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 […]
What Leads to Radicalisation?
David Canter considers the psychological bases of violent jihad.
New Version of Coburn Amendment in Wings
Senator Tom Coburn’s long-standing effort to restrict political science funding has returned with a new amendment filed for the latest bill that funds the National Science Foundation.
How Ronald Reagan Helped Advance Social Science
The more things change, the more they stay the same — especially when it comes to political reluctance for the U.S government to pay for social science research. Our new blogger, Howard J. Silver, is an old hand at lobbying the feds for research funds, and details how political headwinds blew in a suite of lobbying groups.
Piketty’s Real Legacy May Be His Deep Data
While Tomas Piketty’s focus on inequality is seen as finally getting the discussion of inequality on the front pages, it may be his his data collection that really cements his reputation.
The Tightrope of Studying Subjects at Legality’s Fringe
Social scientists don’t always study subjects whose actions please the authorities. Is the freedom to associate with these people for research purposes under attack? Should researchers have their own ‘shield law’?
Big Shoes and Little Feet: Leadership in South Africa
African governance guru Robert Rotberg is visiting South Africa and Zimbabwe, suggesting a prescription for leadership that tries to recapture some of the benefits of the fading Mandela moment.
House GOP Officials Slap at Social Science Funding
Calling it only the “first step,” two prominent Republican congressmen called for freezing federal funding for social science research paid for by the National Science Foundation.
To Err Is Human, To Study Errors Is Science
The possible retraction of a high profile paper in the medical sciences offers a teachable moment about replication, peer review, cognitive bias and the beauty and beastliness that can be science.
