Monthly Archives: March 2011

Scholar as Citizen

William Cronon, an environmental historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has recently become embroiled in political controversy in a striking echo of the case of Michael Mann, a climatologist at Penn State. In both cases, Republican politicians have sought access to … Continue reading

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Research evaluation

is the name for a field that got rolling in the 1990s, concerned with identifying ways to measure the outcomes of scientific and academic research. We created a systematic, publicly funded research culture in the years after World War II. … Continue reading

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Reclaiming Cynicism: De-Disciplinizing Philosophy

As a primarily academic enterprise, contemporary philosophy tends to forget its own origin as a dyad of theory and practice; the philosophical practice leading to theory was as essential as the theory itself – they mutually constituted each other.  In … Continue reading

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Everything Bad is Good for You

In light of the nuclear crisis in Japan, Ann Coulter appeared on Fox News to argue that “excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.” Bill O’Reilly acts skeptical, but by having her on his show in the first … Continue reading

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Google to the rescue!

In an attempt to influence the climate change conversation, Google teams up with 21 climate scientists from various disciplines and sub-disciplines to create a media-driven public relations campaign for the results and significance of climate science, noting a “large gap … Continue reading

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Nonymous anonymous?

We all know, in some sense, that our online identities are anything but fleeting. But is this something to worry about? This recent article from the Washington Post suggests that a few sites are trying to create the possibility of … Continue reading

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Risk management in the 21st century

A recent finance article in the NY Times drew some interesting parallels between the false sense of security surrounding both the financial crisis in 2008 and the nuclear power plant crisis in Japan. In both instances, the rhetoric of risk … Continue reading

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A real interdisciplinarian

Reading an article on Japan in the NYTs, about how the part of Japan hit by the earthquake and the tsunami was already suffering with an aging population and in economic decline. The article quotes Daniel P. Aldrich, who is … Continue reading

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New: NSF Workshop Report on Interdisciplinary Collaboration

In November an NSF-sponsored workshop on Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Innovative Science & Engineering Fields was held at Boston University. The workshop report from that meeting is now available. Organized by Laurel Smith-Doerr and Susannah Paletz, the two day meeting brought … Continue reading

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Descartes and Fukushima Daiichi

Listen to the commentaries on the problems surrounding the nuclear plant Fukushima Daiichi. There is a disguised philosophic debate here–the cryptic nature of it adding some unintentional comedy. The Cartesian engineer remains convinced in the ability for instrumental reason to … Continue reading

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Does Philosophy Scale?

‘Scalability’ is a concept used in engineering to evaluate the ability of a process to accommodate increased work demands through expansion, while remaining functionally the same. Over the past few days at the New Practice of Philosophy conference here at … Continue reading

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The New Ecomafia & the Offers we Should Refuse…

Ivana Corsale, a MA Documentary film student at UNT, has completed her documentary Campania in-Felix: Unhappy Country with support from CSID. The film explores what Corsale is calling an Ecomafia that has ruined the environment in an area of Italy … Continue reading

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Peer Review: a personal history

I’ve been working on questions surrounding peer review for a number of years. But only recently have I started to figure out what I’ve gotten myself into. The story begins with the National Science Foundation. NSF changed its peer (or … Continue reading

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Peer review = criminal libel Pt 2

Karin N. Calvo-Goller has lost her court case, in which she claimed a bad book review from Joseph H.H. Weiler (editor of the European Journal of International Law) constituted criminal libel. The French court determined “the Review of her book … Continue reading

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Innovation You Can Count On™

The rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corporation to launch NASA’s Glory satellite worked for three minutes this morning. Then it crashed into the Southern Pacific Ocean. This is the same corporation responsible for the demise of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory … Continue reading

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Dostoevsky at South Twin Lanes

It’s difficult to make sense of things. When I was young I thought rationality would be the raft to carry me through choppy seas. Evidence and logic would link, and I would have a net for plumbing the depths. I’d … Continue reading

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Drinking from a Fire Hose

Dispatch from the fourth meeting of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (PCSBI) – Washington, D.C. After releasing its report on synthetic biology, today the PCSBI took on a new topic: emerging diagnostic and predictive tools. In … Continue reading

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