Where I'm Going to Be in 2011

Not an exhaustive list, but since I'm noodling around with my calendar, I might as well note some of the stuff I'll be doing this year:

  • I'll be on a panel about international science testing at the AAAS Annual Meeting in February. This will be a different experience-- not only have I never been to a AAAS meeting before, the whole thing appears to be organized in a different manner than any meeting I have been to. I'm doing a bit of a drive-by for this-- coming in Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday evening-- but I have classes to teach.
  • I've been invited to give a Saturday Morning Science lecture at the University of Toledo in mid-March; they don't seem to have a schedule on the web yet, and the details haven't been completely nailed down. This'll be a "What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics" talk, and will take place in our spring break. I'll post more details when I have them, but if you're in the northern Ohio/ southern Michigan sort of area and want to see me talk canine physics, watch this space for more details. If you're at a college or university in that general part of the world, and don't think Toledo should have all the fun, send me email-- if I'm going to be going to Ohio anyway, it might be possible to work in a second stop.
  • I'll be giving a colloquium at St. Mary's College of Maryland in mid-April; again, this isn't on the web yet, and I'll post more details when I have them nailed down. I think this will also be a dog physics talk. And again, if you're in that general area of the country and would like to hear this or any of the other sorts of talks I do (see the presentations on SlideShare for an idea), send me email. If I'm going to skip out on some classes, anyway, it might be possible to add on to the trip.
  • I'll be at the annual DAMOP meeting, which is freakishly late this year, late enough that it's after Union's graduation, which is unprecedented. I'm not currently scheduled to give a talk, though that might change, but I'll definitely be in Atlanta in mid-June. It's almost certainly too late in the year for academic talks at other insitutions, but if you're interested, blah, blah, blah.

That's my current schedule of out-of-town trips. As you can probably guess from the above, I'm open to going just about anywhere there's interest, within reason (at some point, if I keep scheduling out-of-town trips either the colleagues who have to cover my classes or Kate who gets stuck with solo toddler wrangling will strangle me). But send me an email, and I'm happy to talk.

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Science Advance Prospects?
Hope For Science?
It's Not The Mechanism. It's The Culture.

In the USA-world economy it's not financial mechanisms that led to collapse. It's the greed-cancer in lieu of selected real valuable economic attributes. It's the greed culture.

In science it's not peer-review or another social mechanism that elected technology and meaningless verbiage over science. It's the century old corrupt science trade union culture.

Hope For Science?

A. "Tradition, innovation and hope in new year for science"
E Marincola Jan 1 2011
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/67726/title/Tradition%2C_inn…

and

"Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism"
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creatio…

B. Purpose of "peer review"
http://www.ehow.com/about_4695651_purpose-peer-review.html

"A demanding process to either get money to study a new scientific idea or to get an idea published in an academic journal. The reason is peer review--the principal instrument an academic profession uses to keep up its standards. There are few processes, either in science or the larger world of the academy, that are considered legitimate if peer review isn't involved in them somewhere."

C. Nature of "peer review"
The principal instrument an academic profession uses to keep up its standards.

D. Nature of 2010 academic profession standards
La Ilaha Illa Allah Muhammad Rassul Allah.
Academic is Science/Technology and AAAS is its exclusive apostle-prophet-delegate-agent on Earth.

D. Nature of AAAS
American Association Against Science, a trade-union-guild-establishment, the instrument for acquiring/exploiting public and industry funds for the promotion, maintenance and benefit of its management-administration-members.

E. There are many expositions in the Emedium about "peer review", including comments on its antisubversion-decadent-corrupt applications by the expansive omnipresent AAAS. One sample:
"For A Scientism Culture"
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/300/122.page#5943

Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
Gravity Is The Monotheism Of The Cosmos
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/260/122.page#4887
Evolution, Natural Selection, Derive From Cosmic Expansion
http://darwiniana.com/2010/09/05/the-question-reductionists-fear/

By Dov Henis (not verified) on 22 Jan 2011 #permalink

Since it took me several minutes to recall what Reno meant in this context (Worldcon, yeah?), nope. Generally we don't fly to Worldcons absent compelling additional reason (i.e., three weeks in Japan).

Alden is taking Physics this semester and would have loved to have you come visit his class (and maybe score extra-credit!) but they will be done w/school by the end of May. Their loss................

By AM & UJ (not verified) on 06 Jan 2011 #permalink

Hope you enjoy AAAS. It'll be my first AAAS meeting too. At least my first full meeting.

Just out of curiosity, what specifically about how AAAS is organized is different from other meetings you've attended?

By Michael I (not verified) on 06 Jan 2011 #permalink