Miscellany

Via a list of links (Volokh to Prawfsblawg to Pub Sociology to Andrew Gelman), we are led to a study that addresses one of the crucial pressing issues of the contemporary academy: how (or why) do some people get good teaching evaluations? Answer: by giving good grades and by being sexy. Here’s the abstract of the paper, by Felton, Mitchell, and Stinson:

College students publicly rate their professors’ teaching at RateMyProfessors.com, a web page where students anonymously judge their professors on Quality, Easiness, and Sexiness. Using the data from this web site, we examine the relations between Quality, Easiness, and Sexiness for 3,190 professors at 25 universities. For faculty with at least 10 student posts, the correlation between Quality and Easiness is 0.61, and the correlation between Quality and Sexiness is 0.30. Using simple linear regression, we find that about half of the variation in Quality is a function of Easiness and Sexiness. Accordingly, these results suggest that about half of the variation in student opinion survey scores used by universities for promotion, tenure, and teaching award decisions may be due to the easiness of the course and the sexiness of the professor. When grouped into sexy and non-sexy professors, the data reveal that students give sexy-rated professors higher Quality and Easiness scores. Based on these findings, universities need to rethink the use of student opinion surveys as a valid measure of teaching effectiveness. High student opinion survey scores might well be viewed with suspicion rather than reverence, since they might indicate a lack of rigor, little student learning, and grade inflation.

Now, I admit I haven’t read the paper itself very carefully. And I’m always reluctant to criticize credentialed experts in fields outside my own (really, I am). But this abstract doesn’t fill me with a great deal of confidence.

First, the data come from RateMyProfessors.com. You’re kidding, right? Perhaps there might be some sort of selection bias in the students who take the time to fill in entries on the web site? More importantly, the authors seem to take for granted the existence of a priori categories of “easiness” and “sexiness,” and claim that their existence is distorting the sought-after measure of “quality.” It seems not to occur to them that, for example, sexiness and quality might correlate because they both are caused by some third external factor. Or that a class might be subjectively rated as relatively easy, not because the grade distribution was actually higher, but because the students came away with the feeling that they had really understood the material. Or, most likely of all, that students found certain professors to be sexy because they were good teachers. Effective pedagogy, you don’t need me to remind you, is hot.

(And no, I don’t have an entry at RateMyProfessors.com. But my teaching evaluations are pretty good. Draw your own conclusions.)

From yesterday’s New York Times. (Thanks to George Musser for the tip.) You’ll read about it elsewhere, I imagine. But the message bears repeating.

In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates’ Deaths

By TIM GOLDEN
Published: May 20, 2005

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face.

“Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”

At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

“Leave him up,” one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

Think about that last sentence the next time someone talks about ticking-time-bomb scenarios.

Different responses (e.g. from Jane Galt, Bitch, Ph.D., Matthew Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and Brad DeLong) to this New York Times series on social class. Personally I was struck by the graphic on How Class Works. If we take the column on the class value assigned to various occupations at face value, it would appear that “Astronomers and Physicists” are the fifth most classy (if you will) occupation we have, out of a list of about 440 possibilities. Woot!

The top ten would appear to be:

1. Physicians and Surgeons
2. Lawyers
3. Database Administrators
4. Computer System Administrators
5. Astronomers and Physicists
6. Chemical Engineers
7. Chemists and Materials Scientists
8. Network and Data Communications Analysts
9. Computer Support Specialists
10. Dentists

Okay, I admit that it was cooler before I figured out that we were lagging behind Database Administrators. (Although when I first typed it in, it came out as “Dadabase”, which would be cool.) Not sure how exactly one ranks these different occupations in terms of their class value, and it seems perhaps a bit subjective. But so long as we are well above chief executives (46) or actors (86), I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

By John Donne.

Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?

Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide

Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,

Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,

Call countrey ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,

Nor houres, dayes, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beames, so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou thinke?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee,

Whether both the’India’s of spice and Myne

Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.

Aske for those Kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,

And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay.

She is all States, and all Princes, I,

Nothing else is.

Princes doe but play us; compar’d to this,

All honor’s mimique; All wealth alchimie.

Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee,

In that the world’s contracted thus;

Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee

To warme the worlde, that’s done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art every where;

This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

Here’s a remarkable picture I had never seen before, found at Josh Friess’s new blog and ultimately from Ed Hall. It’s a plot of the national debt versus time, adjusted for inflation.

The obvious here is so obvious that it’s almost physically painful: a long period of relative stability post-WWII, followed by a sudden period of rapid growth instituted by Reagan, which wasn’t halted until Clinton came to office, and was immediately resumed by his successor.

Whether or not a certain amount of debt is good for the economy is an interesting and complicated question. There are very good arguments, at the least, that you wouldn’t want to work your way all the way down to zero debt, as it would dramatically curtail our flexibility in dealing with the money supply. But the unavoidable fact is that eventually this debt is going to have to be repaid. When the tax-cutters talk about giving money back to people, they are lying. In truth they are continuing to spend the money, just on credit. If they really wanted to give the money back, they would cut government spending. But spending is fun, just like cutting taxes is fun, and it would take actual responsible grown-ups to resist either temptation.

Everyone talks about the status of women in science, nobody ever does anything about it. But this Friday, May 20th, here at the University of Chicago, we are going to — well, okay, we’re going to talk about it. But maybe some action will come out of it, who knows?

We’re having a brief symposium entitled Why So Few Women in Science? Defining the Problem and Taking Action. It’s just for the afternoon, starting at 1:00 and stretching to about 6:00, in the Biological Sciences Learning Center auditorium. We’ve assembled a topflight crew of experts to talk about different issues: Rachel Ivie from the American Institute of Physics to give an overview of the current situation (at least in physics and astronomy), Kimberlee Shauman from UC Davis to talk about how things have been changing through time, Londa Schiebinger from Stanford to talk about issues of bias facing women scientists, and Tim McKay (see, we believe in diversity) from the University of Michigan to talk about the particular steps that have been taken at UM to address the problems. We’ll finish up with a panel discussion, after which the road to greater progress will undoubtedly be perfectly clear. Thanks to Evalyn Gates for taking the initiative to actually do something.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing (and who isn’t?), there’s an interesting debate at Edge.org on “The Science of Gender and Science,” between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke. Unfortunately, they focus on the annoyingly irresistible issue of innate gender differences, rather than discussing the broader forces affecting the status of women in science. But, given that, they are both well-informed, sensible, and entertaining, and give strong arguments for their respective positions — Pinker that innate differences are crucial in understanding the underrepresentation of women in science, Spelke that social forces are essentially to blame. You can read them and draw your own conclusions. (Having said that, I can’t resist mentioning that Pinker engages in some truly dazzling instances of circular reasoning and question-begging. I mean, the math SAT’s must be good measurements of ability because most of the people who go on to successful science careers did well on them? Hmmm….)

I threaten to slow down with the blogging, but apparently that only means that the amount of substantive content will decrease, not the frequency of posting. I did want to point to this completely unfair but nevertheless quite amusing comparison of George W. Bush to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hardly a sensible comparison (even if you leave out the photos of GWB with the binoculars), but it’s GWB who keeps inviting it, so there you are.

That link takes you to a somewhat uncharacteristic post at Cleveland Park Men’s Club, which seems to be more typically devoted to a discussion of meeting women at Washington, DC nightspots. Learn more from Kriston, who will also keep you updated on important discoveries at a related site, Washington Socialites. As a practicing theoretical physicist, I can very much relate to the demands this kind of lifestyle places on one.

Cat massages dog, from Hedonistica.

The winners of the Gravity Research Foundation essay competition have been announced. (And if you’re wondering how they did it so quickly, the deadline was actually the end of March.) Links where I could find them.

Gravity Research Foundation
PO Box 81389
Wellesley Hills, MA 02481-0004

Roger W. Babson, Founder
George M. Rideout, Jr., President

The trustees are pleased to announce the Awards for Essays for 2005.

1.$3,500 The String Coupling Accelerates the Expansion of the Universe, by John Ellis*, Nikolaos E. Mavromatos+, and Dimitri V. Nanopoulos#; *TH Division, Physics Department, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland; +Theoretical Physics, Physics Department, King=E2=80=99s College London, Strand WC2R 2LS, UK; #George P. and Cynthia W. Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, Astroparticle Physics Group, (HARC), Mitchell Campus, Woodlands, TX 77381, Academy of Athens, Division of Natural Sciences, 28 Panepistimiou Avenue, Athens 10679, Greece.

2.$1,000 Does Inflation Provide Natural Initial Conditions for the Universe? by Sean M. Carroll and Jennifer Chen, Enrico Fermi Institute, Department of Physics, and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, 5640 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.

3.$750 Gravity from Local Lorentz Violation, by V. Alan Kostelecky* and Robertus Potting+, *Physics Department, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; +CENTRA, Physics Department, FCT, Universidade do Algarve, 8000 Faro, Portugal.

4.$500 Gravity-Wave Detectors as Probes of Extra Dimensions, by Chris Clarkson and Roy Maartens, Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 2EG, UK.

5.$250 Classical and Quantum General Relativity: A New Paradigm, by Rodolfo Gambini* and Jorge Pullin+, *Instituto de Fisica, Facultad de Ciencias, Igua 4225, esq. Mataojo, Montevideo, Uruguay; +Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-4001.

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order)

D.V. Ahluwalia-Khalilova; Giovanni Amelino-Camelia; Vijay Balasubramanian, Vishnu Jejjala, and Joan Simon; Mihai Bondarescu; Xavier Calmet, Michael Graesser, and Stephen D.H. Hsu; Saulo Carneiro; F.I. Cooperstock; F. de Felice; Cedric Deffayet; Alessandro Fabbri and Jose Navarro-Salas; G.W. Gibbons, H. Lu, Don N. Page, and C.N. Pope; Yuan K. Ha; Veronika E. Hubeny, Mukund Rangamani, and Simon F. Ross; Viqar Husain and Oliver Winkler; Mark G. Jackson; David W. Kraft; Jnanadeva Maharana; M.D. Maia; Hrvoje Nikolic; T. Padmanabhan; Fabrizio Pinto; Sanjeev S. Seahra; M. P. Silverman; C. Sivaram; Dejan Stojkovic, Glenn D. Starkman, and Fred C. Adams; John Swain; Daniel R. Terno; Paul S. Wesson; G.Z. Xie and Hong-Tao Liu; Winfried Zimdahl.

Ah well, it’s not whether you win or lose, and all that. In the immortal words of Geddy Lee, “Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?” Meanwhile, Mark fills us in on why you need a smooth patch of the early universe in order to start inflation.

I don’t have the strength/time/interest to slog through the entries at Arianna Huffington’s celebrity blog, but others do. Tigerhawk highlights this piece by Larry David:

Why, even this morning my moronic assistant handed me a cup of coffee with way too much milk in it. I was incensed.

“You stupid ignoramus,” I screamed, doing all I could to restrain myself from tossing the luke-warm liquid in her face. “There’s too much freaking (I didn’t say freaking) milk in here! What the freak is wrong with you?!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she stammered. Like sorry’s going to fix everything. I’m not interested in sorry. Sorry doesn’t cut it with me.

“Look, you idiot,” I continued, “I wouldn’t mind so much if you gave me too little milk. Little can be fixed. We can add to little.”

“Shall I get you another cup?”

“No, I’ll suck on my thumb. Yes, get me another cup, you douche bag! And chew on this — it’s going to cost you a dollar!”

It reminded me of a similar anecdote I had recently read — where was that, now? — ah yes, at Darth Vader’s blog:

I am aboard the StarDestroyer Avenger, en route to the outlands of Mordell at the galactic rim — but I started my morning on Coruscant. I was having my morning tea when the new girl came through to tell me the Emperor commanded my presence at the palace.

“Is your breakfast quite satisfactory, Lord Vader?” she asked.

It was not, but we shall let her next of kin worry about that.

Larry David wishes he was Darth Vader.