New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

More on the Science 'sting'

Earlier this week I had a post on the 'sting' that was the topic of an article published in Science, purporting to show that many (most?) pay-to-publish open-access journals are not sufficiently selective on what they publish because they have an obvious motivation to accept as many papers for publication as they can. The presupposition seemed to be that this is not the case of subscription-only journals, which have good reasons to be selective, and thus presumably to publish higher quality articles.

Well, today I came across a blog post contesting exactly this presupposition. It's a great post, which you should read in its entirety, but the main point is that the key desideratum for subcription-only journals is to publish 'sexy' research, of the kind that generates a lot of citations, so as to increase the impact factor of the journal (and thus to increase subscription revenue). The author of the post, Michael Eisen (a biologist at Berkeley) even offers the example of a ludicrous paper published in -- yes, you guessed it right -- Science, which should have never passed any decent quality control process.

Below the fold you can read extracts from the post, which describes subscription publishers as "seasoned grifters playing a long con", among other spot-on observations. The general conclusion is again that peer-review is a flawed system, and even if for the moment there doesn't seem to be any real alternative to it, it is important to keep in mind that it is a deeply problematic system. (The author is refering in particular to his field of research, but as I've argued before, there are reasons to think that the problem is equally acute for philosophy.)

PHILOSOPHER'S CARNIVAL #156. . .

is HERE, compiled this month by official friend-of-the-blog Tristan Haze. Joe Bob says check it out!

Too much metaphorical language in cognitive science?

Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. (‘What else could it be?’) I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer. (John Searle, Minds, Brains and Science, 44)

As I am now preparing my philosophy of cognitive science course, which I will start teaching in November for the first time, one of the inevitable topics on my mind is the idea of the mind (or the brain) as a computer. I am a relatively newcomer to the field of philosophy of cogsci, which in a sense means that I approach it with a certain naiveté and absence of, shall we say, prior indoctrination. At the same time, I am now also reading Louise Barrett’s wonderful book Beyond the Brain, whose chapter 7 is called ‘Metaphorical mind fields’. It begins with the famous quote by Searle above, and goes on to argue that the ‘mind as a computer’ conception is a metaphor; what is more, the tendency we have to forget that it is a metaphor does much damage to a proper understanding of what a human brain/mind is and does (problematizing the brain=mind equation is the general topic of the whole book).

… our use of the computer metaphor is so familiar and comfortable that we sometimes forget that we are dealing only with a metaphor, and that there may be other, equally interesting (and perhaps more appropriate) ways to think about brains and nervous systems and what they do. After all, given that our metaphors for the brain and mind have changed considerably over time, there’s no reason to expect that, somehow, we’ve finally hit on the correct one, as opposed to the one that just reflects something about the times in which we live. (Barrett 2011, 114/115)

On Fossils and Economists (and Spinozistic Anti-Mathematics)

"I have no great faith in political arithmetick, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations." Adam Smith (1776) Wealth of Nations.

While Ancient writers (Pliny) certainly noted the existence of fossils, the meaning of the existence fossils was explosive during the eighteenth century. In posthumously published work on Discourse on Earthquakes (1705), the secretary of the Royal Society, Robert Hooke, had while surveying fossil evidence suggested that "There have been many other Species of Creatures in former Ages, of which we can find none at present; and that 'tis not unlikely also but that there may be divers new kinds now, which have not been from the beginning." (here)

As it happens, Adam Smith's two best friends in old age, James Hutton and Joseph Black, the editors of his posthumous (1795) work, Essays on Philosophical Subjects (EPS), understood what was at stake. For, in 1785 Hutton gave a public lecture, “Concerning the System of the Earth, Its Duration, and Stability,” at University of Edinburgh. Due to Hutton's illness, Black gave the lecture on Hutton’s behalf. In the lecture Hutton used geological and fossil evidence to argue that the Earth was almost certainly older than 6000 years. We do not know for sure if Smith attended the lecture, although he was in town.The argument was elaborated in far greater detail in Hutton's (1788) Theory of the Earth, which made him an international celebrity. The significance of this episode to the history of geology and Darwinism is much studied.

But what does this have to do with the history of economics?

Smith's closeness to Hutton may provide additional clues for one of the enduring mysteries of the history of economics: why did Adam Smith forsake the deployment of a mathematical model in the Wealth of Nations (1776)?

Brazilian music on Fridays: Rosa Passos sings Djavan

I’ve mentioned a few times that Djavan was for years my very favorite singer, and I’m still a huge fan of much of his oeuvre (but admittedly not very familiar with the more recent stuff). In this context, I was very happy to hear about an album that came out earlier this year: Samba Dobrado, where singer Rosa Passos sings nothing but Djavan songs (some of the classics as well as lesser known gems). Rosa Passos has a limpid, precise singing style, which reminds me of the great João Gilberto (she openly acknowledges him as one of her greatest influences). She has built a solid career over the last decades, but is not very well known among the ‘masses’, so to speak. Her Djavan album, however, has attracted a considerable amount of attention, so it looks like she is finally getting the recognition she deserves. 

I haven’t been able to listen to the whole album yet, and only found two of the songs on youtube (there are quite a few live videos, but with poor sound quality): ‘Linha do equador’ (here in the original Djavan version of 1992) and ‘Samba dobrado’, which lends the name to the album (here in the original Djavan version of 1978). But if all goes well I should receive my copy of the CD at the end of this month, when a dear friend who is in Brazil now returns to the Netherlands. Can’t wait! And in the meantime, I treat BMoF readers to some beautiful music.

Alice Munro's New Bling

Canada woke up today to the news of her Nobel. I was alert for street parties while walking to work, but Toronto was strangely phlegmatic. They haven't replaced the Stephen King display at Indigo on Bay Street.

For a long time, I was inclined to think that Mavis Gallant was the greater writer, but in the last decade or so I have found the humanity of Munro's oeuvre overwhelming. 

UPDATE: The Nobel Committee, which has not been very forward in honouring women, calls Munro a "master" of the contemporary short story. Our beloved Prime Minister echoes. The Guardian substitutes "doyenne."

UPDATE 2: Sasha Weiss in the New Yorker's Page Turner: "When it was announced this morning that Alice Munro had won the Nobel Prize in Literature, phone calls and e-mails from friends started streaming in. Some people were tearful. I suspect that these little explosions of joy are happening all over the world . . .  I also suspect that this level of emotional response (more akin to receiving family news, like the birth of a child) doesn’t happen every year when the winner of the Nobel is declared."

What data do we need for a comprehensive view of placement?

The CHE has a story on the placement study released at Philosophy News and commented upon here and at Leiter Reports. Unfortunately, the CHE story frames this as "Study Shows X." A better frame than that provided by CHE would have been

The first draft of an on-going, self-correcting, and in-need-of-improvement study of philosophy placement trends at some well-regarded American PhD programs has been published. The author of the study recognizes all its limitations, and has received incisive feedback from people in the profession, a sign that everyone recognizes the need for better placement studies.

Whatever the framing problems of the story, I want to try to list here the data that would make up an ideal placement study. For each school listed (the ideal study would incorporate the Carson study's initial data base, but would include others not listed there) we would want: 

On Being a PhD Supervisor (or Spinoza and Seneca on Equanimity)

Childhood is abundant in fruits, but infancy is sweeter [Fructuosior est adulescentia liberorum, sed infantia dulcior].--Seneca, Letter 9.

I am very bad at being powerless when I really want to help another that I care for who is self-undermining. I find it vexing, and because of the intensity of the passion, I am perfectly capable of making a situation worse--thus, not helping the person in need and frustrating my aims. Recognizing the pattern and even the fact that I re-enact childhood experience, has helped to some degree. But nobody that knows me will call me "unflappable" in such circumstances. (By contrast, I have remained unperturbed when I have been amidst gunfire and scary aircraft failures.) This particular incapacity has a work-place consequence: it makes me a less than ideal PhD supervisor for people that are self-undermining and it influences how we can do philosophy together.

In her best-selling and philosophically subtle book on Spinoza, Door Spinoza's Lens [full disclosure: I wrote a brief "afterword" to it, but that is obviously not why it is selling!] the Flemish scholar-public intellectual, Tinneke Beeckman, emphasizes the significance of equanimity. When one first encounters it in the Ethics, it seems to council resignation: "we should await and endure fortune's face with equanimity" [utramque fortunae faciem aequo animo exspectare et ferre]. E2p49S It is easy to mistake this for passivity in the face of harms done by others to us (as E4Appendix, ch. 14 suggests).* But in chapter 32 of the appendix to Ethics 4,   Spinoza makes clear that equanimity is consequent to being conscious of having done one's duty [si conscii simus nos functos nostro officio fuisse]. Given that Spinoza uses here the Ciceronian "officio," he means this in terms of meeting the obligations of one's public station or social role. Spinoza's version of equanimity is a public virtue, one that emphasizes a notion of duty that we can capture by way of 'public spiritedness.' As we know from Hutcheson this entails all of us can be heroes in modern times.

A Philosopher's open letter to Katie Roiphe

[The author of this open letter is Heidi Howkins Lockwood.--ES]

Dear Katie Roiphe,

In your “Katie Roiphe: this much I know” piece posted on The Guardian this past July, you said you know that you make people uncomfortable because you claim that women are partly responsible for their own date rapes; you know that women who enjoyed Fifty Shades of Grey are fantasizing about being the submissive sex again; you know that you get under people’s skin.

Unfortunately, Katie Roiphe, you haven’t gotten under my skin – though I wish that you would. I wish that you’d get under my skin, in my skin, in my mind, under the covers of my silence with me, for just an hour. You can trust me. I won’t show you anything you don’t want to see.

I won’t. show you. anything. you don’t want to see. I won’t show you what it’s like to be raped, because you don’t want to see it; in The Morning After and other pieces, the fact that you haven’t talked to many rape survivors is clear in your insistence that a rape which fits even your “violent force” criteria for a rape doesn’t count as a rape if the victim doesn’t call it that. I won’t try to show you the body of research that shows that rape and attempted rape is an epidemic in the U.S., because you don’t want to see it; instead of following the scholarly journals that this research appears in, you opted to concentrate on a single article in Ms. Magazine. I won’t show you what it’s like to work in an environment rife with sexual harassment, because you don’t want to see it; instead of talking to women who have been harassed, instead of soliciting anecdotes from all corners, you have bolstered your arguments with anecdotes and quotes from your own narrow niche of bourgeois friends.

But I will show you why your “The Philosopher and The Student” piece in Slate was despicable, ignorant and mean-spirited. I will show you how a power differential can twist reality. I will show you how your refusal to see is the product of creating a narrative in which you yourself are victimized.

The ‘sting’ article in Science on open-access ‘predatory’ journals

Earlier this week, Science published a much-discussed article entitled ‘Who’s afraid of peer review?’ The article, however, focuses specifically on peer-review in open-access journals that charge publication fees, as it reports on a little ‘experiment’ conducted by the author of the article: submitting multiple versions of the same spoof paper to a wide range of these open-access journals to see what would happen (sort of a Sokal hoax but then multiplied by 300). The hypothesis was that, given the multiplication of open-access journals following the ‘pay-to-publish’ model, the tendency is for the 'predatory journals' among those to accept pretty much anything that comes their way, and then charge authors exorbitant amounts of money as publication fees. And indeed, “by the time Science went to press, 157 of the journals had accepted the paper and 98 had rejected it.”

The article sparked a cascade of negative reactions, in particular by proponents of the open-access model who saw it as a vicious attack on the model by one of the flagship subscription journals (see here). Some have pointed out that, if the ‘study’ intended to be methodologically sound, it should have sent an equal number of spoof submissions to non-open-access journals in order to ascertain whether there really is a significant difference between the two models when it comes to letting bad papers go through the sieve of peer-reviewing. Ultimately, what the experiment seems to indicate is above all a failure of the peer-review model, not of the open-access model. As well put by Curt Rice (who often has incisive analyses of the politics of higher education, e.g. on gender issues):

Excellence, Schmexcellence Part III*: When the Better is the Enemy of the Good

Yesterday I had one of those thank God for tenure moments.

At a meeting of the"Assessment Officers" of over 100 LSU programs as well as most of the relevant deans, I blurted out, "Well, that's perfectly silly," after a dean announced that she would send back for substantial rewriting annual report that did not interpret the assessment "data sets" to entail problems that would be rectified in the "action plan."**[Please read notes ** and **** below to get some idea of just how much make-work this is.]

Then, when the hundred plus group of otherwise intelligent people looked at me, I didn't do a very good job articulating why this kind of thing was stupid during the cultural revolution in China and just as stupid today. I just said that if a unit is doing well there's no reason to find problems and that you can't expect units to get better to infinity.

This precipitated another long speech by the poor man in charge of LSU's compliance with SAAC's accreditation mandates involving assessment.*** This speech reiterated how there's always room for improvement and how this process should be helpful.**** I wanted to explain to him that he had John Calvin's doctrine on the depravity of man dreadfully wrong, but didn't say anything. Besides, everyone present needed guidance on the constantly changing computer interface that makes us enter data in all sorts of new ways and also at six months intervals recursively assess how well we are assessing.

This is what I should have said.

Lewis and Deleuze

Eric says below that "Lewis is arguably the most significant and influential (analytical) philosopher of the last quarter of the 20th century. (Perhaps, Deleuze is the only contemporary that will match his enduring significance..."

Now putting Lewis and Deleuze together would yield very interesting metaphysical work I think. Unfortunately, there's a high barrier to entry to this kind of comparative work in terms of the time commitments necessary to get even a baseline acquaintance with each philosopher. So there has been only a very few attempts I can find to bring them together. Here is a New APPS post by Jeff Bell (and another); there is also Ch 6 in this book by James Williams (pdf here). Williams begins:

For Gilles Deleuze, the virtual is real and no actual world is complete if considered in abstraction from the virtual. For David Lewis, possible worlds are real and the actual world is but one of many real possible worlds. Deleuze is critical of the concept of the possible, warning against any confusion of the possible with the virtual. Lewis’s arguments can be deployed against many of the assumptions that hold for Deleuze’s virtual – most notably, against the claim that the reality of the virtual is a certainty, rather than merely a useful supposition.

 

Against The Schock!

Leiter is encouraging discussion of nominations for the The Schock Prize. I hope our readers chime in for an enjoyable and enlightening conversation. (I vote for Nussbaum.) 

All nine of the Schock winners thus far were or are eminent philosophers, and most of us can only aspire to emulate the quality of their work as best we can. Even if one allows that "The Schock" only seems to go to male, analytical philosophers, each winner is an important and interesting philosopher, deserving of significant honor. Having said that, The Schock Prize judges had four or five chances to honor David Lewis, and failed to do so. (Lewis died in the Fall of 2001.) Lewis is arguably the most significant and influential (analytical) philosopher of the last quarter of the 20th century. (Perhaps, Deleuze is the only contemporary that will match his enduring significance, but he and Foucault died before the Schock got up and running.) So, while one can excuse the members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) to play it safe and not award the prize to, say, Derrida (and,  thus, avoid the predictable outcry), not giving it to Lewis means they failed to grasp the nature of analytical philosophy in their own time. That in addition, they passed on Gadamer, Ricœur, Goodman, and, thus far, Habermas suggests that the Schock has a long way to go before it can establish itself as the ultimate arbiter of general philosophical excellence.

For Evolution, Beauty is as Beauty Does

What is it to find something beautiful? To take pleasure in looking at it, or in listening to it, or in otherwise contemplating it. One might find the proof of the Pythagorean theorem beautiful. If this is literally true, it is because intellectually contemplating it gives one pleasure. But let’s stick to the senses, and pleasure in gazing or listening.

Why have we evolved to have a sense of beauty? That is, why (in evolutionary terms) do we take pleasure in contemplating certain things? What advantage did that give us? (I’ll just assume that the sense of beauty is at least partially the product of evolution. Argument: almost all humans find some things beautiful, but most of our ancestor species find nothing beautiful—that response is not in their repertoire.)

And secondly, why are certain things (certain patterns, certain rhythms) universally found to be beautiful? Why have we evolved to appreciate these things?

On Politics and Pedagogy

All of us who teach know that in every class, from graduate to first-year, some students talk a lot more than others. In most classes, there are a few students who dominate the discussion. Whenever you make a point and pause, and whenever you ask the class a question, those students have their hand up. These hands are insistent; even when you recognize somebody else, they stay up or squirm with the effort of waiting. Given the smallest opportunity, these students interrupt. Sometimes, they even disparage other students. They make you feel quite uncomfortable at times.

In an interesting blog post today, Rachel McKinnon addresses the problem. She writes, “Often we have a few students who dominate open discussion, with most students spending our classes in silence.” She’s right. What should we do about it?

A question we should ask to begin is this. Why is this minority so vocal? Why is the majority silent? Rachel hints at an answer that doesn’t accord with my experience: “some of us are particularly concerned about getting students from underrepresented  groups to participate, especially in spaces where the dominant voices  are typically (white straight cis) men.” The overly insistent students in my classes are just as likely to be (in no particular order) brown, women, head-scarf wearing, non-stereotypical with regard to their gender, or black.

Not the Onion, volume 5419

From IHE:

JPMorgan Chase plans to give $17 million to start a doctoral program at the University of Delaware...

As part of the plan, JPMorgan will renovate a building to house the program, put up money to pay program faculty and pay a full ride for students seeking a degree, according to an internal university plan. In addition, JPMorgan employees may sit on dissertation committees and advise the university on which faculty members should teach in the program, according to the planning document and a top university official....

The doctorate would be be in "financial services analytics," which relies on "big data." Bruce Weber, the dean of Delaware's business school, said working closely with industry will help academics prepare students for the real world, something some business school deans feel is not happening enough.

Goldman Sachs reacts. [UPDATE, 1.30 pm CDT, 7 Oct: CU Denver says, "hey, what about us?"]

Jocks, gender, age, and identity

In a recent post I introduced a distinction between two types of pragmatic functions corresponding to two directions of fit with social norms. An invocative function was one whereby a properly performed speech act contributed to the institution of a social norm - say, giving a warranted order - and a reflective function - that asserts the (prior) existence of norm. Here, I first mention two other independent dimensions of variation and develop a single example that has been on my mind lately. 

Copernicus, Spinoza, Rheticus, and Accomodation

True understanding of everything contained in the sacred writings is to be sought from them, and not elsewhere...we do not study the passages about nature as if Scripture were a philosophical textbook [of nature], but rather as books in which the Holy Spirit desired to teach us something necessary for our salvation...For who would deny that if God, the creator of nature, had desired to describe the nature of things for us by His Word, nothing in the whole world could have remained hidden to us, of which we now would not know exactly, the nature, causes, and powers?--G.J.Rheticus, translated by R. Hooykaas.

Rheticus is Copernicus sole student. I was reminded of his significance by examining a PhD dissertation, "Lutheran Astronomers after the Fall (1540-1590): A reappraisal of the Renaissance dynamic of religion and astronomy," by the Ghent historian of science, Dr. Nienke Roelants (recall here and here). The quoted passage was probably written around 1541 (so before Copernicus death and the publication of On the Revolutions) as part of a short treatise on biblical interpretation in light of the embrace of mobility of the earth. It was only published as an addition to Gorleaus Idea Physicae in Utrecht in 1651.

Teaching Activity: Complete Turn Taking

[Rachel McKinnon has been kind enough to share another guest post with us--ES.]

Sometimes it might seem hard to generate constructive, cooperative class  discussion. Often we have a few students who dominate open discussion,  with most students spending our classes in silence. And some of us are  particularly concerned about getting students from underrepresented  groups to participate, especially in spaces where the dominant voices  are typically (white straight cis) men.

I would like to share an activity that was passed along to me last year, called "Complete Turn Taking." I now put aside a number of days each term for this exercise, as students just love it. For my MWF introductory courses, I set aside most Fridays for this activity.

Students have to bring 2-3 typed/written questions to class on the week's material. They organize into groups of 4, and I stress diversity in the groups. If there isn't an attached group project with this exercise,  I try to have groups to change from week to week. And I encourage students to learn each others' names.

Tea Party, not so Irrational

Neil has an interesting analysis of "why Congressional Republicans are taking extreme bargaining positions that shut down the government and risk defaulting on debt." He points to Republican "primary problem, which "makes Republican officeholders do the crazy things that the Tea Party likes, because they fear losing their primaries even more than they fear losing the general election." This has it backward in two important respects. First, it fails to understand the rationality of the Tea Party caucus. Second, by demonizing the Tea Party as "crazy," it facilitates the far more dangerous tendency among educated people to grow impatient with democracy and pine for rule by experts.

First, since 1988, the Republicans have won the popular vote once: in 2004.  Their House majority is now primarily a product of gerrymandering and superior mid-term turn-out. If you look at the congressional Tea Party heartland (see this good map at the New Yorker), it is primarily rural, elderly, white, and Evangelical. With the exception of 'Evangelical,' perhaps, this is not the future of America. And even born again America is remarkably fluid when it comes to so-called 'life-style' choices--the generational shift of opinion on Gay Marriage has been phenomenally fast. That is to say, these are folk that know they will loose national elections time and again. Obviously Republicans can still put together winning national coalitions, but as the Tea Party heartland learned under the three Bush presidencies, these will not reflect their values and interests. They are not acting as co-partners in government awaiting their turn at the helm, but as the legal opposition. They are playing a lousy hand superbly and -- best of all -- by democratic means.  That's not crazy.

Republican Legislators' Primary Problem

To understand why Congressional Republicans are taking extreme bargaining positions that shut down the government and risk defaulting on debt, it's useful to look at how their voters have been defeating moderates and nominating crazy people in primaries. This makes Republican officeholders do the crazy things that the Tea Party likes, because they fear losing their primaries even more than they fear losing the general election. Fortunately, Democrats often beat the crazy people. Democrats have won about 7 Senate races in the last four years in which Republican voters rejected moderates who probably would've won. Here's a list:

• 2010, Colorado - Republicans nominate Ken Buck, who as District Attorney refused to prosecute a rapist who had confessed to police and to the victim. Buck claimed that the victim was just suffering from "buyers' remorse." They reject the more moderate and accomplished Jane Norton, a former Lieutenant Governor. Capable technocrat Michael Bennet defeats Buck by 1% and retains the seat.
• 2010, Delaware - Republicans nominate anti-masturbation crusader  and evolution denier Christine O'Donnell instead of electable moderate Mike Castle. Chris Coons, who was expected to lose against Castle, wins easily against O'Donnell instead.

Scientific metrics may allow for huge efficiency gains

Before long the metrics are so accurate, nobody needs to read any scientific papers. Nature has the story. [HT Andreas Ortmann on FB.]

On trusting placement data

Michael Kremer has expressed justified concern that prospective graduate students might use the data compiled by Andy Carson to guide their choice in graduate programs. Even if the data were perfect, one should be cautious in using them; the data are backward-looking and reflect circumstances that might well have changed significantly by the time one shows up at the school of one's choice. Even when Andy Carson removes all the current (serious) problems with his data, placement data absent attrition rates are of limited use.  Moreover, given the incentives involved we should not expect to get fully reliable data easily.  Ideally, once Carson has worked out the obvious snafus with his data people can use his data and measures and compare them with old and more recent Gourmet reports and figure out ways to use them in light of each other given their individual needs.

But for now, nobody should let these data play a decisive role in their decision-making.

On the Philosopher's Annual

Meena Krishnamurthy has a blog post about the relative absence of political philosophy in the The Philosopher’s Annual since 2002. This surprised me a bit because it seems to me a field that has been very fertile over the last decade. From afar it looks as if the grip of Rawls on the field has been loosened, and there is a lot of important and urgent work on legitimacy, international (and inter-generational) justice, democratic theory, and, of course, the role of religion today. (Of course, a lot of this is pursued in critical discussion with Rawlsian ideals.) Not to mention that the period has seen Libertarian ideals articulated and renewed with remarkable philosophical ability, and ongoing formal work in social choice theory. Anyway, go read her post.

UPDATE: Ryan Muldoon points out that formal work in political theory by Peter Vanderschraaf has been recognized!

Below the fold some further reflections by me.

I'm changing my advice to graduate students: TT jobs should be your Plan B

Speaking of placement, I can't get behind the paywall to this Chronicle article entitled "Scholarly Groups Chip Away at Taboo of Nonacademic Careers." (This part should be read in a Troy McClure voice: "and I don't condone people sending me the PDF, because that would evade a key part of their business model.")

The headline seems off though, because for at least ten years now I haven't had any such "taboo" (and I don't think I'm exceptional here); my standard advice has been for grad students to prepare themselves for multiple job markets, academia being only one of them, so that if you don't get a TT offer, you are already prepared for non-academic fields. (To be precise, getting a TT offer only means moving from one sector to another in the political economy of philosophy instruction; TAs are *already* in the "job market.") 

In fact, however, even that doesn't seem responsible, so starting this year I tell them that it's *academia* that should be their Plan B, that is, if you get a TT offer, sure that's great, give it some thought, but your primary plan should be the BGN sectors (business, government, non-profits). I also add in academic administration, too, because, hey, that's the growth market, right? No matter what I think of administrative bloat, I think I have an ethical obligation to counsel grad students as to all their career options.

Brazilian music on Fridays: 'O Cantador'

(Short BMoF ahead.) I’m a reasonably big fan of the guitar-voice duo Tuck and Patti, but to my knowledge there is only one Brazilian song recorded by them: ‘O Cantador’ by Dori Caymmi (son of the great Dorival Caymmi). The song has been covered by a number of other people, including Ella Fitzgerald and Sergio Mendes (but then again, which song has he not covered?), and in English it is referred to as ‘Like a lover’. So here is the original version with Dori Caymmi, from his 1972 album, and then the Tuck and Patti version, from their 1989 album Love Warriors. (The video is really weird though, it looks like some creepy tribute to Michael Jackson, but it’s the only one with the Tuck and Patti version that I could find on youtube.) 

An interview with the author behind the placement data post

Yesterday, I linked to a blog post that claims to offer detailed data and analysis on "approximately 3,200 placement records since the year 2000."  While (as subsequent commentary on my post revealed) there are obvious problems with the material outside North America and more subtle ones with the ones inside, the proposed approach can give an important perspective on recent hiring. The author is calling for the right sort of assistance: "if you believe my data is mistaken, please send me the appropriate and complete data for your school, so that I can update the data." Once the data have been improved one might be able to do some interesting comparison with past Philosophical Gourmet reports.

Because I was utterly unfamiliar with the author, Andrew Carson, I also expressed concern about his/her identity in my post. A friendly reader pointed to a linkedin page, and I contacted the person via email. Carson agreed to do a brief interview, which I have reprinted (and slightly edited) below. Obviously, this does not settle any concerns about the author and his methods, I now believe we are dealing with a good faith effort to help improve the profession. Obviously, how Carson deals with the new data that people sent him will be most illuminating. Here's the interview:

Yes, I am a real person.  I received my MA in philosophy from Northern Illinois University in 2012.  I have since left academia and am working in Data Science (hence my interest in the intersection of philosophy and data)...

I did the post because I like philosophy and I like data, and I figured I could bring the two together.  I know lots of friends recently in grad school and they are all concerned about getting a job after they graduate.  I’ve also had friends get stuck in adjunct positions.  I wanted to let others thinking about graduate school know what they were up against and to go into it with eyes wide open, especially since I hadn’t seen anything like this before.  I hope to just get this info out there and get people less focused on the Leiter rankings (I know people were obsessed with those in applications).

 

A patent for a "family traits inheritance calculator"?

Maybe we should reconsider such patents says my (Ghent) colleague Sigrid Sterckx in The Telegraph (UK):

The company never pursued the concepts discussed in the patent beyond our Family Traits Inheritance Calculator, nor do we have any plans to do so." But ethicists nonetheless attacked the proposed use of the technology, as well as the decision by the US Patent and Trademark Office to approve it.

Writing in the Genetics in Medicine journal four scientists led by Dr Sigrid Sterckx of the Bioethics Institute in Ghent, Belgium, said: "It is clear that selecting children in ways such as those patented by 23andMe is hugely ethically controversial."

If you want a tt/permanent job in philosophy

[UPDATE: I have been unable to find any information on Andrew Carson, so I wonder if this is a real person or a pseudonym. I also hope that at one point the data will be released to interested parties, so we can check for accuracy; for all I know this is a hoax.--ES]

The numbers say....go to Yale, UMass, Amherst, or Northwestern! Andrew Carson (the person who crunched the numbers), explans the method here.

I haven't had a chance to look at his approach, so I will just report his bottom line:

If you are applying to graduate schools in philosophy and are trying to decide which schools you want to apply to or attend, and if you are concerned about your placement prospects after graduation, you need to consider (1) how a school ranks in your chosen specialty and (2) how well that school places students overall.  You cannot just rely on overall faculty rankings, for these bear no relationship to how well a school places, although many will find these rankings important for other reasons.  What does appear to matter as far as placement is concerned is the school's ranking in your area of specialty.  If it ranks well, then you have a much higher chance of getting a tenure track or permanent position in academic philosophy.  And some schools just appear to have better placement rankings than others.  For example, both Northwestern University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst are not ranked above a 3 in any category (except Continental philosophy and Social and Political Philosophy, respectively), but they have some of the best placement records.

Why is that?  I wish I knew. That is a question worthy of further exploration...[Emphasis in original--ES.]

Sometimes a good snarky tone will enliven a post the content of which is already well known

For instance. 

(1) Denigrate public education, and public institutions in general, as drains on private wealth and “job makers” to the point that no one would dare ask for increased support. This will assure that public universities are relegated to second-rate status with inferior facilities and loads of part-time faculty members, and will forever have a negative stigma placed on them relative to private universities.

(2) Take advantage of economic downturns to instigate “taxpayer outrage” in order to remove support from public universities so that they must either raise tuition or cut back on their programs. Afterward, condemn those institutions for raising tuition in order to support lazy, socialist professors teaching irrelevant subjects like anthropology and philosophy.

(3) As state support recedes, encourage a student-loan system that will create a “market for higher education.” Saddling students with lots of debt will make them enterprising and rational consumers of educational products and will encourage them to safeguard their economic interests. Refer to these changes as “empowering students.”

It goes on. Some of the comments aren't bad either. Emphasis on "some," however.