All entries by this author

Spoiling Students *

Feb 15th, 2003 | Filed by

Self-esteem, student evaluations, therapy-mindedness, all lead to pleasing students rather than inspiring them.… Read the rest



Bogus Signatures *

Feb 15th, 2003 | Filed by

One author forged the signatures of seven co-authors: not good practice, even if the research is correct.… Read the rest



Sue the Teacher!

Feb 14th, 2003 7:08 pm | By

Education. It keeps coming back to that, doesn’t it. Especially education in the broadest sense, which emphatically includes self-education and education as an intrinsic good, along with institutional and instrumental education. Education, especially the institutional variety, can be where one gets infected with fashionable nonsense, but education, especially the intrinsic good variety, is also the way to inoculate against it, and the way to cure it once infected.

We posted a link a couple of weeks ago to a story about Michael Dini, a Texas biology professor who is being investigated by the US Justice Department for refusing to write recommendation letters for students who cannot affirm a scientific answer to the question of how the human species originated. Now … Read the rest



Texas Professor and Evolution *

Feb 14th, 2003 | Filed by

A university education is not supposed to confirm pre-existing ideas.… Read the rest



Your Restriction is Their Freedom

Feb 13th, 2003 7:54 pm | By

This is a bottomlessly depressing story, which resonates with several other stories we’ve linked to over the past few months. This one about students who made death threats against a teacher being temporarily re-admitted to the school, for example, and this one from only three days ago, which reports that the Welsh teachers’ union is calling for new legislation after a student who actually did shoot a teacher, albeit with a ‘toy’ gun, was also readmitted. In the Welsh case, as the Guardian reported, ‘Headteacher Dr Michael Norton permanently excluded the pupil after the incident and was quickly backed up by his board of governors. But the boy’s parents appealed to an independent panel, which overturned the school’s decision … Read the rest



Teachers as Cops *

Feb 13th, 2003 | Filed by

Who has time to teach when school is a war zone?… Read the rest



Politics and Darwinism *

Feb 13th, 2003 | Filed by

Melvin Konner reviews The Blank Slate and Darwinian Politics.… Read the rest



Something else for Greenpeace to get confused about? *

Feb 13th, 2003 | Filed by

Nanotechnology could become the new genetically modified food (kind of), say report authors.… Read the rest



Watch

Feb 12th, 2003 6:01 pm | By

There is an argument in progress about America-hating among American academics. We’ve linked to a number of entries in this argument ourselves in the last couple of weeks. There is for instance Daphne Patai’s article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on accusations of attempted stifling of free speech by two Web sites, Campus Watch and No Indoctrination. There is Alan Wolfe’s review of several ‘American studies’ books in The New Republic. And today there is an article by Dave Johnson on the History News Network which examines the funding of conservative commentators and think tanks, including the above-mentioned Campus Watch. Johnson cites an article by Eric Foner and Glenda Gilmore also on History News Network, an article which does … Read the rest



Does Freedom Evolve? *

Feb 12th, 2003 | Filed by

Is human agency the product of nature, or of history and politics?… Read the rest



What a Good Idea! *

Feb 12th, 2003 | Filed by

Simon Blackburn, Richard Dawkins and others call for Darwin Day. … Read the rest



Who Is Paying? *

Feb 12th, 2003 | Filed by

Is conservative funding more focussed and coherent than the other kind? If so, why?… Read the rest



Never Met an Adaptive Tale He Didn’t Like? *

Feb 11th, 2003 | Filed by

Sometimes economic explanations work better than evolutionary ones, says this review of The Blank Slate.… Read the rest



Revisionist History of Empire *

Feb 10th, 2003 | Filed by

Has Niall Ferguson’s TV version of Empire got its facts wrong?… Read the rest



To Boldly Split an Infinitive *

Feb 10th, 2003 | Filed by

Roy Hattersley cites Cobbett on grammar as a positional good, and calls a Tory MP half Polonius half rude mechanical.… Read the rest



Student Shoots Teacher, is Expelled, Then Unexpelled *

Feb 10th, 2003 | Filed by

Welsh teachers’ union wants changes to law after independent panel orders school to take back pupil who shot teacher.… Read the rest



That Would Explain a Lot *

Feb 9th, 2003 | Filed by

Psychologists study people’s tendency to over-estimate their abilities, especially the ability to think well.… Read the rest



The ‘Jukes’ Family and Eugenics *

Feb 9th, 2003 | Filed by

Unnoticed methodological flaws, ideology deciding conclusions, fashion displacing careful analysis.… Read the rest



Darwin Knew About the Sweet Peas *

Feb 8th, 2003 | Filed by

Richard Dawkins says Darwin was right to bring together sexual selection and the Descent of Man.… Read the rest



Things Fall Apart

Feb 7th, 2003 4:47 pm | By

Well now…I must say, I’m a bit shocked. My comfortable certainties are all upset, what I thought I knew is sous rature, my binary oppositions are problematized, and things are just generally messed up. If the trendiest of trendy hippest of hippy French philosophers doesn’t like Seinfeld, well–well why bother, that’s all.

Earlier on in the film, an interviewer from South African television chooses to open her questions with a reference to Seinfeld : does Professor Derrida see any affinities between his thought and this ironic, situation comedy? Derrida’s eyes narrow. “Deconstruction as I understand it doesn’t produce any sit-com,” he says in English, audibly putting the last words into pointed italics. “Stop watching sit-com. And do

Read the rest