Monthly Archives: June 2011

Bubblenomics: Shale Gas Edition

It is quite likely that shale gas is being oversold as a revolutionary energy source, based on industry data and internal emails uncovered by muckraking New York Times journalist Ian Urbina. In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Environmental policy, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Leave a comment

Which will go first: the ocean or fossil fuels?

The latest ocean news: scientists are gearing up for the next few decades of continued decline in marine populations, the extinction of shallow-water coral reefs, and major perturbations in current physical and chemical stabilizing systems. The first ever interdisciplinary, international … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Environmental policy, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | Leave a comment

Nozik & Anarchy

Why the philosophical father of libertarianism gave up on the movement he inspired. – By Stephen Metcalf – Slate Magazine. Very good overview article of the progression from Nozik’s encouragement of what would become Neo-LIbertarianism to his discouragement. Also does … Continue reading

Posted in Public Philosophizing | Leave a comment

Adventuresome Education… not quite

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/06/19/time_to_kill_liberal_arts I am not quite sure why it is the liberal arts that always get the focus. From the studies I have seen and the people I know, a person with a liberal arts degree is not any less likely … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Future of the University, Public Philosophizing | Leave a comment

NSF issues new merit review criteria

At http://nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2011/06_mrtf.jsp. We are writing a Science Progress post on it this weekend.

Posted in Interdisciplinarity, NSF, Peer Review | Leave a comment

Utrecht–International Network for Inter- and Transdisciplinarity

Blogging from Utrecht–day 2 of our meeting, to see if we should form a network of networks in ID and TD. Right now, I am dubious. The group breaks up into folks who do ID/TD research, versus those who do … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Public Philosophizing | Leave a comment

Branding Logos

So everybody seems pretty familiar with logos these days. In fact, product branding has made some logos more recognizable to children than the faces of their grandparents. But I want to talk about the oldest of all logos… the ancient … Continue reading

Posted in New Lexicon, Public Philosophizing | Leave a comment

Coburn puts NSF ‘under the microscope’

US Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) recently released a report that takes issue with some NSF practices — including funding the social sciences. David Bruggeman has an interesting discussion of the report here.

Posted in Accountability, Metrics, NSF, STEM Policy | 1 Comment