I am a post-doctoral researcher, employed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose research is funded by a grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Most of my colleagues who are also university scientists are similarly funded either by the DOE or the National Science Foundation (NSF). I […]
The President’s State of the Union address [StateOfTheUnionEarly] was pretty boilerplate, at least for this President. He emphasized all the things we expect him to these days: war on terrror, exporting democracy, domestic security, etc. There were a few notable things that jumped out at me as a scientist, and […]
Toward the late afternoon, I left my office and went down to Stanford’s main campus from SLAC. I had been at SLAC since 7:30 that morning, with a morning spent in meetings and my afternoon spent doing actual, honest-to-God research. Jodi’s book club met tonight, so I decided to just […]
This was a tiring weekend. Saturday was the day of the planning meeting for the annual SLAC and Fermilab Users’ trip to Washington D.C. I have a leadership role in the trip this year, and I got only about 10 hours of sleep between Thursday and Saturday. This trip is […]
Over the past year, the Vatican has demonstrated a remarkable inability to keep its message straight. In a way, this is a refreshing contrast to the current monomanical executive branch of the U.S.. It’s clear that when it comes to evolution and science, the Vatican is capable of expressing not […]
Back in October, when Jodi and I were studying for the November special election here in California, I stumbled across an unchallenged rule in this state’s education code. Section 44932, subdivision a, paragraph 10 of the California Education Code states that one of the important grounds upon which a teacher […]
As I recently mentioned [TAOMPH219], a rural public school in California tried to offer intelligent design in the proper context: an elective philosophy course. Unfortunately, the teacher who created the class decided to run it more like a Sunday school – and I mean a fundamentalist Christian Sunday school – […]
Minneapolis has a truly inspiring light rail system. It’s very plainly new, as all aspects of the light rail cars are still somewhat shiny and fresh. There is also only one route, spanning all the way from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America. It was on this light rail […]
Returning to SLAC after the winter break is *always* a stress-affirming experience. After several weeks of total research avoidance practices (TRAPs), I had the unenviable job of remembering what I’d been doing before the break. Thank goodness for logbooks! After a one-day “getting up to speed” period, I managed to […]
I’m still listening to it, but there appears to be a well-done “American Radioworks production exploring the origins and evolution of the Intelligent Design movement”:http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/inteldesign/index.html. Once thing that bugged me about the program was that it *did not start with the definition of science*. Without that, it’s impossible to later […]
Need a swanky life? Is your life lacking macho business donkey wrestling? You **could** “check out Solid Gold Rold’s e-licious website”:http://www.solidgoldrold.com/, or you could just download “hot tunes from Grushenka”:http://www.cooleysekula.net/home/music/, the formerly hardest working blues band in the greater Middlesex county area.
With Dover over, I have begin to feel somewhat relieved that the American legal system recognizes that the science class is where science can be taught, and that attempts to inject non-science or religious philosophy requirements into the class are illegal. There is a new case, is my current home […]