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Category Archives: modest proposals
The creationists are winning. Here’s what we scientists can do about it
In my first year of graduate school at the University of Idaho, I joined a bunch of my colleagues in the audience of a debate staged between an evolutionary biologist and a creationist. I remember almost nothing of the debate’s … Continue reading
Posted in climate change, community, evolution, modest proposals, politics, Science Communication, United States
Tagged denialism, scicomm, social media
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Summer session accountability
Summer, as an astronomical season, doesn’t end for a few weeks yet, but academic summer is well and truly over. Today is already the end of the first week of classes on my campus, and both the courses I’m teaching … Continue reading
Summer session resolutions
Like all good academics, I bristle at the not-infrequent suggestion, from innocent but insufficiently browbeaten friends and family, that I “take summer off”. In point of fact I am simply not paid for the months between the spring and fall … Continue reading
Falling through the gap
There is a hole. Right at the top of our science. In the introductions to our peer-reviewed papers, where we should explain the need for the new research results we are about to present, there is more and more often … Continue reading
Posted in community, journal club, modest proposals, Science Communication, science publishing
Tagged cliche, knowledge gap, phrasing, writing
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Introducing The Molecular Ecologist Podcast
The Molecular Ecologist is trying out a new medium for the first time since we launched: audio! That’s right, TME contributors, talking about the science we’ve been reading and writing about, recorded for easy listening on any internet-capable device. As … Continue reading
Posted in community, housekeeping, microbiology, modest proposals, natural history, Science Communication, Science History, TME Podcast
Tagged Crow, ibex, Whales
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The last of us, Ph.D.
I hear tell that there’s another movie in the Alien franchise in theaters, which makes this a fine opportunity to revisit the beauty and stupidity of the last one, Prometheus. In that previous instalment, we watched people who were, allegedly, … Continue reading