Science Education & Policy

In the 1990s, the Clinton administration sharply reduced the number of foreign work visas - the reason was protectionism, the belief that foreign workers were taking American jobs. Things didn't work out as planned. Jobs instead went overseas and since we did not reduce student visas, Asian students learned at the best schools in the world and were forced to return home to compete with Americans, rather than becoming Americans. Today, America still holds the lead in science output, and we spend the most on science and technology by far, but Asia now accounts for 40 percent of global R&D,…

The reason to force young people to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was because they are an easy profit center. They won't use much in the early years but they will when they are old, when a new generation of young people will be forced to pay. It hasn't really worked out that way. While emergency room visits did go down slightly, visits were instead done more in an office for the difference, the cost of mental illness ER visits in this age group increased "significantly," as did diseases of the circulatory system, according to a paper in Annals of Emergency Medicine…

The United Kingdom Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation has  http://blogs.bbsrc.ac.uk/index.php/2014/04/practical-school-science-is-v... Before a bunch of people go off on some jag about how important STEM is and committees are stupid, yes, yes, we know all of that already. We also have to consider we are part of the problem. Science is becoming more esoteric and remote from the public and it is a scenario we have helped create. How many academics have you heard say that practical research is important? Not many. And when they do, they say it is important for someone else…

A short history of IQ - it wasn't the worst thing from 1920s education theory we are still stuck with What to do?  If there is no metric, there is no way to educate http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1304289--iq-a-myth-study-says

“At this point it would be difficult to revive the project,” Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard University, told Jeff Tollefson at Nature. “All of the people who were working on this project have moved on, and they have new jobs.” Really, that was always the goal. President Obama has given environmentalists their own "Mission Accomplished" feel-good moment. He has defied federal court orders to make a decision while continuing to "study" the issue, assuming that people would get other jobs. So even when yet another science study found that it is safe, and the best solution for nuclear…

The European Union, chided by scientists for wacky science like declaring that cell phones cause cancer, water does not alleviate thirst and you can go to jail if you don't predict an earthquake, is starting to inch back toward science. By loosening the noose they have had around agriculture.  Ironically, this is right after environmentalists got Dr. Anne Glover, the first Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission, fired over her advocacy of science-based agriculture. Why the change? It wasn't science, it was economics. Europeans have been loudly criticized for…

In the early days of food labeling and regulations, it was just about mandating honesty. If you go to buy mayonnaise, you shouldn’t have to wonder if it is mayonnaise, the government reasoned, so they passed a law in 1938 requiring honesty about ingredients. The charlatans went out of the business and the free market that remained embraced “better” ingredients as a marketing distinction. It worked well. Better ingredients meant a better product and people who cared about higher quality or superior health for their families embraced labels that connoted higher quality, in a ‘you get what you…

"Privileged" has become one of those words thrown at everyone who has been successful; it's generally a bad idea because it tells people nothing they do matters, social classes and wealth are fixed, and that cultural determinism rules it all. Academia is the problem, not the cure, according to some, and a controversial claim in a new paper will advance that. Katy Swalwell, an assistant professor of education at Iowa State University, says it's not enough to give marginalized students a voice, she says the education system has to take its share of the blame by recognizing they have not engaged…

Could alcohol abstinence campaigns like Dry January may do more harm than good? The Dry January campaign estimates that last year over 2 million people cut down their drinking for January, but popular doesn't necessarily mean effective, and the claims lack rigorous evaluation. Like 'don't buy gas on Tuesday', it isn't really changing anything if people engage in the same behavior a little later. In The BMJ, Ian Hamilton, a lecturer at York University, argues that there is lack of evidence that such campaigns work and don't have unintended consequences. Firstly, it is not clear who Dry…

Campbell Soup Co., which makes a variety of foods including the namesake soups and Prego pasta sauce, has declared their intention to put labels on their foods noting they are “partially produced with genetic engineering.” Some are lamenting this will be a slippery slope to process labels being used as warnings, and undermining confidence in modern agriculture, while anti-science groups are hailing it as a victory. US Right To Know, an outreach group funded by organic food corporations and aided by the partisan attack site SourceWatch, is certainly declaring this a big win for their clients.…