Author Archives: Keith Brown

What Dancy’s Late Late Show appearance has to say about the philosopher’s disappearance | Andrew Taggart

Dr. Andrew J. Taggart, Philosophical Counselor, considers the role of the public philosopher and gives a shout out to our efforts here at CSID. On April 1, 2010, the professional philosopher Jonathan Dancy, who happens to be the father-in-law of … Continue reading

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The ‘Broader Impacts’ of Sequestration on Science

CSID Director Bob Frodeman has some suggestions about the interconnection of research & society in post-austerity world. Now that we’ve been driven off the “fiscal cliff,” perhaps we should look around and assess the results. It turns out that sequestration … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Broader Impacts, Economics & STEM Research, Public Pedagogy, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, STEM Policy, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Re-engineering Ethics, Kelli Barr and Wenlong Lu « Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective

CSID fellows Kelli Barr and Wenlong Lu just published a thoughtful piece at the Social Epistemology Review & Reply Collective. They consider a recent professional meeting that they attended and the implications of having a diverse crowd of trained experts … Continue reading

Posted in Basic News, Broader Impacts, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Public Philosophizing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Physicist tipped for US energy post : Nature News & Comment

As the administration of US President Barack Obama prepares for a renewed push towards cleaner energy and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, the White House appears to have chosen another physicist to head the effort. The leading candidate to replace departing energy … Continue reading

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Influential few predict behaviour of the many : Nature News & Comment

To completely understand how a living organism works one would have to take it apart, the great physicist Niels Bohr once observed — but then the organism would certainly be dead1. In general, systems of high complexity, including living things … Continue reading

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Open Access Creative Commons licences for Cambridge Journals « CJO « Cambridge Journals Blog

Cambridge University Press has announced today that articles in its Open Access journals can be published with a Creative Commons Attribution licence (‘CC-BY‘). This licence allows users and readers to download, read, re-use and re-distribute freely, as long as they … Continue reading

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Open Access: What is it?

A video from PhD Comics. What is PhD Comics? Piled Higher and Deeper – Life (or the lack thereof) in Academia (also known as PhD Comics), is a newspaper and web comic strip written and drawn by Jorge Cham that follows the lives of several grad … Continue reading

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Denton Drilling: Oh, Yes We Can!

The City of Denton is about to release a document explaining all the reasons why we can’t have a stronger ordinance to protect our health, safety, and welfare. The technicalities are complex, but the message is simple: No we can’t. … Continue reading

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The Mind of the Innovator: Radio Specials | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

NSF’s public radio doc “Mind of the Innovator” airs on KQED in San Francisco… Innovators begin with real-world problems and find solutions through technology, imagination, hard work and a drive to make our lives better. This special program from Richard … Continue reading

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Denton Drilling: The End of Closed-Door Paternalism

“Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.” -Martin Luther … Continue reading

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Innovation Is About Arguing, Not Brainstorming. Here’s How To Argue Productively | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

Turns out that brainstorming–that go-to approach to generating new ideas since the 1940s–isn’t the golden ticket to innovation after all. Both Jonah Lehrer, in a recent article in The New Yorker, and Susan Cain, in her new book Quiet, have asserted as much. … Continue reading

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UNT Comic Studies Conference: March 22 & 23, 2013

CSID is proud once again to co-sponsor the biennial UNT Comic Studies Conference. You can download the FULL PROGRAM here. This meeting seeks to overcome the antiquated understandings of comic books as “children’s trash” with no redeeming or literary value. … Continue reading

Posted in Basic News, Calls for papers | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tiny creatures with the ability to walk on water | The Sun |News

  Tiny creatures with the ability to walk on water | The Sun |News.

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After Kyoto: Special Issue of NATURE

On 1 January 2013, the world can go back to emitting greenhouse gases with abandon. The pollution-reduction commitments that nations made as part of the Kyoto Protocol will expire, leaving the planet without any international climate regulation and uncertain prospects … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Degrowth Economics, Environmental policy, Globalization, Philosophy & Politics, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The looming spectre of differential tuition

Someone can do the relatively simple accounting and see that the humanities–”majors without an immediate job payoff”–are already subsidizing those which have a “job payoff.” In fact, this was already done at few institutions, including UCLA. But this is a … Continue reading

Posted in Basic News, Economics & STEM Research, Future of the University, Graduate Studies, Philosophy & Politics, Public Pedagogy, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, STEM Policy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

More Scientists-Statesmen?

Only a handful of physicists have reached the halls of Congress. Bill Foster, a particle physicist and businessman just elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives from Illinois’s newly drawn 11th district, wants this situation to change. The … Continue reading

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America’s secret fracking war – Salon.com

There’s a war going on that you know nothing about between a coalition of great powers and a small insurgent movement.  It’s a secret war being waged in the shadows while you go about your everyday life. In the end, … Continue reading

Posted in Broader Impacts, Climate Change, Economics & STEM Research, Environmental policy, Gas Fracking, Globalization, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Climate Change & the Research Scientist

Does this make an argument for moving elite research centers–for which the Federal government & corporations pay out an enormous amount of money over many years–to areas that will be less physically hit by global warming… in like, I don’t know, North … Continue reading

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Hacking Your Education, part 2

Second part of a talk given to UNT”s Seven Circles, the Interdisciplinary Student Association. Watch part one here.

Posted in Future of the University, Occupy Wall Street, Public Pedagogy, Public Philosophizing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Hacking Your Education, Part 1

First part of a talk given to UNT”s Seven Circles, the Interdisciplinary Student Association. Watch part two here.

Posted in Future of the University, Public Pedagogy, Public Philosophizing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

On Live Tweeting Your Own Lecture – The Long Road

Autotweeting a lecture and getting folks actively involved through social media… Anyone who actually uses twitter recognizes that its power comes not from what one pushes out, but from what one receives. This is felt most palpably when one invites … Continue reading

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Denton Drilling: Draft ordinance needs overhaul

Last night, about forty dedicated citizens gathered to review the draft gas drilling ordinance and generate ideas for how to improve it. There was one clear take home message: The draft ordinance is inadequate. It gets an F. We need … Continue reading

Posted in Environmental policy, Gas Fracking, Philosophy & Politics, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

MesoFacts & Other Deteriorating Knowledges

[Samuel] Arbesman’s book expands on a piece he wrote in 2010 for the Ideas section of the Boston Globe. That short essay, called “Warning: Your reality is out of date,” laid out a theory of what Arbesman named the mesofact. “When people … Continue reading

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Galaxy formation: The new Milky Way : Nature News & Comment

Astronomers are still arguing about the precise sequence of events during the Milky Way’s birth, but every-one agrees that the story began with dark matter. The stuff is everywhere, even though it is invisible and no one yet knows what … Continue reading

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Is fracking behind contamination in Wyoming groundwater? : Nature News & Comment

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sparked a firestorm in December last year when it released a draft report1 suggesting that the use of hydraulic fracturing — or ‘fracking’ — to extract natural gas had contaminated groundwater near Pavillion, Wyoming. Industry … Continue reading

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