Learning to do Science – Page 15 – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

Science and “The Good Cause”

2020-02-19

Science should follow good journalism: Don't become part of a cause, not even a good one.

Image: Spiegel (1995)
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Consensus in Science

2019-12-03

A great one-page editorial about the issue of consensus in science.
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Recommendation: Steven Pinker: “An Unnecessary Defense of Reason and a Necessary Defense of the University’s Role in Advancing It”

2019-10-16

Steven Pinker's Keynote talk at the 2nd Heterodox Academy Annual Conference in June 2019 is well worth listening to.

Image: Half Hour of Heterodoxy Logo
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Climate Change Activism

2019-10-15

Some thoughts on Fridays4Future, Students4Future, and Scientist4Future -- and strikes at schools and universities.

Image: Pale Blue Dot.
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The Right Kind of Wrong. Or: Using bad practice just because it’s industry standard.

2019-07-30

What do you do when something is "industry standard", but clearly inferior. Yet, you get into trouble when you do it better, because people don't recognize it as better?
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The best predictor for future behavior is past behavior. — Or: What I wouldn’t give for a good Learning Analytics System

2019-07-30

It's impressive what you can do with the information about students performance way before they take their final exam. If there just were a good learning analytics system to ... you know, actually use the information. Of course, that would require that student performance was actually something most universities did care about.
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Grading Paper Exams with an iPad

2019-07-28

Turns out you can grade paper exams pretty well with an iPad.
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Regulating citizens to the mean (with an SD of 0)

2019-06-05

There are currently a few ... interesting developments that cast a deep shadow on future creativity. At least, that how it appears to me. It’s not that the situation is a problem now, but there is a trend, and I don’t like where it leads.
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Necrophilic Teaching

2019-06-05

Teaching dead bodies.
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Great Introduction to R (esp when you come from SPSS or the like)

2019-02-05

The audio is terrible but Hadley Wickham's presentation gives a very good introduction into R — and why it's better than using a GUI based software like SPSS or Excel.
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.