: Weblogs and Public Outreach

I gave my talk this morning at the Science in the 21st Century conference. Video will eventually be available at the Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive site, but if you’d like to get a sense of the talk, a few people were live-blogging it in the FriendFeed room for the meeting. You get a pretty… Continue reading Talking to My Dog About Science: Weblogs and Public Outreach

Modest Proposals Regarding Underage Drinking

The recent news about the Amethyst Initiative, in which a number of college and university presidents are calling for a lowering of the drinking age from 21, has sparked a bunch of discussion. Jake Young and Mark Kleiman have good contributions. There are two main arguments against lowering the drinking age: 1) Raising the drinking… Continue reading Modest Proposals Regarding Underage Drinking