Category Archives: Passing thoughts

Assumptions that seem reasonable to undergraduates.

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Gleaned from my “Ethics in Science” students:

  1. There exists an Official Scientist’s Code of Ethics to which all scientists swear allegiance.
  2. There exists an Ethics Board that operates nationally (and maybe internationally) to impose penalties on scientists who violate the Official Scientist’s Code of Ethics.
  3. In the 22 years since the publication of Cantor’s Dilemma, the scientific community has likely evolved to become more civilized and more ethical.
  4. Anyone who has earned a Ph.D. in a scientific field (at least in the past 22 years) must also have had extensive training in ethics — at least the equivalent of a semester-long course.

As to the origins of these assumptions, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m curious about that myself.

Nostalgia for commencements of yore.

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Actually, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to invoke “yore” for events that happened within the last five year. If there’s an appropriately qualified language- or measurement-geek who’d like to make a ruling I’d be much obliged.

Anyway, my fair university had its commencement ceremony this past Saturday.

It had many of the features we’ve come to expect — faculty adorned in funny regalia, graduates in rented caps and gowns (some with amusing messages on their mortarboards or sporting leis made of candy or dollar bills), a confusion of lines on the procession into the stadium, sun beating down on us all during the addresses from the podium, proud family and friends in the stands (some with large signs or vuvuzelas).

But there was a conspicuous absence of one of the commencement regulars — the beach ball.

As recently as last year, there were probably half a dozen beach balls in play above the graduates at various points in the commencement ceremony. This year, as far as I could tell, there were none.

However, one of the graduates did inflate a condom, which was batted around for a short while. From the accretion of schmutz on it by the time it fell into the hands of a faculty marshal, it was lubricated.

Kids today …

An open letter

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To the large multinational company trying to interest me in blogging about a “fun” story from its “sponsored news-site”:

It’s not that I really begrudge you your effort to get something (more eyeballs on a website that puts your company and its research in the most flattering light) for nothing. Hell, people at my day job try to get me to add value to their agendas while providing no return for me All. The. Time.

I put that down to human nature (even though, as a multinational corporation, you are an individual in only the most strained and legalistic sense).

However, when you pester me to do so in multiple emails, identical but for the persons identified as their senders, you actually make me even less likely to do your thinly-disguised greenwashing bidding.

Also? I’m unlikely to do any free shilling for your huge-profit-making corporation in a world where you persist in paying no taxes.

Kisses,

Dr. Free-Ride

Things that are not entirely interchangeable.

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In heavy throughput grading mode, you sometimes notice interesting confusions or conflations. Among those I’ve noticed the past week:

  • “The chemical” for “the bacterium”. (Sure, a bacterium is composed of chemicals, but it’s got something extra, that spark of life, right? Or am I being a silly vitalist here?)
  • “IUPAC” for “IACUC“. I reckon you probably do want to use the correct nomenclature when describing the compounds you use in any research (including research with animals), but IUPAC has no special powers to approve or oversee your research protocols.

Professional advice (from a 10-year-old).

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Near the end of June, I’m going to a conference at the University of Exeter (in England). The information posted about the area notes that “June is generally a warm and pleasant month to visit Exeter. With temperatures ranging from 19° Celsius and lows at around 11°C with temperatures getting higher near the end of the month.”

Converting that to Fahrenheit (the temperature scale to which my intuitions are calibrated in matters of “dressing for the weather”), we’re looking at lows around 53 oF ranging to highs (?) around 66 oF. Maybe that’s warm June weather for England, but in this part of California, that’s chilly.

Indeed, since it was about 66 oF when it was time to retrieve the younger Free-Ride offspring from the afterschool program, I walked over without a jacket or a sweater. I shivered the whole way there and the whole way back.

On that walk back the younger Free-Ride offspring (speaking from the comfort of a fuzzy winter coat) said, “You should get ready for England by spending a lot of time in a room that’s kept at 66 oF. Eating ice cream and drinking ice water.”

“Or I could just dress for the weather,” I countered. “It’s just that packing to dress for the weather might require a bigger piece of luggage than what I originally planned. Probably fewer summer dresses and more trousers and sweaters.”

“But if this is a business trip,” the younger Free-Ride offspring said sternly, “you should be bringing suits. And tights, to keep your legs warm.”

“But this is a meeting of philosophers of science,” I said. “Dressing professionally does not require a suit.”

“For philosophers of science,” said the younger Free-Ride offspring, “I think you should wear a suit, and tights (to keep your legs warm), and a white lab coat over it.”

Dear readers, the sad thing is that I am halfway considering taking this advice. After all, the younger Free-Ride offspring’s fashion sense is better developed than my own, and a lab coat would provide an additional layer of warmth.

Murphy’s Law: it’s what’s for dinner.

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It would seem that the chili peppers I acquired today were just hot enough to inflame the skin of the hands that chopped them without being hot enough to confer any appreciable heat on the chili they were meant to make spicy.

How many scovilles is that?

Alternatively, I may have stumbled onto a combination of ingredients that acts as antimatter to capsaicin.

Cranky parental ponderable.

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I recognize that when an infant keeps dropping the stuffed animal or flinging the strained peas or whatever, that infant is likely just being a careful empiricist, probing the nearby grown-up’s response to determine how many drops or flings or whatever it takes for the grown-up to lose it.

However, I would have thought that gathering approximately 12 years of data on a particular grown-up might leave an approximately 12-year-old kid in a position to draw some conclusions. Perhaps these aren’t conclusive conclusions (what with the problem of induction and all), but they’re probably good enough to draw predictions about likely responses to certain kinds of behavior.

All of which leads me to believe that a 12-year-old engaging in a behavior that has reliably elicited a strong negative parental response is not being empirically thorough so much as bloody-minded.

Friday Sprog Blogging: the perils of a kid who’s listening.

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The younger Free-Ride offspring and Dr. Free-Ride’s better half have been studying aikido for some years now, at the same dojo, although not in the same class. This means that the younger Free-Ride offspring’s class is getting off the mat as Dr. Free-Ride’s better half’s class is getting onto it, which frequently leads to playful sparring and verbal provocations between the dogi-clad Free-Rides, shenanigans in which their Sensei occasionally takes part.

Recently, Dr. Free-Ride’s better half had a birthday. Indeed, it was on an aikido night. However, while the younger Free-Ride offspring went to the dojo that night, Dr. Free-Ride’s better half pleaded “too much work” and stayed home. Jokingly, I wondered if this might be an attempt to dodge the traditional “birthday beat-down” and, that night at the dojo, I suggested that the younger Free-Ride offspring ask Sensei to reschedule this beat-down.

“I’m not going to do that!” said the younger Free-Ride offspring.

This week, as the kids were clearing the mat and the adults were filing in, Sensei grappled Dr. Free-Ride’s better half, grunted “Birthday boy, eh?” and gave him a perfunctory thumping. Dr. Free-Ride’s better half then turned and gave the younger Free-Ride offspring the hairy eyeball.

“It’s not fair,” said the younger Free-Ride offspring in exasperation. “I didn’t tell Sensei to give [Dr. Free-Ride’s better half] a birthday beatdown — I even said not to! But Sensei did anyway!”

“Oh well,” I said.

“And even though [Dr. Free-Ride’s better half] knows that it was your idea, Sensei thinks it was my idea!”

I allowed as how my good reputation with Sensei meant that he tended not to suspect me of masterminding such plots (and I should point out that all I did was mention to my offspring the possibility of asking Sensei to reschedule the birthday beatdown — my offspring and Sensei did the rest on their own). “I guess the fact that people don’t suspect that of me is what makes me such an effective super-villain,” I said.

“But you are not a super-villain,” my offspring said to me. “You are a good person. That means you have to tell the truth, like to Sensei, right now.”

Sigh. This is why I’ll never get anywhere as a super-villain.

Random bullets of “I guess we’re back in the thick of things!”

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My semester has, in the last 10 days or so, shifted from “close enough to equilibrium to seem manageable” to “who parked their ton of bricks right on my soul?!” I suppose I should have seen this coming, right?

  • That weekend sprog blog never materialized. The proximate causes were a whole mess of grading, and the younger Free-Ride offspring working on yet another school project (for Band, which is technically an extracurricular activity, but I was too busy grading to pursue it).
  • Plus, it turns out that Dr. Free-Ride’s better half seems to have already recycled the aforementioned booklet on how to keep your kids safe (from cyberbullying, sexting, and the like) online. Perhaps this is evidence to indict us as bad parents. However, I think the record will reflect that we’ve been attentive to the dangers of creepy internet stalkers since at least late January of 2006.
  • Best thing at a science fair: the kid who can explain in detail how (and why) all of his strategies for measuring the variables of interest ran into unforeseen difficulties, and how (given more time, if not better instrumentation) he might MacGuyver his way around them. Especially when the kid is not defeated but enthusiastic about the challenges science presents, not to mention the fun of tackling those challenges.
  • Sadly, that good thing didn’t keep the worst thing in my inbox from knocking the wind out of my sails. It sounds like “the management” of the public university system of which my fair campus is a part is planning to go Wisconsin on the faculty union’s collective posterior as we negotiate our contract. After all, this is a terribly cushy job, and I and my fellow faculty members personally orchestrated the financial collapse.