Janet D. Stemwedel
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
jstemwedel
Posts by this author
March 24, 2009
Today is Ada Lovelace Day.
Regular readers of this blog may recall that I am a tremendous Luddite. Obviously, this should not be taken to mean I am against all technological advances across the board (as here I am, typing on a computer, preparing a post that will be published using blogging…
March 24, 2009
Protocol Breach Reported in Biederman Study of Preschoolers - Health Blog - WSJ
How big a protocol breach is "too big"? And what kind of "expectations" should a physician-scientist entertain before a clinical trial commences?
(tags: medicine research-with-humans ethics)
jfleck at inkstain »…
March 23, 2009
Some commenters on my last post seem to be of the view that it is perfectly fine for scientists to pull numbers out of thin air to bolster their claims, at least under some circumstances.
I think it's a fair question to ask: In which circumstances are you comfortable giving scientists the go-ahead…
March 21, 2009
When scientists make claims with numbers they have clearly pulled out of thin air. For example:
Ultimately, success is only about 0.01% based on 'strategies' like those espoused on this blog, and 99.99% on simply doing good science and explaining a good plan well.
Is commenter Dave making a…
March 21, 2009
As Friday was the first day of spring (for my hemisphere, anyway), I went out to the back yard to survey the local level of springiness.
I didn't make a quantitative measure of the spring constant, but qualitatively, things seem to be on their way.
The pink jasmine is starting to bloom:
Its…
March 21, 2009
This week at Bloggingheads.tv, PalMD and I have a chat about science, ethics, and alternative medicine. Plus, we have a little disagreement about what constitutes paternalism.
Go watch!
March 20, 2009
Today I decided to play with some chemicals I ordered to try to spherify V-8. It's the molecular gastronomy thing where you mix a liquid with sodium alginate, then drip it into an aqueous solution of calcium chloride to get the juice-alginate mixture to gel, forming a skin around a liquid center.…
March 20, 2009
It's a proud day for any parent when offspring start getting interested in formal proofs. So I felt a little thrill when the elder Free-Ride offspring sat down with Dr. Free-Ride's better half to consider whether it was possible for there to be a largest prime number:
:
Not just a proof, people…
March 20, 2009
This Friday marks the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Accordingly, in SprogCast #5, the elder Free-Ride offspring marks the change of season by describing a local release of trout-fry.
You can download the sound file and pretend that the bathtub sounds are the gentle tides of the…
March 19, 2009
Everyday Practice of Science: Where Intuition and Passion Meet Objectivity and Logic.
by Frederick Grinnell
Oxford University Press
2009
Scientists are not usually shy when it comes to voicing their frustration about the public's understanding of how science works, or about the deficits in that…
March 18, 2009
The younger Free-Ride offspring's admiration for and appreciation of the work of Jonathan Coulton continues unabated.
In fact, JoCo songs have become the subject of painstaking drawings that the younger Free-Ride hopes Mr. Coulton might encounter while Googling himself (as one does).
The latest…
March 18, 2009
Over at Neurotopia, SciCurious has a fabulous post on the question of who is a scientist. Her discussion really teases out a lot of important nuances, and I think her analysis is spot on.
I'm going to add my two cents simply to connect Sci's discussion with an issue I've pondered before: the…
March 18, 2009
Orac takes issue with a pair of posts I wrote yesterday about the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). I gather he thinks I've been far too trusting as far as the information provided on the NCCAM website, and that I'm misrepresenting the issues the critics of NCCAM…
March 17, 2009
In my last post, I started wading into the question of what kinds of ethical questions arise from clinical trials on "alternative" medical treatments, especially clinical trials supported by the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The ethical questions include…
March 17, 2009
A little while ago, PalMD put up a post at Whitecoat Underground about the current state of the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), especially at a moment in history when the federal government is spending loads of money (and thus maybe should be on the lookout for…
March 16, 2009
I'm couching the question in terms of the academic milieu, but I suspect people in other types of organizations face a similar kind of choice.
Behind door #1:
The micro-manager from Hell is in a position such that you have to interact directly with him/her. Your good ideas, your empirical grip on…
March 15, 2009
One of the jellies we saw during our February visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium is especially important to biologists. The crystal jelly (Aequorea victoria) is not only an interesting critter in its own right, but also serves as a source of green fluorescent protein (GFP), used to mark genes.…
March 15, 2009
Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde: Science would be so great, if it weren't for other people
Trying valiantly to avoid getting scooped.
(tags: science-communication tribe-of-science)
Need to Keep My Mouth Shut « Transient Reporter
The trouble you can get into by voicing enthusiasm.
(tags: science-…
March 14, 2009
We've been watching some episodes of Blue Planet here, marveling at the beautiful cinematography, as well as at how emotionally gripping they can be.
Especially in the Frozen Seas episode, I found myself feeling almost wrung out by the dramatic roller-coaster. This is definitely nature red in…
March 14, 2009
Here are my entries to the ScienceBlogs Pi Day Bake-off:
End-of-winter fruit pie
Apples and amaretto-soaked dried fruit in a nut crust. Dense and rich.
'I want to taste springtime!' violet custard pie
Delicate, creamy, and a little bit fantastic (seeing as how it requires harvesting petals from…
March 13, 2009
Of all the Pi Day pies I have offered to you here, I'm pretty sure this one is my favorite. It has a fabulous mix of flavors (sparingly sweet chocolate, almonds, a hint of cinnamon) and textures (creamy custard in a crisp meringue shell).
And, since people have been telling be that pi are squared…
March 13, 2009
This week, in SprogCast #4, the younger Free-Ride offspring sings and then suggests that the song bears on the planetary subject of the very first Friday Sprog Blogging entry, which also involved singing.
You can download the sound file for the a cappella performance and the discussion that follows…
March 13, 2009
Oh. Boo. Hoo. at Kindly Póg Mo Thóin
Babies through the lens of tort law, where the Last Clear Chance displays a gendered asymmetry.
(tags: law reproduction gender)
Anonymous Blogging Guide | Citizen Media Law Project
Includes section on legal protections for anonymous speech.
(tags: law…
March 12, 2009
Saturday is Pi Day, and I figure we need at least one dinner pie to precede the parade of dessert pies currently on hand. (It's the whole parental responsibility thing. I do not judge adults who eat dessert pie for breakfast, trust me!)
Since the Free-Ride household is vegetarian, the pie Wilkins…
March 12, 2009
The headlines bring news of another scientist (this time a physician-scientist) caught committing fraud, rather than science. This story is of interest in part because of the scale of the deception -- not a paper or two, but perhaps dozens -- and in part because the scientist's area of research,…
March 11, 2009
Given that we have an enthusiastic lemon tree, a lemon pie for Pi Day was inevitable. The kind of berries you use will change the character of the finished pie. My recommendation is to go with berries that are fresh and as local as you can get them.
Gingersnap crust:
Pulverize 6-8 ounces of…
March 11, 2009
In an op-ed by Tim Rutten in today's Los Angeles Times:
No sensible person dismisses the humane treatment of animals as inconsequential, but what the fanatics propose is not an advance in social ethics. To the contrary, it is an irrational intrusion into civil society, a tantrum masquerading as a…
March 10, 2009
Rhubarb seems to be one of those foods that people either love or hate. I love it, but I didn't feel like using it for strawberry-rhubarb pie, the pie that introduced me to rhubarb.
Instead, I decided to make a pie whose filling is essentially a rhubarb fool. The pie itself is easy to prepare,…
March 10, 2009
Again, at UCLA, a researcher has become the target of violence at the hands of animal rights activists.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the firebombing of a vehicle owned by a UCLA neuroscientist who was targeted by an anti-animal research group…
March 9, 2009
The wet weather in these parts led to an almost (but not quite) predictable cancellation of soccer games on the weekend that we were supposed to provide snacks. This means I ended up staring at a surplus of navel oranges and thinking, "What am I going to do with these?"
Marmalade presented itself…