Category Archives: Science-general

New Model for Science Education

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New University Education Model Needed by Carl Wieman

As knowledge and population grew, the apprentice model expanded into the university with an increasing number of students for each expert, in order to pass along information more efficiently. The lecture format predominant today began long ago, before the invention of the printing press, as an efficient way to pass along information and basic skills such as writing and arithmetic in the absence of written texts. The economies of scale led to this expanding to the current situation of a remote lecturer often addressing hundreds of largely passive students.

It’s unclear that this model was ever truly effective for science education and vast societal and technological changes over the past several decades make it clearly unsuitable for science education today.

Geeks Anonymous

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Chad was wondering what to blog about, and then tapped into the mother lode, judging by the number of responses. The Innumeracy of Intellectuals

I’m a professor at a liberal arts college, putting me solidly in the “Intellectual” class, and there’s a background assumption that anyone with as much education as I have will know something about history and philosophy and literature and art and classical music. I read enough to have literature covered, even if my knowledge is a little patchy, and I took enough classes in college to have a rough grasp of history and philosophy, but art and music are hopeless.

I admit it: I share similar characteristics with Chad. Even though I’m not awash in liberal-arts faculty, I think it’s support-group time.

Hi, I’m Tom, and I’m not a ‘real’ intellectual.

Hi, Tom.

I didn’t take art history or music appreciation in college. I like a few classical pieces of music, but my favorites came from watching Bugs Bunny — not exactly the intellectual pedigree. I tried defending my lack of classical music in my collection in college by pointing out that I liked Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture — the response was “Who doesn’t?”

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Faith and Ignorance

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Interesting link over at physics and physicists (rather than the title being a misquote from “Bull Durham.”) Is Faith The Enemy Of Science?

Richard MacKenzie of the University of Montreal has written a rather thought-provoking and lengthy article as a rebuttal to a talk given by Lawrence Krauss. In it, he is disputing Krauss’s assertion that:

Faith is not the enemy.
Ignorance is the enemy.

The linked article is pretty good.

The bottom line is that direct observation shows that faith does not obstruct scientists from
doing science. That said, there are many who portray themselves as scientists who, due to
their faith, are doing a brand of science which is an indignity to the word. I have in mind
particularly those whose principal goal in science is to advance a faith-based agenda. One
must wonder whether these individuals, who probably have a reasonable amount of scientific
talent, might not be doing respectable science if their scientificity had not been stronger, or
their religiosity weaker.

Does faith obstruct non-scientists from learning science? I would argue that it does, for
several reasons.

On that point I quite agree. Anyone who uses their ideology to dictate what answers are acceptable isn’t doing science. Ignorance isn’t the enemy, in the sense that it is an opposing entity; the goal of teaching science (and education in general) is the eradication of ignorance. Ignorance can be fixed as long as there is no active plan to preserve it. Faith, the unsubstantiated belief in something, does indeed preserve ignorance if it prevents you from considering evidence and scientific explanations.

Well worth a read.

Spooky Science

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Labs at night

Images of what some labs look like when nobody is around. I’m a little surprised at the SLAC control room picture; I would have thought they would be manned 24/7 when they were running, so perhaps this is “at night while not running.” Many optics/atomic physics labs look pretty much the same, since you often do your work with the lights out (it’s a relatively recent development that the systems I’m working on have been made “light tight” so that we don’t have to stumble around in the dark)

Cross-Training

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If You Have a Problem, Ask Everyone

A clearinghouse, of sorts, for unsolved problems, open to anyone who wants to try and solve them.

The idea that solutions can come from anywhere, and from people with seemingly unrelated work, is another key. Dr. Lakhani said his study of InnoCentive found that “the further the problem was from the solver’s expertise, the more likely they were to solve it,” often by applying specialized knowledge or instruments developed for another purpose.

For example, he said, the brain might be thought of as a biological system, but “certain brain problems may not be solvable by taking a biological approach. You may want to cast it as an electrical engineering approach. An electrical engineer will come in and say, ‘Oh, here’s the answer for you.’ They have not thought of themselves as being neuroscientists but now they can approach the problem from the point of view of electrical engineering.”

I’ve seen this, in my own limited experience, and even within different branches of physics. There are different mindsets and approaches to problems; getting experience in different fields often pays dividends.

Offering prizes for scientific achievements is hardly new. “It has been around for centuries,” said Karim R. Lakhani, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied InnoCentive. One early example was the work of John Harrison, the 18th-century clockmaker who, in response to a prize offered by the British Parliament, solved the problem of determining longitude at sea by inventing a clock that would keep good time even in heavy weather.

Good and bad example — Harrison solved the problem, but the government kept changing the rules on him and it took a decree from the king to get the balance of the prize paid out.

Plan IX from Outer Space

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Title IX Takes on Science

Men once greatly outnumbered women in collegiate athletics—Title IX brought equality. Men currently outnumber women in science—could Title IX have the same effect? Associated primarily with sports since its inception 26 years ago, Title IX actually applies to sexual discrimination throughout education. According to a recent article in the New York Times, the National Science Foundation and NASA, at the behest of Congress, are quietly investigating whether the science departments of universities might be in violation of Title IX.

Yes, gender discrimination is a problem in science, when one is addressing the lack of equal participation and representation. Of this I have no doubt. The question is whether it is the only problem, or just one of many. (It is ironic that many of the discussions about this topic are so unscientific, because they assume that other factors play no role without having adequately established this) The issue here, though, is whether the comparison to sports is an appropriate one to make. It’s not.

Men and women don’t compete with and against each other in these sporting events. Title IX has been very successful at expanding womens’ participation in sports, because it focused on equality of opportunity and did not assume equality of ability — women are not fighting for a roster spot on a single football, soccer or baseball team, etc. Title IX did not require adopting direct competition between the sexes; there are obvious physiological differences that make this impractical. Certainly there are situations where the women would do better (the uneven parallel bars in gymnastics springs painfully to mind), but would have anywhere close to a 50-50 mix in most sports, if we had mixed-gender teams and ability were the only metric? The lack of opportunity for women that prompted Title IX was the lack of teams on which they could compete, and one could (and did) create and fund these teams. The situation in science is very much different in the difficulties that exist and the solutions that can be proffered.

Give 'Til it Hurts

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NASA Wants Your Urine

Yes, you read that right: NASA needs your urine.

The drive is to benefit NASA’s fledgling Orion Program, which aims to put astronauts back on the moon by 2020. The pee drive is to help engineers working on designing the new spaceship’s toilet.

I’ve got other NASA-related news, but I’m holding that in until tomorrow, even though I’m bursting to tell you.

Are You Sure Your Name Isn't Rod?

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Scary.

lightning through my camera

Because you insisted, here’s the unedited screaming version. I also added video from a minute before the lightning struck so you can get an idea of how hard it was raining. From what i understand, it went through my left hand holding the camera, crossed my back and exited out of my right hand holding onto the metal railing. No entry or exit wounds, just a really good zap!

Reminds me of a “Far Side” tagline: Never, never do this.