Why are there more men than women in the Sciences?

The answer appears to be complicated, part nature and part nurture. But what was most interesting to me is that the scales do appear to be tilting (one stat showed a shift from 13-1 to 3-1 over the last two decades). Whatever we're doing as a culture is having an effect.

The other interesting point, which I've heard over and over in other contexts, is that men and women do not appear to be much different in terms of their abilities "on average," but men appear to be much more variable. Women tend to cluster toward the middle, while men are more heavily represented at the ends of the scale. Nobel prizes are dominated by men, but so too are prisons.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sex-math-and-scientific-achievement&page=1

The World is Getting Smarter?

According to the "Flynn Effect," the answer is "yes." But only in certain ways and for certain reasons. Basically, our modern culture values the kind of abstract reasoning that intelligence tests pick up on. We're much less "practical" than our predecessors, but significantly more "intelligent." Furthermore, with modern technology, what one "good mind" thinks, the rest of us can share in as well. That provides more opportunities for more minds to develop to their fullest capabilities. Of course, the downside of being less practical is that we can't count, spell, write in cursive, read anything longer than a few pages, or fix our cars. Oh well, at least we can follow the plots of "24" and "Heroes."

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/654

Do nothing?

I often wonder when given a choice between various options whether I'd be better off just doing nothing. I find I take that path more and more frequently as I age. According to this article, there may be wisdom in those decisions to do nothing because we as human beings apparently prefer to "do something" even when that's the wrong choice because it "feels" better than not doing anything.

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2007/11/is-this-why-goalkeepers-are-so-bad-at.html

Mike Huckabee is for Real

I've been tracking the Huckabee campaign pretty closely, and it's the only one that I've given any money to. So I'm happy to see him doing so well.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/huckabee_is_for_real.html

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071129/OPINION01/711290401/1036/opinion

What do Beowulf and Fred Thompson have in common?

They both rely too much on new technology instead of telling a good story in a traditional way. At least so says this WS article.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/407yjlpb.asp

"Local" On-line?

A new study indicates that most students prefer to take on-line courses from a local institution. The reasons for these decisions aren't stated, but the implications for higher education are interesting. There isn't a "one size fits all" on-line program that everyone should copy. Instead, the on-line world is likely to look as varied as the face-to-face world.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/28/online

$70 million for ORU

So that's the secret to fundraising? Have a very public meltdown so that some angel investor will come along and give you $70 million?

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071128_238_A1_hFami82066

Lower your body fat and increase your wages?

Obviously, the causal connection is questionable, but the correlation appears to be true.

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13595

Modern Beowulfs

Saw the Zemeckis version of Beowulf over the weekend. If you can see it in 3-D, do so. Otherwise, I'd wait for the rental. Here's the Chronicle review, which points out the seizmic changes from the original. The Weekly Standard review that I read was even more critical of this modern retelling.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i15/15b00101.htm

A somewhat different version of Beowulf can be seen in this movie, though it shares the modern sensibility that Zemeckis takes of "misunderstood monsters" and "guilt-ridden" heroes who lack appropriate humility.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Beowulf_Grendel/70052021?trkid=189530&strkid=1225017604_1_0

Paul Davies on Faith & Science

I've read a couple of his books a long time ago. I still like what he has to say about both faith and science being based on some type of belief system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

JFK's Death, Reframed

What if the Zapruder film missed the first shot attempt by Oswald? This piece posits what could be a more rational explanation of the assassination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/opinion/22holland.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Maximizing missions by maximizing profits?

I've seen a lot of anecdotal stories along these lines, so it was helpful to have a summary story on what appears to be a growing trend in our evangelical culture.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/november/24.24.html

Go for it on 4th down?

Since I'm taking a Decision-Making course in which exactly this sort of analysis is used, I was intrigued to read about this possible paradigm-shift in how to play football. Basically, never punt and rarely kick fieldgoals. Statistically, it makes sense. So why don't people do it, pretty much because coaches are afraid of looking stupid. It's similar, I guess, for why basketball players don't shoot freethrows underhanded even though the percentages for success are apparently higher (according to an SI story I read awhile back).

Note, by the way, that Tony Dungy did just what these stats say he should at the end of the recent game against the Chiefs (went for it on 4th and 1 near the end zone instead of kicking the "go-ahead" field goal). Everyone was saying that he was crazy . . . until it worked. Then he's a genius.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/when-economists-talk-pulaski-academy-listens/

Is Higher Education Overpriced?

The arguments contained in this report are pretty similar to what I passed along in an earlier post. Those supporting the increases in higher education costs essentially say that the high tech world is creating greater demand for education and Baumol's law (service sectors don't see productivity improvements the way other economic sectors do) restrains supply. The inevitable result is higher education prices (and, in a similar vein, higher health care prices).

This study disputes those conclusions and points instead to 12 "market restrictions" that are the "real" culprits behind increasing higher education costs. Those 12 are listed in the table of contents, but the basic solution, according to this study, is to increase market competition and limit government involvement. I think in practice, however, the government won't limit its involvement, but will instead attempt to increase its regulation of the "industry" to address these concerns. We're already seeing that in a host of legislative initiatives.

http://www.collegeaffordability.net/CCAP_Report.pdf

The death of Antioch College

This piece summarizes all of the earlier stories that I've read on the subject, and then it adds a conservative slant in which "political correctness gone wild" is seen as the main underlying factor in the college's demise.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/306jqecg.asp

What does is take to be a clutch kicker?

Fascinatory story about what it takes to be a clutch kicker, and some hints that maybe Vinatieri isn't any more "clutch" than others, he's just luckier that his misses didn't come in the really moments. Particular apt, perhaps, in light of last week's 29-yard, last-minute miss?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/sports/playmagazine/28lewis.html?pagewanted=1&ref=playmagazine

Outgrowing bad behavior?

A couple recent studies appear to show that bad behavior in the early grades of school are likely caused by delayed development issues instead of brain deficity issues. In other words, kids do typically outgrow this bad behavior in school, so test results showing attention problems at young ages are not very well correlated with poor academic performance later in life.

On the other hand, what does appear to be correlated with academic performance later in life is math scores!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/health/13kids.html?em&ex=1195102800&en=10574fa94fad2575&ei=5087%0A

What does the "billionaire list" tell us?

That most are Americans, that most have "earned" their way there, and that the richest are not as "rich" as a percentage of GDP as the Carnegies and other Gilded Age rich guys were.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/11/billionairesbec.html

The problems of performance pay in business

Many of the performance packages are designed to promote risk-taking on the part of CEO's, but what this article points out is that CEO's typically get to keep their "winnings" but don't lose if their bets fail. As a consequence, they are unduly eager to "bet the farm," which is part of the reason for the recent sub-prime meltdown and the earlier stock-market collapse in 2001.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2007/11/12/071112ta_talk_surowiecki

Niche "sports" making school reputations

I've seen Christian schools trying to make their reputations as serious academic institutions by emphasizing debate and forensics. Here's an example of using chess for similar purposes.

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-11-07/rah-rah-block-that-rook

The "real" story about income inequality and income taxes?

The basic story has been that there's growing income inequality in the U.S. and elsewhere in the industrialized world, but that story is only partially correct as this article points out.

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/october-10-07/making-sense-of-income-inequality

There's a similar argument related to tax cuts supposedly making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Again, that story is only partially correct and misses much of the point.

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes

Conservative revolutionaries on health care?

I've done a fair amount of reading on the history of our American health care system, and Ponnuru's summary gets at the basic points pretty well. In the postwar period, the industrialized countries faced a choice over who would pay for health care, the individual (as we do with most insurance, such as for homes and cars) or the government (as we do for things like floods and other natural disasters). Most of the world chose "government" and ended up with universal, single-payer, government-run health care. But instead of going with "individuals," we went with "option C," employers, through a system of tax breaks. 50 years later, and that compromise is unraveling, so now we appear to be heading back to the "government or individuals" choice. What's interesting to me is that the Democrats are actually the "statist" group looking to continue most of the existing system with some drift toward the "government" answer. And it's the Republicans who have pretty much concluded that the existing system has to be scrapped completely and replaced with one that focuses on the individual. They have become on this issue, as with Social Security and many other government policies, "white revolutionaries" proposing radical change.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1682269,00.html

The Fall of the Wall

November 9 is a date that I always remember, having spent some time on both sides of the Wall, but it's quickly passing out of the public consciousness. I appreciated Ash's reminder of why we shouldn't let that happen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2206957,00.html

What makes a terrorist?

According to most things I've read, including this article, and contrary to most received wisdom, it isn't poverty or lack of education that causes people to become terrorists. As with revolutionaries more generally, they tend to be at least middle class and also fairly well educated types who feel that something significant has been taken away from them, whether that be wealth, status, prestige, or whatever.

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/what-makes-a-terrorist

The first annual USA Today survey of NSSE results

Here's an interesting attempt to bypass the U.S. News ratings.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/07/nsse

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-11-04-nsse-how-to_N.htm

Finding employees who "fit"?

Some interesting approaches here, though I'm not quite sure what to use in my role as the person who signs off on hiring faculty members.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071105/ap_on_bi_ge/hiring_for_congeniality;_ylt=AoI.mLACeFH6DrOX_7pgl7Ks0NUE

Misleading national health care statistics?

Came across this while doing some reading for my MBA classes. It helped me understand a bit better the true nature of our health care situation in America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/business/04view.html?_r=3&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Entrepreneurs can help reform education?

Here's another article decrying the public education stranglehold, and looking instead toward entrepreneurs to help reform education in America.

http://www.american.com/archive/2007/october-10-07/school-reform-that-can-work

What "works" in undergraduate education according to "NSSE"

In case you haven't already seen the recent NSSE report on what "works" in undergraduate education, here it is.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i11/11a00104.htm

The quick version is . . .

1) Helicopter parents are "good"
2) Freshmen "learning communities" are generally helpful
3) Study abroad is great, especially those with host families
4) Research projects should be more than just collecting data
5) Field placements are probably the best type of senior projects

Faculty satisfaction rates

Here's an interesting survey from TIAA-CREF. Basically, faculty are very satisfied with their jobs, though they'd like more money (no surprise), and they (X-Gen in particular) wish they didn't have so many administrative responsibilities. Sounds similar to some of our JBU conversations.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/01/faculty