“Lol… the audacity”: when the Society for the Social Studies of Science tried to school MC Hammer — and what can be learned from this episode, (We cannot un-ring that bell, and we have lost a lot of respect and trust,) from Joshua Earle (Virginia Tech)
A to Z
At around noon on February 22, 2021, a remarkable thing happened. MC Hammer (yes, that one; no, I’m not kidding) distilled the entire thesis of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in six words on Twitter: “when you measure, include the measurer.” ...
Former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld once quipped: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” Well, if Australia had to go to war with the Australian Public Service, we may as well surrender now.
According to the Australian:
One of the country’s most accomplished and respected public servants has lashed the political class for being idle on economic reform during the past decade and for striving to stoke fear for partisan advantage, while also turning international relationships into a tool for domestic political gain.
The reference to the so-called “most accomplished and respected public servants” was to Martin Parkinson. Unfortunately, no explanation is given to what Parkinson’s so-called accomplishments were nor why Parkinson should be respected. Becoming Australia’s chief public servant is not an accomplishment in and of itself, and not ab initio, commanding respect.
The Australian public dis-service Stephen Spartacus
The Australian public dis-service: part II
On Monday, I wrote in these august pages about the lack of economic reform in Australia being a function of both poor quality politicians and poor quality public servants. Thus I said:
It has been said that a bad strategy well executed will always beat a good strategy poorly executed. The reason for the lack of reform in Australia, the real reason, is a toxic cocktail of political policy incompetence and bureaucratic execution incompetence. No one trusts the government to do anything.
But as in other domains, timing is key. Which is why it was quite interesting to read in Tuesday’s AFR the views of Lesley Seebeck, honorary professor at the Australian National University. Professor Seebeck wrote:
It’s been apparent for a while that the government has little time for its bureaucrats. The Prime Minister’s address to the Australian Public Service in both 2019 and 2020 made it clear that the APS consisted of servants whose value lay in acquiescence and delivery as directed, not as partners in public policy, insight and analysis, or statecraft.
FASTER, PLEASE: Neurocables to repair nervous system injuries.
WELL, GOOD: ‘Laughing gas’ shows promise against tough-to-treat depression.
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: People more afraid of catching COVID-19 are more judgemental, study finds
Opinion | What the Rich Dont Want to Admit About the Poor - The New York Times
The Blogger Preserving Jewish Ballet
In college, Beatrice Waterhouse started wondering where she could find information about Jews in the ballet world. So she created a Tumblr site, “‘People of the Barre’ (which, yes, is a play on ‘people of the book’) and started using the blog to store tidbits she came across about Jews in ballet, mainly for her own reference.” – Forward
The NT's Independent Commissioner Against Corruption says his office appropriately managed a potential conflict of interest when it employed the partner of a senior staff member as an external investigator.
Key points:
ICAC inspector Bruce McClintock is probing the matter after a complaint was lodged
ICAC boss Ken Fleming says he made decision to employ the external investigator
Mr Fleming says measures are in place to appropriately manage the situation
During an appearance before Parliament's estimates committee, ICAC boss Ken Fleming was asked by Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro about the decision to engage the services of David McGinlay, who runs a consultancy called GAT Risk Management.
Mr Fleming told the committee Mr McGinlay was one of four respondents to an expression of interest issued by the ICAC.
He said his office was cognisant of the fact Mr McGinlay was the "domestic partner" of investigations director Kate Kelly and that measures were implemented to appropriately deal with the situation.
"We were aware that that gave rise to a potential conflict of interest," Mr Fleming told the committee.
He said the merits of the four respondents were assessed internally by someone separate to Ms Kelly, as well as externally by a former assistant police commissioner
ICAC boss says contract for senior staff member's partner was managed appropriately
- The sociological aspects of “the end of analytic philosophy” — from the point of view of a relatively recent philosophy PhD, Dave Atenasio (Frostburg)
- “I think that off-the-charts retributivism is weak. I think it is weak because it just means I have nothing constructive to do, so I’m going to punish you“ — Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) interviewed in The New Yorker
- More on racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among US philosophy students and faculty — “It’s mixed news”
- Leibniz’s freaky unicorn — the “imaginatively reassembled” skeleton of which he depicted in his Protogaea
- “Even if our evolutionary background does not debunk our claim to know objective moral truths, the explanatory stories told by debunkers can still be useful in flagging ways in which evolutionary influences might be distorting our moral thinking” — William J. Fitzpatrick (Rochester) on the interplay of metaethics and science
- Interested in teaching Latin American philosophy but fear you don’t know enough? Here’s how — and why, from Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. (Occidental)
- “Before the ruling, a book had to prove that it was not obscene before being allowed to cross the border; after, customs had to prove that something was indecent before seizing it” — how the obscenity case of a book by philosopher Richard Mohr (Illinois) changed Canadian free speech law
- “Lol… the audacity”: when the Society for the Social Studies of Science tried to school MC Hammer — and what can be learned from this episode, from Joshua Earle (Virginia Tech)
- “There was no Renaissance. It is an invention by historians, a fiction made in order to tell a story… about the development of philosophy”” — Henrik Lagerlund (Stockholm) makes the case for historiographical nihilism
- Is this art? — an Italian artist sells his latest invisible sculpture
- “It seems we want to let money in to further research and philosophical excellence and improve and strengthen departments even if it moves a dept in a direction it would not have itself chosen, so long as that path is one of the paths the dept deems a reasonable direction” — David Sobel (Syracuse) on outside funding for academic hires
- Kant’s Copernican Revolution — Fiona Hughes (Esssex), Anil Gomes (Oxford), and John Callanan (KCL) talk about Kant on the BBC’s In Our Time
- “We need advocates to work out all the options, after all” — Richard Chappell (Miami) on why disagreement between philosophers should not be seen as evidence of philosophy’s failure
- “Human beings are who we are: we’re walking disasters, we’re walking wonders at the same time” — Cornel West (Union Theological Seminary) in conversation with Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt)