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)You’ve got a meeting tomorrow, in Manhattan, with a very important client. People manage this sort of thing all the time, right? Easy as pie. Only, suppose you can’t communicate with your client. Not now, not tomorrow until you meet her face to face. You don’t have a time or a location for your meeting. You know this, your client knows this, and you both know that the other knows. Where and when will you be?
[Read more…] about Science in Review: The Linguistic Match Game
For everyone who blanches at binomials, cringes at coefficients or detests derivatives: you’re not alone! Even scientists may avoid math if they can, according to a study on the effect of equation density on the likelihood a scientific publication will be cited by other scientists. (Original paper here) The effect is small; for every additional equation per page, a paper is 5% less likely to be referenced. Still, the result is notable because it was observed in the physics literature, a discipline generally associated with mathematical sophistication. A similar finding has been observed for biology papers, but for some reason there was less surprise that biologists avoided mathematics.
[Read more…] about Science Corner: Arithmophobia & Other Language Barriers
Last month, I blogged about the religious discrimination lawsuit filed by astronomer Martin Gaskell against the University of Kentucky. I included a quote from Elaine Howard Ecklund’s book Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think about the degree to which religious scientists feel they can be open about their faith and beliefs. Now, I want to return to Ecklund’s book and discuss one of her conclusions that I have found very insightful: nonreligious scientists have an extremely limited language for discussing religious beliefs.
(BTW, the Lexington Herald-Leader has an update on Gaskell’s case. There haven’t been too many developments in the past month, but the article includes a disturbing statement from the AAUP suggesting that religious beliefs can be an issue of “disciplinary competency” in science. Yipes. I hope religious scientists who are members of AAUP will contact them to set them straight.)
In her survey of elite academic scientists, Ecklund found that nonreligious scientists have limited ability to discuss religious beliefs. She draws on sociologist Basil Bernstein’s concept of “language codes” to suggest that many scientists never progress beyond stereotypes and false assumptions about religion: [Read more…] about Can Scientists Talk About Religion?
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? Anything special with some time off or is there too much going on with the holiday?
As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. What did the Oxford University Press select as its 2009 “word of the year”? — Part of the The Higher-Ed News Quiz (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 13, 2009). What’s your best guess? We’ll confirm the answer when it’s posted and have some thoughts on the “word of the year.” … Please, no cheating 😉
2. Pittsburgh Sets Vote on Adding Tax on Tuition (Ian Urbina, NY Times, December 15, 2009): “The tax would be the first of its kind in the nation, and other cities are watching closely as they try to find ways to close their own budget gaps.” — Exemplifies the changing relationship and rhetoric between town & gown during an economically difficult time. Note: Council puts tuition tax proposal on hold (Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, December 17, 2009).
3. Need another reason to pursue an academic vocation? If you’re a linguist, you might just be called upon to invent a new language. Paul Frommer of USC did just that for James Cameron’s new movie Avatar, joining J. R. R. Tolkien and Marc Orkand (inventor of Klingon) as an inspiration to budding linguists everywhere.
4. From ProfHacker.com: an End of the Semester Checklist, a very practical list to keep your courses, files, and CV in shape.
Tom’s started digging into Education for Human Flourishing:Â A Christian Perspective (Paul D. Spears
and Steven R. Loomis, InterVarsity Press, 2009). If the title catches your interest, then check out the Preface, Precis of Book and Chapters, and keep your eye out for quotes from the book in the coming year.
This week’s Week in Review explores Google’s Book Search, China’s gao kao (“high test”), a call for papers on mentoring, and an article about linguistics and dying languages. If you’d like to contribute to next week’s Review, add your link(s) in the comments, or send them to Tom or Mike directly.
Adam Smith: What’s Next for Google Book Search? (Chronicle of Higher Education, 06/12/09): Do you use Google Books to take a preview and/or search materials? Is your institution partnering with Google Book Search? Does Smith address your concerns regarding access, fair use, and privacy? What are your thoughts on orphan works? How do you define orphan works?
Google has scanned millions of books and made snippets available online through its ambitious Book Search program. The project has taken heat from authors and publishers, but Adam Smith, Google’s director of product management, says it’s a good thing for academe. (Audio interview, 9:36)
[Mike notes: there are at least two groups not happy with Google’s digital books program: the Department of Justice and Amazon.com. Â It will be interesting to see how this plays out.]
China’s College Entry Test Is an Obsession (NY Times, 06/13/09): Who is familiar with China’s gao kao, i.e., high test? Would a boost of similar seriousness about education be helpful in the United States or would it increase competitive commercialization of higher education? How does one encourage the pursuit and wise application of knowledge through vocation in the wider society?
The Chinese test is in some ways like the American SAT, except that it lasts more than twice as long. The nine-hour test is offered just once a year and is the sole determinant for admission to virtually all Chinese colleges and universities. About three in five students make the cut.
Families pull out all the stops to optimize their children’s scores.
Mentoring: Call for Papers – The University of New Mexico Mentoring Institute is seeking proposals about effective mentoring for their Second Mentoring Conference. I went last year and was favorably impressed. While the institute and conference are hosted by a public university, there were a number of Christian academics involved last year (from both secular and Christian universities), and issues related to religious faith were openly discussed. For example, several of the mentoring presentations addressed spiritual components of mentoring, two of the plenary speakers (Brad Johnson and Lewis Schlosser) spoke briefly about their different religious views in the context of their mentor-mentee and collegial relationship, and several speakers spoke to questions about how to relate to a mentor or protege with very different religious, political, or personal beliefs from your own. Deadline for submissions is July 31.
Languages on Life Support – From the Chronicle, a survey of the state of dying languages in the world today, and the efforts (or lack thereof) of academic linguists to preserve them.
Of the estimated 6,000 to 7,000 languages in the world — about one-half of the number used 10,000 years ago — at least one-half will almost certainly be dead by midcentury, while another 40 percent will most likely become too diminished to survive much beyond 2100. The causes are largely agreed upon: colonization and other demographic shifts, government neglect or outright suppression of regional and indigenous languages, the influence of mass media.
The article explores the question of whether Noam Chomsky’s theory of a “universal grammar” eliminates the urgency to record details of specific languages.  Chomsky himself says no, but others aren’t so sure.  Personally, I was struck by the complete absence of any mention whatsoever of groups like Wycliffe Bible Translators or SIL, which are doing serious work around the world preserving languages.   (For more on linguistics, see my previous post about Dan Everett.)