Education Tired debates 17 Apr 2010 There’s a whole bunch of arguments that are becoming very tiring, and in which I think we have made no apparent progress for far too long, such as the fooraw between Massimo Pigliucci and PZ Merkel, the German chancellor. I propose, therefore, to say nothing about them after this post… Continue Reading
Education *Real* doctor?! 14 Apr 2010 Real doctor!? You just keep on thinking that mate. I took the equivalent of 11 years to get my doctorate… Yeah, I know you can prescribe drugs! But can you understand Kant? Continue Reading
Biology Zimmer's evolving blog post on X-woman 28 Mar 2010 Carl Zimmer has a continually updated blog post on the mtDNA of “X-Woman”, which is being informed by his readers and experts. It’s a useful antidote to hasty and inaccurate reportage in the MSM, done well by a very good journalist. Continue Reading
Biology Zimmer’s evolving blog post on X-woman 28 Mar 2010 Carl Zimmer has a continually updated blog post on the mtDNA of “X-Woman”, which is being informed by his readers and experts. It’s a useful antidote to hasty and inaccurate reportage in the MSM, done well by a very good journalist. Continue Reading
Education A Received View paper on species 24 Dec 2009 While I have some internet access via my GF (another fortnight! Is this the third world?) I will mention this paper in Evolution: Education and Outreach, on teaching about species. It’s a standard received view version, complete with Plato and all those logicians being read as if they were talking… Continue Reading
Education How immigration restrictions are starting to hurt academic research 1 Nov 2009 Jorge Cham of PhD Comics was nearly deported from the UK recently. His story is most interesting, and somewhat scary: From here. Part one here. Who doesn’t believe that we allowed terrorism to win? Continue Reading
Education On journals and citation styles 31 Oct 2009 We live, you might have noticed, in an electronic age, right? So why, for heaven’s sake, don’t journals provide either a named Endnote or similar style for their journals? Springer in particular are very bad at this – they give relatively vague and ambiguous instructions via examples, but fail to… Continue Reading
Education On the need for critical reasoning 29 Oct 2009 Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s codiscoverer of natural selection as an evolutionary mechanism, was something of a contradiction. On the one hand he argued with a flat earth advocate, getting involved in a lawsuit as a result. On the other he opposed vaccination and promoted spiritualism. It is not the case… Continue Reading
Education Is your university really undergoing a fiscal crisis? 27 Oct 2009 I have friends who are forced to do five days’ teaching and research work in four days a week, ostensibly because of the Global Financial Crisis. It turns out, this is often not the real reason why… Continue Reading