Auto-tagging posts + the nDH metric
data
developing
idf
local
market
meat
rights
students
tf
vegetarianism
This morning I added a new feature to the blog posts: an R script that automatically generates and applies tags, allowing users to find old posts on (potentially, roughly)…
No, psychologists haven’t shown that GMO opponents don’t care about evidence
data
gm
policy
reasoning
Earlier this week, the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science published a paper by a team of psychologists on “absolute moral opposition” to GM foods. The paper has attracted some attention on my social media networks, where it’s being interpreted as evidence that many GM…
Public Policy: What Philosophers of Science can Contribute
data
developing
policy
scientist
students
I spent last week in Washington, DC, interviewing with about 10 different federal government offices as a finalist for a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship. As you’ll see from those slides, AAAS policy fellows are primarily natural scientists and engineers; while it’s common to have a handful of social scientists and…
When “Feeding the World” Doesn’t Mean “Feeding the World”
funding
gm
local
market
markets
regime
A common lament in the GMO controversy is that both sides really want the same thing. As Ottoline Leyser puts it in a piece in PLoS Biology from this summer, “The most frustrating thing about this situation is that almost everyone wants the same outcome: a reliable, sustainable, equitable supply of nutritious food.” In other…
HSS Reflection: Practices, Science, and Criticism
data
motivated
reasoning
This is the second of my posts this week about the 2014 HSS/PSA conference. Here, I’d like to think a little about Andrea Woody’s comments on the paper I read at a HSS session on “technoscience as practice.” The session was organized…
Work and Hackwork
automated
love
moocs
Should you love what to do, or “live to work”? This post suggests not:
Is the Finnish Model Irrelevant to North America?
factors
finnish
policy
Like many professional educators, I’m a fan of the Finnish education system, especially its emphases on recognizing the autonomy of teachers as highly-trained professionals, an egalitarian distribution of educational resources, and inquiry-based…
Is Motivated Reasoning Bad Reasoning? III
critic
hypothesis
motivated
policy
reasoning
scientist
This is part III of a three-part series. This series will be posted simultaneously on Je Fais, Donc Je Suis, my personal blog, as well as the Rotman Institute Blog.
How to Use Citations to Create Ignorance
citation
citations
data
gm
gmof
maize
policy
scientist
I spent most of Monday working on some “deep literature analysis” for my research on genetically modified organisms for food, or GMOf. This meant, in practice, that I spent about two hours looking up the citations for a single article. It was quite dull work, but the results…
MOOCs do not Make for Successful Math Classes
automated
data
instructor
math
moocs
students
In this post, I’m going to discuss MOOCs, based on my recent experience in a Coursera course on Social and Economic Networks. I’m going to start with a brief explanation of my reasons for taking the course, give a quick overview of the structure of the course, then explain my criticism. I’ll end…
The Funding Effect and Noxious Markets: Weak Agency
developing
funding
market
markets
medicine
satz
scientist
(In this series of posts, I’m applying Debra Satz’ account of noxious markets to a specific aspect of commercialized science, the funding effect. In the first post, I summarized…
The Funding Effect
data
funding
gm
hypothesis
local
market
markets
medicine
rights
satz
In this series of posts, I’m applying Debra Satz’ account of noxious markets to a specific aspect of commercialized science, the funding effect. In the first post, I summarized Satz’ account. In this post, I explain the…
Notes on Predators and Animal Ethics
compassion
meat
predators
rights
vegetarianism
virtues
In this post, I’ll be discussing one of the common arguments against (moral) vegetarianism. (Moral vegetarianism is the view that vegetarianism is morally required, or that eating meat is morally impermissible. I’ll just use “vegetarianism” here.) I’ve encountered it…
Satz’ Account of Noxious Markets
citations
market
markets
rights
satz
In this post, I’ll summarize Stanford political philosopher Debra Satz’ account of noxious markets. (Satz 2010; unsourced page number citations will be to this book.) This will serve as preparatory work for a post applying her account to…
Friedersdorf: The Sex-Friendly Case Against Free Birth Control, part II
birth
medicine
preventative
Part I
No matching items