Unqualified Offerings

By Thoreau
There’s a study getting some discussion regarding religion and higher education. Although I have not RTFA (I’d have to pay), the most discussed findings are (quoted from the Inside Higher Ed article):

Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity — measured by either religious attendance [...]

By Thoreau
The Golden Rule is that he who has the gold makes the rules.  But in a transfer of gold, are the rules made by the one who had the gold or the one who got the gold?
I heard somebody quote numbers comparing the amount the state spends per university student vs. the amount the [...]

How the Iraq War came to Colorado Springs. Dave Phillips’ article is comprehensive and does not scant the Iraqi victims of crimes committed here and abroad by shellshocked veterans of the “Lethal Warriors” brigade. Atrocities are a part of any war, but this particular war was based on more ridiculously transparent lies and delusions than [...]

By Thoreau
I was thinking more about the subject of kool-aid in science, related to recent posts on contradictory ideas embraced by academic scientists. The National Science Foundation requires that every grant proposal include a description of the “broader impacts” of the research project. They like to see things like undergraduate involvement, diversity of [...]

By Mona
Previously I’ve written that the AP behaves like goons with bloggers and their commenters– construing even a three-word quote of one of their articles as “copyright infringement.” (And a few times since that 2008 post I have violated my announcement that I would not quote from or link to AP.) Well, they are [...]

This is correct!
[The highest praise for a book] comes when, after you finish a book, you are still so wrapped up in it that you can’t bring yourself to pick up another one and leave behind the mental and emotional world from the previous book.

Tyler Cowen.
You can quantify the praise by measuring the time until [...]

Predator Drone’s Commonplace Book.

As it happens, police work did crack the ten most dangerous jobs in 2007. But two contributors to that relative have nothing to do with the absolute dangers of the job: 1. The 2002 list that Tom Knapp links breaks truckers and other drivers (salesmen and hacks, among others) into two separate occupations, while the [...]

By Thoreau
Should the cops have shown up at Prof. Gates’ house and asked questions?  Of course.  They got a report of a robbery, and they need to check it out.
Did Prof. Gates act like a bit of a dick?  Probably.  Was it smart?  Of course not.  Was it understandable when he’s just gotten off a [...]

By Thoreau
I’ve mentioned before that I have an interest in the mathematical theory of elections, and that on the side I continue to plug away at a paper on some theorems I came up with. I recently learned that the first book I ever read on voting theory, Approval Voting by Brams and Fishburn, [...]