Tag Archives: Cornell University
Getting rid of the GRE
An investigation by Science has found that, today, just 3% of “PhD programs in eight disciplines at 50 top-ranked US universities” require applicants’ GRE scores, “compared with 84% four years ago”. This is good news about a test whose purpose I could never … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged academic diversity, Cornell University, Educational Testing Service, graduate studies, GRE examination, H-index, higher education, impact factor, PhD, scientometrics
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Freeman Dyson’s PhD
The physicist, thinker and writer Freeman Dyson passed away on February 28, 2020, at the age of 96. I wrote his obituary for The Wire Science; excerpt: The 1965 Nobel Prize for the development of [quantum electrodynamics] excluded Dyson. … … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged Cornell University, doctorate, Freeman Dyson, Institute for Advanced Study, Julian Schwinger, Nobel Prize, PhD, privilege, quantum electrodynamics, Richard Feynman, scientific publishing, scientific research, Shin'ichiro Tomonaga, Vannevar Bush
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The not-so-obvious obvious
If your job requires you to pore through a dozen or two scientific papers every month – as mine does – you’ll start to notice a few every now and then couching a somewhat well-known fact in study-speak. I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged Brian Wansink, Cornell University, data torturing, Higgs boson, Ig Nobel Prizes, incremental research, Large Hadron Collider, Marc Abrahams, modelling, ozone, p-hacking, Ronald H Coase, scientific research, statistical significance, University of Exeter
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