Environmental Heresies

OK, so how is it that I'd never heard of Stewart Brand?

A flame by any other name...

From the NYTimes:
Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior

Apparently flaming is now called the "Online Disinhibition Effect." How long do you think before it's added to the APA's Manual of Mental Disorders? Sorry, it wasn't my fault, it was ODE.

No, I'm just being silly.

Really.

Please don't ODE me!

Whoa Phaeton...

Kerry Emmanuel, a climate researcher at MIT, has written an excellent piece on Global Climate Change in the Boston Review, entitled Phaeton's Reins, a reference to the Greek mythological character who had a slight accident, joyriding in Helios's Sun Chariot.

The article gives an overview of complexities of the science, along with a history of the research and political controversy. It's one of those articles where I'm saying:

"Yes!... Great point... Well said... Yes again... wait...WTF?"

At almost the end, after taking lots of people to task for ignoring or denying the problem, he turns his attention to us scientists:

"Scientists are most effective when they provide sound, impartial advice, but their reputation for impartiality is severely compromised by the shocking lack of political diversity among American academics, who suffer from the kind of group-think that develops in cloistered cultures. Until this profound and well documented intellectual homogeneity changes, scientists will be suspected of constituting a leftist think tank."

Kerry boy, I was with ya right up until the end. I'm not exactly sure what this blanket statement is supposed to mean.

Is he talking about academic scientists? Probably not - he's already skewered those scientists on the left and right who would warp scientific facts to further their agenda, and he states "A very small number of climate scientists adopted dogmatic positions and in so doing lost credibility among the vast majority who remained committed to an unbiased search for answers."

I'm not sure why he threw this in: is our reputation for good science supposed to improve if more conservatives start taking jobs in academia?

He must be talking about the university faculty as a whole? Anecdotally, I'll agree that I've seen some of this, but not to the extent suggested by right-wing pundits. And the well-documented part is exagerated too. Yeah, most surveys show there's more Democratic faculty than Republican, but there's a sizable number of us independents who'd like to think we're exactly that. It's a bit ironic that a researcher who is so critical of people not taking the time to understand complex systems seems to do the same thing himself in that one part.

But it's still a good article.

Kansas comes in from the cold - requires teaching real science again.

From the NYTimes

Should they use pencil this time? I sure hope not. This is no way to run a school system.

I can see an editorial cartoon in my head: two groups of people fighting over the ctrl-z (undo/redo) key on a computer.

Does Lecturing need defending?

Just read this feature in Change magazine by Mary Burgan: In Defence of Lecturing.
I'm a bit stunned, not that I'm hearing that (I hear that from some colleagues frequently), but that I'm reading such an ill-reasoned piece in what's usually a good magazine.

Lecturing has its place in the classroom - as one of a variety of pedagogical methods to choose from, depending on the situation. Where it becomes a problem, and where many seem to become defensive, is when it is the only technique that is used.

The problem with Dr. Burgan's piece is not that it makes a case for the advantages of lecture in the classroom, but that it uses rhetorical devices more worthy of talk radio than an academic. The article creates 'straw-man' opponents - characterizing the views of active-learning proponents as extreme and silly. Yes, I would have a problem with any type of learning strategy where the student got no guidance at all from the instructor and there was no structure to the class. But is the only alternative to that full lecture? Most faculty who hold the middle ground would disagree.


She quotes Pinker, stating that constructivism is "a mixture of Piaget's psychology with counterculture and postmodernist ideology." If you can't produce a sound counter-argument, resort to name-calling.

She seems to feel that it is neccesary for students to be in lecture to get the experience of being in the presence of a master: "Even more fundamentally, I believe, students benefit from seeing education embodied in a master learner who teaches what she has learned." Did I miss something - is an instructor who uses techniques other than lecture not doing the same thing?


Blech. I'd better stop before I start using the same rhetorical techniques. (If I haven't already.)

Can you tell what I'm thinking?

I had forgotten that this was at Princeton.

Best line:

“If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will.”

That's right. After 28 years of proving that ESP is indistinguishable from random chance, we never will.

PhDs

So what does it mean to have a PhD?

What it means is that you're pretty damned good at school.

It means that you're an expert - at least in a small area of expertise.

It means that you wrote a dissertation, supposedly adding to the sum of human knowledge.

It doesn't mean that you know everything, though many of my colleagues (and I'm sure yours) seem to think so. Every been in a room full of PhDs? (I'm thinking about faculty senate or a department meeting) We all seem to think that we're experts in everything.

Of course, I am an expert in everything... ;-)

Testing...Testing...Is this thing on?

I'm supposed to be good at these things. We'll see.

Questions:

Will I stay at it this time?

Will anyone care?