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 […]
The State of Gun Research in the US: Six Questions Answered
The research needed to answer questions about the role of firearms in acts of horrific mass violence doesn’t exist – and part of the problem is that the United States government largely doesn’t support it.
A Cry From Canada: Freedom of Expression Under Attack at Our Universities
The former president of the University of Saskatchewan argues that freedom of expression is under attack in Canada’s universities through an accumulation of episodes that diminish its significance and through a vector of intellectual laziness accompanied by ideology and anger.
Why Has Brexit Britain Not Had an Immigration Debate?
The post-referendum public debates in the United Kingdom have been about the future of Britain and British citizens, and questions about the lives and futures of EU citizens in Britain have faded into the background, argues our Daniel Nehring. This absence of an open-ended public conversation about immigration speaks to the ways in which power organizes truth.
Science vs. 2017: Five Essential Reads
2017 may well be remembered as the year of alternative facts and fake news. Truth took a hit, and experts seemed to lose the public’s trust and scientists felt under siege as the Trump administration took office. Five stories, from The Conversation, showcase where scholars and scientists stand in this new climate and various ways to consider the value research holds for society.
How Do We Head Off the Collateral Damage of Big Data?
Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia argue that big data quantification is now not only a mechanism for extracting information but has become an idea with social and political power in its own right. The lack of critique of quantitative methods and their application contributes to the existing and potentially coercive power of digital information systems and their attendant methods, and enhances the potential for collateral damage.
Report Offers Guidelines for Ethics of Technology Design
The big questions posed by our digital future sit at the intersection of technology and ethics. This is complex territory that requires input from experts in many different fields, including the social sciences, if we are to navigate it successfully. A new report makes an effort to give a first draft of that necessary input.
Diversity: Good Intentions Aren’t Same as Evidence
You’d be forgiven for assuming a quick and sure way to multiply profits and amplify organizational success is to increase the gender and racial diversity of any group. According to mainstream media, the effects of gender and racial diversity are universally favorable. However, professor Alice Eagly states, “the truth is there’s no adequate scientific basis for these newsworthy assertions.”
Louise Richardson: Educational Divide Fuels Corrosive Populism
Speaking before a sell-out audience of policymakers, journalists and academics in Whitehall, Louise Richardson FAcSS, vice chancellor of the University of Oxford, said we must bridge the educational divide to prevent populism for threatening democracy
