Science Education & Policy

The Supreme Court Undermines Racial Preferences For College Admissions

In Science Left Behind I wrote a segment about a national discrimination issue that was eroding not only science, but the very notion of fairness in our culture. No, it wasn't the lack of Republicans in faculty jobs at universities. It was instead tha ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 22 2014 - 4:49pm

Cosmos — The View From Here

I have seen creeping into recent discussions of the TV show ‘Cosmos’ the idea that we scientists, because of our greater knowledge and understanding of how the natural world works, will somehow be intrinsically better when it comes to dealing with matters ...

Article - Robert H Olley - Apr 24 2014 - 7:15am

Kids On Welfare More Likely To Be On Psychiatric Medication Than Privately Insured Ones

Mental health diagnoses have become common in children raised in developed nations. Medication is often prescribed to treat the symptoms of these conditions but few population-based studies have examined the use of prescription medication to treat mental h ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 25 2014 - 1:26pm

GMOs And The Pitfalls Of Mandating Process-Based Food Labeling

Should food that has been genetically optimized have a special label attached to it by law? Advocates say 'yes', it is about awareness, though actual implementations and efforts from California to Vermont are not about awareness, since they have ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 28 2014 - 2:35pm

Brazilian Cattle Policies Can Reduce Deforestation

Your steak may be costing more than you realize, according to a paper in PNAS which estimates that steaks and hamburgers are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Rising incomes in emerging economies will mean greater demands for meat so it wi ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 28 2014 - 6:30pm

Vermont's Problematic GMO Bill

Genetically modified foods are so common that it seems a little strange to put a label on, basically, everything. But some states are trying. Vermont just did. The governor says he is signing it.  And it's a weird law, even from a policy point of view ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Sep 26 2014 - 9:52am

Evaluating A Chemistry Course

How can FIER (pronounced as “fire”) be of use if the program or the course is already in existence?  This article addresses this question. As we may recall, part 1 introduced FIER to have four (4) phases namely, Formulation, Implementation, Evaluation, an ...

Blog Post - Camilo Tabinas - Dec 30 2018 - 5:49am

Touch Screens Lower Verbal Test Score For Toddlers

All games are good for kids whereas television isn't. And many touchscreen games are more like TV than board games, at least when it comes to verbal development. A recent study by pediatricians from the Cohen Children's Medical Center of New Yor ...

Article - News Staff - May 4 2014 - 3:30am

Can More Government Control Reduce In-Group Favoritism In Science?

Why is science academia so heavily slanted toward one political party in the last generation while private sector science is not? Why, in 1999, would the lead authorship of an IPCC report chapter be someone who had just gotten their PhD, something that wo ...

Article - News Staff - May 5 2014 - 2:46pm

Health Care Spending Was The Reason For The ACA- But Costs Are Going To Go Up A Lot

It's a well-known fact that spending on health care has consistently grown faster than the rest of the U.S. economy but what's behind this trend is less certain. Economists cite multiple variables: rising malpractice costs due to jury awards rel ...

Article - News Staff - May 5 2014 - 8:45pm