Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
Common Rule Reform – A Botched Job
The rush to publish a revised Common Rule for federally funded human research in the United States has created a flawed regulatory regime, says Robert Dingwall., Time to tear the whole edifice down and start over, he suggests.
Civic (Dis)Engagement
Failures to participate in expected commitments, such as not turning up for doctors’ appointments or not taking up benefits like free school meals or welfare payments, are aspects of what Robin G. Milne designates as ‘civic disengagement.’
Social Science Needs its Own Doctor-Patient Confidentiality
Several recent high-profile incidents suggest that the confidentiality promises routinely made by social scientists have little in the way of legal support.
President Signs Bill Setting Policy for NSF, NIST
Legislation that sets policy for the National Science Foundation has been signed by President Obama. The bill no longer includes funding restrictions on social science but does include language that has been used in the past to attack the disciplines.
Is the Concept of Race Science’s Biggest Mistake?
There is a clear consensus among anthropologists that races aren’t real, that they don’t reflect biological reality, and that most anthropologists don’t believe there is a place for race categories in science.
Sociology’s (Selective) Diversity
Our Robert Dingwall reflects on Tinder’s in-house sociologist and on the just-announced New Year’s Honours list to question just how diverse are current understandings of diversity.
Rapeglish: A Program that Spits Out Hate — For the Greater Good
A new computer program from the author of ‘Misogyny Online’ slices up and shuffles around an archive of sexualized vitriol, rape threats, and aggressive sleaze received by real-life women and presents its own version of what is called Rapeglish.
Do We Really Want Historians as Policy Advisers?
The claim that Thucydides’ account of the past is useful is often extended to historiography in general, rather than just to his specific – and idiosyncratic – approach. And that, suggests Neville Morley, may be the real trap of Thucydides.
