It’s a while since I branched out to new webcomics. Any recommendations?
education
formal, eclectic, iconoclastic, autodidactic – all the ways we learn
All those people giving Lego the benefit of the doubt?
The news has come in that the “female scientists” Lego set, produced after a huge grassroots campaign and petition from parents who wanted more variety in female minifigs, will only exist as a limited edition set. Despite selling out almost immediately, it will not be released as a standard line.
Life at 9: discussion thread
Here we are at Life at Nine already. How quickly they grow up! The ABC’s documentary series tracking the growth and development of a sample cross-section of Australian children only appears every two years. The two episodes of this edition are designated ‘Independence’ and ‘Creativity’.
Science outreach and when glorifying heroes can alienate prospects
When science heroes have a documented history of treating some kinds of people badly, their glorification by science fans can be alienating for members of the groups those heroes treated badly.
[I]t is dangerous to rest your scientific outreach efforts on scientific heroes. […] Science outreach doesn’t just deliver messages about what science knows or about the processes by which that knowledge is built. Science outreach also delivers messages about what kind of people scientists are (and about what kinds of people can be scientists).
Quote Of The Day: Think Of All The Supervillains
I love the Bad Chart Thursday posts on Skepchick, which mock various exercises in unjustifed extrapolation from datasets compromised by unacknowledged confounding factors or otherwise lacking rigor. This quote comes from the latest:
Media Circus: Demonising Students Edition
Mr Pyne told the ABC’s Lateline that the AFP were concerned about his and the Prime Minister’s safety should they attend the event in Geelong.
He also said the Prime Minister took the decision “so that students can get on with their studies unmolested by the Socialist Alternative”.
Oh no, it’s Reds Under The Beds time again! What news story/commentary/analysis has grabbed your attention lately?
Lego is Refusing to Get the Message
Someone at Lego has decided that they will make more money from parents who like gender segregation and stereotyping than those who loathe it.
Cosmos Wars
Dana Hunter thoughtfully put together a links roundup (so I didn’t have to) on the many many creationists who are very cross with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson right now because he’s talking science on TV.
Perhaps now the usual suspects will stop being undeservedly smug about the Sokal hoax
In 2005, a group of MIT graduate students decided to goof off in a very MIT graduate student way: They created a program called SCIgen that randomly generated fake scientific papers. Thanks to SCIgen, for the last several years, computer-written gobbledygook has been routinely published in scientific journals and conference proceedings.
“Post-secular”?
Secular is one of those words that theocratic propagandists have shifted the Overton Window on, to make it seem like secular is the opposite of pluralist when in fact it is only a secular stance that makes pluralism possible. Post-secular? Hm.
Hoyden About Town 