You may remember the plight of the Tripoli Six (also known as the Benghazi Six), the physician and five nurses on trial in Libya for infecting 400 children in the hospital where they were working with HIV even though there is overwhelming evidence that the most likely route of infection was poor hospital hygeine, probably before any of these six health care workers even set foot in Libya. (Nature provides details of the scientific analysis of the evidence in this PDF.)
While the public outcry from the scientific community in support of the Tripoli Six has been great, those watching the trial still anticipate a guilty verdict — which could bring a death sentence — on December 19. So once again, I’m asking you to stand up and add your voice to the call for justice here:
Stream of (un)consciousness linklove.
You know how I was sick last week? I was all responsible and stuff, drinking lots of green tea and getting to sleep early and all, and over the weekend I actually felt reasonably healthy for like a day and a half. And now? I seem to have caught another nasty cold.
Which is to explain that this post may reflect my current state of not partaking as fully of consciousness as I generally like to. Also, in the interests of your own health, you should avoid licking the screen while reading this.
A favorite card-game from my youth.
As promised, I’m sharing the rules for the card game that my extended family played all through my youth. The idea here is that a set of rules for a bunch of favorite card games, a deck or two of cards, and a promise to play some of these games could make for an inexpensive — and personalized — holiday gift. So feel free to use this, or to share your own favorite card game (especially if it’s one that hardly anyone outside your little circle seems to know about).
The name of the game is Shanghai (though I can’t tell you why it’s called that — I don’t know), and here’s how you play it:
Brain-Friendly Giftables, part 2: Games.
There are two features of games that have always appealed to me. First, the good ones put you in a place where you are explicitly thinking out different ways the future could play out — the possibilities that are more or less likely given what you know (and what you don’t know). Second, many of them let you drag someone else (whether your opponent or your teammate) into thinking through these situations, too.
Any game where you have to make choices about what to do involves some sort of strategy, and formulating or refining strategies is a work-out for your brain. This means that games, in general, tend to be brain-friendly giftables. That said, here are some of the ones we like best:
Has the demarcation problem been solved?
Revere stirs the pot (of chicken soup) to ask why alternative therapies are presumptively regarded as pseudo-science. The reflexive response of the quackbusters has been that alternative therapies fall on the wrong side of some bright line that divides what is scientific from what is not — the line of demarcation that (scientists seem to assume) Karl Popper pointed out years ago, and that keeps the borders of science secure.
While I think a fair amount of non-science is so far from the presumptive border that we are well within our rights to just point at it and laugh, as a philosopher of science I need to go on the record as saying that right at the boundary, things are not so sharp. But before we get into how real science (and real non-science) might depart from Sir Karl’s image of things, I think it’s important to look more closely at the distinction he’s trying to draw.
Lab accidents are not funny.
The most recent Ask A ScienceBlogger question is:
What’s the funniest lab accident you’ve ever had?
Those who know me can tell you I like to laugh, but I’m having trouble coming up with a lab accident that I’d call funny.
Friday Sprog Blogging: what (and where) is science?
Dr. Free-Ride: What science have you been learning in school lately?
Younger offspring: We’ve been learning what animals are nocturnal and what animals are diurnal.
Dr. Free-Ride: What other science have you learned this year?
Younger offspring: Oh, lots of different things.
Dr. Free-Ride: Hey, if there were a new kid in your class who hadn’t had science before, how would you explain what science is? How would you be able to tell it apart from reading or math or writing your letters?
Younger offspring: Science is something you learn from parent helpers.
Dr. Free-Ride: Huh?
Younger offspring: Because [Dr. Free-Ride’s better half] teaches it to our class!
Dr. Free-Ride: Oh.
What’s the best way to excite kids about science (or at least not convince them it’s boring or impossible)?
On the heels of my post wondering where the science is in elementary school, I’m interested in your sense of how things stand now and what, if anything, you think we should do about the situation. Draw on your experience as a former (or current) student, a parent, an educator (including educating future teachers), a working scientist, or whatever.
The possibilities that have been raised so far seem to be:
My (shallow) relationship with the American Chemical Society.
It turns out I’ve been a member of the Americal Chemical Society for three years now. How do I know?
They sent me a new mug.
How much science is there in elementary school “science”?
My better half has been a frequent classroom volunteer leading science lessons in younger offspring’s kindergarten class. This has made it fairly apparent to us that there’s very little of what either of us would identify as science in these lessons.