By Meghan Duffy People cry. Scientists are people. Therefore, scientists cry. So why is it that scientists and academics can get so freaked out by a colleague or student crying? I cried through my entire defense. I was completely embarrassed by it at the time, but, fortunately, my committee carried on without making a Read…
By Brian McGill (warning this is long – you can skip to the conclusions or even bottom-bottom line at the end if you want) I am not an expert on pedagogical methods. But I have been on the teacher side of university education for almost 20 years. And I’ve literally taught 100, 200, 300, Read…
By Jeremy Fox Also this week: the history of #icanhazpdf, microbiome pet peeves, new evidence of widepread p-hacking, the difference between terrestrial and marine ecologists, using software to solve the wrong problem, and more. Oh, and never mess with a manatee. From Meg: Jacquelyn Gill has a post that provides an important reminder about Read…
By Meghan Duffy Just as a heads up: if you are planning on traveling to the Read Full Article Here For more great articles: Dynamic Ecology
By Jeremy Fox Last week I polled readers on whether they shared my impression that general ecology journals only want to publish “realistic” theory, meaning theories tightly linked to data. I also asked readers if they thought general ecology journals should only publish realistic theory. The answers were loud and clear: yes Read Full Article…
By Meghan Duffy As I talked about in yesterday’s post, I’ve been thinking a lot about lab finances lately. For the most part, I’ve done this on my own, staring into what sometimes feels like an abyss of spreadsheets in my office. A lot of the recent spreadsheet crunching has centered around Read Full Article…
By Meghan Duffy Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time working through lab finances. I need to make personnel decisions, and what I want to do is: Make sure the amount of money I think I have to spend is the amount I actually have to spend. Encumber the salaries/stipends/tuition of people currently in the…
By Jeremy Fox From Jeremy: Philosopher of ecology Jay Odenbaugh argues that ecological theory doesn’t need to make accurate predictions to be successful science, and that you’re misunderstanding the purpose of theory if you think otherwise. The paper’s a few years old, but you probably missed it at the time and it’s Read Full Article…
By Jeremy Fox At last year’s ESA meeting there was some discussion among members of the Theoretical Ecology section about how, with the exception of Am Nat, leading general ecology journals seem not to publish much theory. And further, that general ecology journals increasingly seem to demand that the theory they do publish Read Full…
By Meghan Duffy A little while back, I wrote a post in response to a reader’s request for tips on how to continue being a productive scientist while in her first trimester of pregnancy. This is the follow up post, also on request, that talks about the strategies I used for trying Read Full Article…