Posted by barb on Jan 22, 2005 in
Science Musings Let’s say you have two choices: putting some money into servicing an established, functioning, NSF-endorsed satellite that is returning amazing science results for over 10 years, or putting that money into a pie-in-the-sky, underfunded, and ill-concieved plan to send humans to Mars. If you’re the administration in the White House, you choose the latter.
White House Cuts Hubble Servicing Mission from 2006 Budget Request:
The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its life, according to government and industry sources.
[…]
That budget request, according to government and industry sources, will not include any money for Hubble servicing but will include some money for a mission to attach a propulsion module to Hubble needed to safely de-orbit the spacecraft with a controlled re-entry into the Pacific Ocean. NASA would not need to launch such a mission before the end of the decade to guide the massive telescope safely into the ocean.
No one is saying that the exploration BS initiative is the cause of the HST servicing mission getting cut from the budget. However, it was about a year ago that the exploration initiative was announced, and it was about a year ago when they first talked about cutting the HST servicing mission.
According to the article, “With both robotic and shuttle-based servicing options expected to cost well in excess of $1 billion, sources said, NASA was told it simply could not afford to save Hubble given everything else NASA has on its agenda, including preparing the shuttle fleet to fly again.” Hmmm. $1 billion. Wasn’t that the extra that NASA was supposed to get for the exploration initiative (Plus $10 billion redirected from existing NASA programs)? What a coincidence.
The final approval for the budget, however, comes from Congress. This might be a good time to write a letter to your local congress members.
[via Preposterous Universe]
Tags: rant, science
Posted by barb on Jan 20, 2005 in
Movies 2.5/5 stars
Not nearly as good as the first. Here Elle Woods goes to Washington DC to introduce a bill against using animals for cosmetics testing. She uses her “blonde-ways” to charm members of congress and win votes for the bill. However, it just wasn’t as fun as the first — maybe the jokes had all been used up, or maybe I just was expecting too much. Not bad, but not great.
Tags: reviews
Posted by barb on Jan 19, 2005 in
Random Thoughts We got about an inch of snow here in DC, so the idiots were on the road. I knew the commute would be bad, so I left work at 11:30 AM, after a half-day. I got home at about 3 PM. Yup. Three and a half hours to go 35 miles.
It took 30 minutes to get the 2 miles from work to the Beltway. Another 30 minutes to get off the Beltway at the next exit (about another mile); turned out that the Beltway was essentially closed there due to a multi-car accident, and despite a police, firefighter, and ambulance presence, traffic was still chaos. Then I took an hour getting back to the Beltway (I cut across the inside “corner” of the Beltway). Then another hour and a half to get the remaining 15 or so miles.
At least I didn’t get into an accident.
Tags: life in the city, rant
Posted by barb on Jan 18, 2005 in
Science Musings I’ve calmed down a bit from yesterday, and thought I’d try a more level-headed response to Summers’ comments about why women are underrepresented in science. My aim is to get through this without using words like “jackass”, “dipshit”, and “bastard”. Let’s see how I do.
One of the assumptions seems to be that because there are fewer women in science, this must mean that there is some predisposition for women not to succeed in science. Genetics is one possibility. I’m not going to dispute that there are some genetic differences between men and women. There are. Perhaps there is even some kind of differences that put men at a slight advantage as far as performing science and math. However, using the current number of women in science as a “test” for genetic differences assumes that all other things have been equal. I can assure you they have not — there has not been a level playing field until very recently.
Historically, women were not given the opportunity to go to university. Only women in the most affulent families could even get advanced education, and rarely were they allowed to get that education in science or math. Until the latter half of the 20th century, women have been actively excluded from graduate programs. So men have been allowed and encouraged to participate in science and math for centuries. Women have only had half a century. Biases like that take some time to erase. We’re still catching up.
Last summer at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Denver, Elaine Seymour, a sociologist at the University of Colorado, gave a talk about ongoing research into what it takes to make it to tenure-track positions. The results weren’t yet published, but she told us that what they were finding was that it took a “straight trajectory” for women to make it to the tenure track.
What does this mean? It means that students who took time off from school, i.e. diverted from the straight-line between undergraduate work and tenure-track, rarely made it back. Some of the many reasons for falling off the direct track included starting a family, family illness or death, and lack of sufficient support.
Let’s think about this for a minute. Of the man or woman in a relationship, who is more likely to take time off when starting a family (the birth itself notwithstanding)? The mother — it seems to be an unwritten rule in society that the mother stop her life to take care of a new baby. Of the sons or daughters in a family, who is more likely to take time off to care for a sick parent? Daughters, in general (I’m not saying that sons never do this, it just seems that a daughter is the one expected to take on the role). Of a husband and wife, who is more likely to support the other through graduate school? The wife. There’s usually an agreement that the husband will then support his wife through graduate school, but once she leave that straight trajectory, her chances of returning are greatly reduced. These examples do not stem from genetic or “inherent” differences in the ability for women to perform science — the are absolutely socialization differences.
I’m one of the unusual cases where I fell off the straight trajectory and made it back onto the path to a PhD. I fell off due to a lack of financial support — I was gettin as much as graduate students in my area generally get, but this was not enough to survive in the DC area. I was able to return because I found an understanding advisor who was willing to let me continue working half-time as a contractor and only half-time as a graduate student. Most students aren’t so lucky.
Tags: science, women in science
Posted by barb on Jan 17, 2005 in
Science Musings Just two days ago I was writing optimistically about the status of women in astronomy, and then I read these comments from the president of Harvard.
The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.
The article says that in this talk he was acting as a top ecomomist, and not as a Harvard official. If you’re the president of Harvard, you are always acting as a Harvard official. One has to wonder what kind of dumbass the president of Harvard has to be not to know that already.
He offered three possible explanations, in declining order of importance, for the small number of women in high-level positions in science and engineering. The first was the reluctance or inability of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks.
The second point was that fewer girls than boys have top scores on science and math tests in late high school years. ”I said no one really understands why this is, and it’s an area of ferment in social science,” Summers said in an interview Saturday. ”Research in behavioral genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialization weren’t” due to socialization after all.
[…]
Summers’ third point was about discrimination. Referencing a well-known concept in economics, he said that if discrimination was the main factor limiting the advancement of women in science and engineering, then a school that does not discriminate would gain an advantage by hiring away the top women who were discriminated against elsewhere.
Point 1: It’s women’s fault that they don’t want to neglect their families by working 80-hour weeks? No. It’s the science culture that’s at fault for not shaming men for neglecting their families by working 80-hour weeks. No one should be working 80-hour weeks. Period. We need time to nurture our families, our friendships, our lives, and 80-hour work weeks are not a good way to do that — it just leads to burn-out. (And, apparently it leads to assholes getting to be president of Harvard.)
Point 2: Do we really need to go over this one again? Boys are encouraged by adults to explore their worlds; girls are encouraged to play house and learn to be mommies. Of course we are socialized to be good little boys and girls. I was fortunate that I got to play with my older brothers’ toys — I had Legos AND dolls AND action figures AND Lincoln Logs. Most girls get dolls and Barbies and stuffed toys.
Point 3: Discrimination is a huge factor in the problem. It’s not the only problem, but in seven hiring cycles at my university, the only woman who was hired was hired because the school mandated that a woman be hired.
The article reports that several women left Summers’ talk. He got off lucky. There should have been some kind of “storming the stage.” Our only hope is that this will be the impetus needed to oust Summers’.
[via Pharyngula]
Tags: science, women in science
Posted by barb on Jan 16, 2005 in
Movies 3/5 stars
I found that I was distracted because I had read the first two books. I kept trying to find the elements of the books in the movie, and most of them were certainly there, but a bit mixed up. A binding thread had been added to the movie that was not present in the books, which was absolutely necesary, and it worked fairly well.
Overall, a great performance by all the actors, great art direction, and a fun, if easily forgetable, distraction for a matinee showing.
I was distracted becasue I had read the first two books. There was a lot taken away from the books, of course, but also a binding thread was added to make the movie more cohesive. It worked, and it was necessary
Tags: reviews
Posted by barb on Jan 15, 2005 in
Movies 2/5 stars
Two years after his girlfriend disappeared from his life, Matthew (Josh Hartnett) hears her voice at a restaurant, but can’t catch up to her in time. He is supposed to be on his way to China to close a large deal for the business of his new girlfriend’s brother’s business and he’s ready to propose to this new girlfriend. However, he can’t pass up the chance to find his ex-girlfriend, who he’s still in love with.
I was expecting more from this movie. The trailers made it out to be more sinister or more mysterious or more something than it turned out to be. I found that I was often confused (and not in a good way).
Tags: reviews
Posted by barb on Jan 15, 2005 in
Science Musings I was asked to be the graduate student representative on a panel discussion today for the Committe on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA). In 2003 they had held a meeting in Pasadena to discuss progress since the first Baltimore meeting in 1992. As a result of the Pasadena meeting, the CSWA has drafted a set of recommendations aimed at increasing the retention of women in astronomy.
Right now, over 50% of the American Astronomical Society members aged 18-23 are female. However, less than 20% of tenure-track positions in astronomy are held by women. The main thrust of the recommendations is that women advance in the same proportions as the enter the field. So that, for a class entering graduate school with 25% women, it would be hoped that of the members of that class graduating with a PhD, 25% would be female. This does not seem to be the case. Women are dropping out at a greater rate than men.
The Pasadena recommendations start with a few guiding principles. It’s somewhat embarassing that these principles need to be written at all. For example, the first principle is that men and women are equally capable of doing astronomy. The recommendations themselves range from sexual harassment awareness training to mentoring programs to active recruitment of women for open faculty positions.
Read more…
Tags: science, women in science
Posted by barb on Jan 15, 2005 in
Movies 3/5 stars
This was a cute movie — Jennifer Garner plays a 13 year-old who makes a wish to be thirty, flirty, and thriving. A fun distraction for a couple hours.
Tags: reviews
Posted by barb on Jan 15, 2005 in
Books This is an excellent collection of short stories based on classic fairy tales. I enjoyed virtually all of the stories (with the exception of “The Frog King, or Iron Henry”), most notably:
- “Stronger Than Time” by Patricia C. Wrede
This is a retelling of the classic sleeping beauty (actually a few renditions of the sleeping beauty story appear in this collection, but this was by far my favorite), in which we find a prince trying to undo a mistake he made long ago.
- “Can’t Catch Me” by Michael Cadnum
This story is told from the point of view of the Gingerbread Man.
- “The Goose Girl” by Tim Wynne-Jones
A retelling of the goose girl story from the Prince’s point of view.
- “Godson” by Roger Zelazny
A story based on a German fairy tale found in the Brothers’ Grimm collections (though I don’t actually know which one, and the intro didn’t say so-as not to give anything away). It’s about a child who has as his godfather…satan? Not exactly, more like a keeper of human life.
There are more collections like this from the same editors, and a series of novels based on fairy tales, all of which I’m looking forward to delving into them.
Tags: reviews