Category Archives: TechnoScience & Technoscientism

Scholars Sound the Alert From the ‘Dark Side’ of Tech Innovation – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Academics talking amongst themselves? Scholars Sound the Alert From the ‘Dark Side’ of Tech Innovation – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Book Review: Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future | LSE Review of Books

Francis Remedios offers his review of Steve Fuller’s Humanity 2.0. Book Review: Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future | LSE Review of Books.

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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

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Knowing and acting: The precautionary and proactionary principles in relation to policy making, J. Britt Holbrook and Adam Briggle « Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective

The Social Epistemology Review and Reply collective is now hosting preprints: Knowing and acting: The precautionary and proactionary principles in relation to policy making, J. Britt Holbrook and Adam Briggle « Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective. Yes! Adam and … Continue reading

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U. of California faculty union says MOOCs undermine professors’ intellectual property | Inside Higher Ed

What’s really interesting to me about this article is that the issue of competing interests of faculty as individuals and as a collective is raised, but not really explored. We need an account of something like group autonomy. U. of … Continue reading

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Open Access, the Impact Agenda and resistance to the neoliberal paradigm | Impact of Social Sciences

Yesterday’s post introduced the context of neoliberalism as the backdrop of change in higher education. Here Martin Eve provides further clarification of the neoliberal context, linking the impact agenda under the Research Excellence Framework as a key trait of a privatised … Continue reading

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Does technological liberation have to come at a price?

A good read from Evgeny Morozov at the WSJ: Are Smart Gadgets Making Us Dumb? Once we step into this magic space, we are surrounded by video cameras that recognize whatever ingredients we hold in our hands. Tiny countertop robots inform … 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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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

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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

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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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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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The Religiosity of the Fracking Debate

CSID Faculty Fellow Adam Briggle publishes at Science Progress: The debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the shale gas revolution it has spawned has a religious aura to it. Both sides have an unshakeable conviction that fracking is either … Continue reading

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We love to call new technologies “creepy.” – Slate Magazine

Evan Selinger with another article in Slate: Facial recognition software, targeted advertising: We love to call new technologies “creepy.” – Slate Magazine. The warning: don’t let “creepy” become crutch for not thinking things through. In other words, think before you … Continue reading

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Sometimes science must give way to religion : Nature News & Comment

CSID Senior Fellow Dan Sarewitz has another piece out in Nature that’s sure to cause a stir: Sometimes science must give way to religion : Nature News & Comment. Here’s The New York Times: “The Higgs boson is the only … Continue reading

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Coming Next – Doctors Prescribing Apps to Patients – NYTimes.com

Simple apps that track users’ personal fitness goals have already gained wide traction. Now medical professionals and entrepreneurs want to use similar approaches to dealing with chronic ailments like diabetes or heart disease. via Coming Next – Doctors Prescribing Apps … Continue reading

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How generous is the UK science budget, really? guardian.co.uk

Whatever you think about spending on sport, in times of austerity or otherwise, there is no denying that the strategy paid off – at least, if your yardstick for success is Olympic medals. The message couldn’t be more clear: if … Continue reading

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What is absolutely knowable?

Philosophy of science has pegged this question as the beating heart of the Enlightenment’s leaps and bounds in fields of science: the search for the absolute truth of nature. Robert Crease argues in his recent book World in the Balance … Continue reading

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“Fracked Ideologies” published at Science Progress

The use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas drilling has ignited a fiery political debate. Advocates tout natural gas as a clean-burning, cheap, and abundant fuel that can boost economic growth and energy security. Detractors question these benefits and … Continue reading

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McGraw-Hill Education Establishes First-Ever “Pay-for-Performance” Business Model In Partnership With Western Governors University

I am not sure as yet what I think about this. McGraw-Hill Education Establishes First-Ever “Pay-for-Performance” Business Model In Partnership With Western Governors University.

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Dude, where’s my culture?

Justin E. H. Smith recently authored a piece in the NYT Stone blog regarding cultural bias inherent in the teaching of Western philosophy. It hooks up nicely with his review of the experimental philosophy movement – dubbed x-phi – spearheaded … Continue reading

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From academic solos to industrial symphonies

Leaping from academia to industry can be vexing, confusing and, to be frank, sometimes irritating. It is not easy to be trained all your life by trusted professors only to be told that some of this training needs to be … Continue reading

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The Case for Breaking Up With Your Parents

While Lambert, author of “Nonstop,” admires the multitasking undergraduates Harvard attracts, he also worries about the intellectual and emotional costs of such all-consuming busyness. In a turn toward gravitas, he quotes the French film director Jean Renoir’s observation that “the … Continue reading

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Goethe and the Search for the Spirit of Science

This excellent article in the Guardian explores the role of imagination in science. Pardon the length of this block quote, but it was too good to not post: Is it just me or has the dialogue between science and religion … Continue reading

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Robo-Readers Used to Grade Test Essays

A rather complacent article in Inside Higher Education touts a study out of the University of Akron that compares grades assigned to standardized test essays by humans and those assigned by computers. The news that they found no significant difference is … Continue reading

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