I’ve just had a paper published on open access in ecology and evolution, so I thought I would let you know what it’s all about. I wrote a few weeks ago about how you can often post more of a scientific paper online without violating copyright than you might think. I went through a couple of journals in which I had published articles, and tried to work out what I could self-archive. The answer was usually “quite a lot”! Then someone in the comments popped up and mentioned the SHERPA-ROMEO website, which allows you to search for the name of the journal in which your paper has been published and then shows you the policy on self-archiving. Well, being the data-lover that I am I decided to check out the rest of the journals in ecology and evolutionary biology (all 165 that were listed on Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports). The results were pretty interesting…
Tag: science
My PhD thesis in the ten hundred most used words
Inspired by this xkcd comic, and facilitated by this online tool, people have been summarising all kinds of ideas using the 1,000 most common words. Naturally PhD students have latched onto this as a source of procrastination and, in a show of solidarity, I decided to join them (this was during my lunch break – honest!). Here’s my PhD thesis:
My work looks at how animals change as the world gets warmer. My animal is like a fly but it has four flying bits, eats other animals, and has big eyes. By looking at where people saw these animals in the past, I figured out how the place and time at which they appear changes with how hot it is. I found that they appear earlier when it is hot, which is interesting because these animals spend most of their lives in water. Animals in water had not been shown to change when they appear in this way before. I also looked at the ways in which we look at changes in where animals appear and showed the best way to look at this problem. Last, I looked at how the form of these animals changes as they move when it gets hotter. I found that the animals that had moved a long way had a form that made it easy for them to move (like big flying bits). In short, the changes shown by the animals that I looked at can be used to build a case for a warming world.
Wasp – this one adopted this stranger pose when I dumped him out of the box. I made me think of Rodin’s “Thinker”…
The Flying Spaghetti Monster, in all his noodly majesty… (or maybe an old spider)
Woodlouse
Many moths (as you might expect from a light fitting)
A few beetles
I liked the colours that this fly managed to retain (I have no idea how long any of these have been stuck there!)
I struggled to get high-quality photos without more magnification, so here are some pins :-)
52 Weeks of Photography: Week 3 (Insect Graveyards)
Last week I mentioned being inspired by this fascination post from Dragonfly Woman, who looked at the diversity of insects that had passed-on in various light fittings around her home. I thought I would try the same thing, as it gives an opportunity to get close to the wee beasties without them running away. Here’s the result: […]
The (current) limits of open access and #PDFtribute
EDIT [18/1/13]: At almost exactly the same time as I was posting about how the revolution was coming, the revolution started. Mathematicians are setting up community-run, open access journals independent of larger publishers.
I had never heard of Aaron Swartz before he died. Swartz was 2 1/2 years younger than me and spent his life working on, with, and around the internet and its various limitations. I have a lot of respect for what he accomplished, not only in terms of the technical progress that he was a part of, but also because of his philosophy about open access to information. In the wake of his death, supporters took to Twitter to post free copies of their publications, whether or not the material was in the public domain. This reflects Swartz’s actions in downloading millions of academic papers from the MIT network which precipitated the court case that he was fighting when he chose to end his life.Read More »
Sexism is a (horrible and depressing) fact
When I posted the proposed method to look at diversity in skeptical/atheist conferences, one comment was particularly illuminating. I stated that part of the motivation for the exercise was that:
“…there is clear and unequivocal discrimination against women in a wide array of situations and so we should be conscious of that bias when we choose speakers for conferences.”
A commenter responded that:
“Ok, I’m not sure as to what you are referring, it appears you are just performing some vague political posturing. If there were clear, and unequivocal discrimination against women at these conferences, you wouldn’t need a study to demonstrate it. It would be clear and unequivocal, such as a sexist, limiting clause in an organization’s charter. No such thing exists, so your point seems moot.”
Unfortunately, the commenter is taking a very simplistic view of sexism. Systemic sexism of the kind to which I was referring is an insidious and far-reaching problem. This post is a quick review of some empirical demonstrations of the subtle and systemic bias that women face, because it is clear than some people need to be made aware of the extent of the problem. This is not a post of vague anecdotes, though – these are scientific studies.Read More »
Open Education I: Why is open access to education important?
I have blogged before about why I feel that open access to research and educational materials is an important step forward for society. This promotes the learning of those who struggle to access conventional learning modalities (e.g. lower socioeconomic groups who are traditionally excluded from universities) and those who are simply casually interested in learning something new without the need to commit to long-term and expensive courses. The release of data also helps to facilitate the verification of findings in the scientific sphere to avoid the problems associated with scientific publishing.
Climate change denial: advice for skeptical projects
To round-out this quick series on the climate denial project, I thought I would reflect on some of the aspects of the project in the context of skeptical activism. There are a wide range of these kinds of projects, and it is worthwhile attempting to share best practice when we can in order to make the most of limited (often volunteer-based) resources. I know that the Eschaton2012 conference recently had a panel on skeptical activism which probably covered the same points, so I suggest you check that out as well. Jeff Shallit has some interesting points for individuals, but this will consider what groups can accomplish. Which leads me nicely into…Read More »
Climate change denial: my experience with the media
This is my third post relating to a project that looked at climate change denial as it was being taught in a Canadian university (see here for background, and here for response to some criticism). We were expecting the skeptical community to pick it up, and the report was written mostly for that audience. What we were not expecting was international media coverage and a few dozen blog posts. Here, I will briefly reflect on what the media contact was like.
Sexist skeptics? Here’s how to find out
There has been an ongoing (and really rather bitter) argument over discrimination against women in the skeptical/atheist community – particularly over whether or not conferences are preferentially selecting old, white, male speakers. Arguably this could be expanded to include discrimination against youth and against different races, but the sexism issue is that which has been front-and-centre over the past year. The allegations have been that the organisers of various conferences (particularly TAM) have not been inclusive when considering female speakers and that this has contributed to an unwelcoming environment at skeptical conferences.Read More »
Climate change denial: a response to some criticism
This is my second post on the climate change project (see my earlier piece on the background to the story). In this post I’ll talk briefly about some of the negative response that was raised to the project, primarily by the researcher who developed the course, Tim Patterson. It is worth noting that the course is being taught again in January 2013. I’ll follow this up with posts on (i) experiences with the media, and (ii) advice for skeptical campaigns in general.
Katatrepsis 