Science Education & Policy

UPDATE: BBC radio contacted me to let me know they corrected their mistake. I am very glad to hear that! So you can continue reading BBC after all! Probability inversion is one of the nastiest mistakes one can do handling the results of a statistical analysis, invalidating to the roots the interpretation of the data to the point that the whole work effectively becomes useless. Unfortunately, it is a very common entertainment for journalists reporting scientific results, and oftentimes scientists themselves fall in the trap. In a nutshell, the issue is taking a statement on the probability of…

In the wake of Italian scientists being sentenced for not having sufficiently warned the public about the risks of a severe earthquake of L'Aquila 2009, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the French Académie des sciences have published a statement trying to head off possible situations in their own countries Their statement concerning the handling of risks situations by scientists is below. On 22 October 2012, a court in L'Aquila sentenced seven members of the Italian National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks to prison terms of several years. The…

I read the text below in the Facebook page of a colleague and friend, Christopher Hill. The text was meant as a facebook rant - sort of - but it raises important points. I liked what he wrote and I asked him if I could repost it here to the benefit of a larger audience. He graciously agreed. NB: the title of the post is mine.Now that the election and Sandy is (sort of) over, I want to post a rant that I didn't think was appropriate before now. First, Nate Silver. I have heard him called everything from a genius to a wizard to a witch in recent days. He is none of the above. He is a guy who…

In his 2009 inaugural address, President Barack Obama promised to “restore science to its rightful place,” in addition to making the government more transparent and accountable. Millions rallied to his cause. Four years later, how has he done? Unfortunately, not well. On a whole host of issues, Obama has placed politics before science. We will examine just three of them: vaccines, the BP oil spill, and “Cash for Clunkers.” Obama vs. Vaccines In 2008, Obama ventured into the realm of vaccines and autism. While on the campaign trail, he said: We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some…

Scientific products and services company Elsevier and the Federal Coordination of Improvement of Personnel in Higher Education (Capes / MEC), today announced the winners of the second edition of SciVal Award Brazil 2012, honoring higher education and research institutions for their contribution to the scientific development of the country.  According to Scopus data, Brazil holds the 13th position globally in research output per country. The award honors Brazilian education and research institutions that stand out for their excellence in research performance. The ten winners were…

Bumbling coverage on phthalates underscores how activist journalism endangers ‘public science’ Last year, campaigning journalist Susan Freinkel noted that she wrote her anti-chemical book, Plastics: A Toxic Love Story, because she was shocked about how much modern society relied on plastics. In her mind, “synthetic materials” equated with poor health, pollution and western gluttony.  Freinkel’s perspective reflects a familiar and distressing trope in science journalism. Rather than contextualize an issue, activist reporters often dramatize it. Costs are rarely weighed with benefits. The…

Women may own the social sciences and education but they are under-represented in more math-intensive fields, according to a paper which looks at the US, EU, Brazil, South Africa, India, Korea and Indonesia. It was conducted by advocates of international gender issues from Women in Global Science&Technology and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World and it was funded by the Elsevier Foundation. They make special note that the EU and US are low in female representation in hard science fields - but so is everyone else. Across the world, billions are spent on…

Europe isn't in this Millennium on science but they are beginning to embrace the Internet. The availability and popularity of online education in Europe is on the rise. Following the revolutionary developments in online learning in the US, Europe is now catching up, increasing both funding and infrastructure.   In the last decade, the US has heavily invested in online education: it is projected that US online education will outgrow traditional education by 2015. Institutions like Stanford and MIT offer massive online courses for free, followed by up to 100,000 students worldwide.…

In a recent ScienceDebate questionnaire response, speechwriters for Candidate Mitt Romney tried to distinguish themselves from speechwriters for President Obama on education(1), and then proceeded to say the exact same thing Candidate Obama said in 2008 about education - that the union system of protecting the teachers who have been around the longest rather than rewarding the ones who are the best is a big mistake. Basically, Romney believes that science education should be more of a meritocracy - just like science is.  Oddly, scientists in academia, who support the idea of…

Remember The-Shadow-Scholar, the deeply disturbing confirmation of that academia generally selects for meaningless drivel while making critical information unheard; the story that especially academic media try to contain as a side issue about student writing although it is obviously symptomatic of the whole of academia and much of modern society? Now Dave Tomar, the true identity behind the Shadow Scholar, revealed himself and wrote a book about his experiences: “The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat” (Bloomsbury, out next month). The book also offers an…