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Last month, I blogged about Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) passing an amendment blocking the National Science Foundation from funding most political science research.  I wrote:

This sort of political interference with the peer-review process, of course, sets a chilling precedent for all academic research, regardless of discipline.  (What’s next, an amendment banning computer science research, unless it has applications to scheduling baseball games or slicing apple pies?)

In the comments section of that post, I was pilloried by critics, who ridiculed my delusional fears about an anti-science witch hunt.  Obviously, they said, Congressional Republicans only wanted to slash dubious social science research: not computer science or the other hard sciences that people reading this blog really care about, and that everyone agrees are worthy.  Well, today I write to inform you that I was right, and my critics were wrong.  For the benefit of readers who might have missed it the first time, let me repeat that:

I was right, and my critics were wrong.

In this case, like in countless others, my “paranoid fears” about what could happen turned out to be preternaturally well-attuned to what would happen.

According to an article in Science, Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the new chair of the ironically-named House Science Committee, held two hearings in which he “floated the idea of having every NSF grant application [in every field] include a statement of how the research, if funded, ‘would directly benefit the American people.’ “  Connoisseurs of NSF proposals will know that every proposal already includes a “Broader Impacts” section, and that that section often borders on comic farce.  (“We expect further progress on the μ-approximate shortest vector problem to enthrall middle-school students and other members of the local community, especially if they happen to belong to underrepresented groups.”)  Now progress on the μ-approximate shortest vector problem also has to directly—directly—”benefit the American people.”  It’s not enough for such research to benefit science—arguably the least bad, least wasteful enterprise our sorry species has ever managed—and for science, in turn, to be a principal engine of the country’s economic and military strength, something that generally can’t be privatized because of a tragedy-of-the-commons problem, and something that economists say has repaid public investments many, many times over.  No, the benefit now needs to be “direct.”

The truth is, I find myself strangely indifferent to whether Smith gets his way or not.  On the negative side, sure, a pessimist might worry that this could spell the beginning of the end for American science.  But on the positive side, I would have been proven so massively right that, even as I held up my “Will Prove Quantum Complexity Theorems For Food” sign on a street corner or whatever, I’d have something to crow about until the end of my life.

Denver-based artist Chris Carlson who is known for his work with 3D chalk illusions created a great stop motion Tetris game. The shading, perspective and motion is incredibly spot-on. You can see more of his video game and pop-culture influenced chalk drawings over on Tumblr. (via the awesomer)

How do you advertise a life drawing course? You could photocopy posters from the last session for the umpteenth time and hang them on a wall, or maybe take out a tiny ad in the local paper and hope some people show up. Except that’s what we’ve been doing for decades. Creative duo Wriggles & Robbins decided to take a new approach in this brief clip advertising drawing courses at The Book Club in London. Using photographed stills of the students’ work-in-progress the team created this lovely stop motion video the that does an extraordinary job of capturing the energy, perspective and fun of a life-drawing class. Really cool, I wish it went on for another minute or so. (via it’s nice that)

SocImages contributor Caroline Heldman was on Katie Couric last week. Couric did the show without make-up and features Caroline discussing our bias in favor of conventionally attractive people and how we need to teach our daughters to navigate beauty culture.

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Computer Science professor at the University of Utah Matt Might has written an article titled 10 Easy Ways to Fail a Ph.D. He claims that this list relates to PhD’s in any discipline. Dr. Might’s list is as follows:

1. Focus on grades or coursework – He says that no one cares about grades in grad school. He also gives the pithy (perhaps only such to math folks) formula “Optimal GPA = Minimum Required GPA + “. I agree with his argument that you need to balance your time between coursework and research; however, I think saying that the grades aren’t really important is misleading.
2. Learn too much – This relates to the balancing your research. You need to learn a lot, but it needs to be focused learning. He says that
   

   Taking (or sitting in on) non-required classes outside one’s focus is almost always a waste of time, and it’s always unnecessary.

   I have to disagree on this point (in regards to math). Perhaps I’m missing his point, but I think it is important to have a broad understanding of mathematics in your PhD (to an extent). Of course you cannot specialize in all of the areas and you should focus on your specialty; however, taking other classes could prove helpful to conducting your research.

3. Expect perfection – Dr. Might says,
   

   For students with problems starting on a paper or dissertation, my advice is that writing a paper should be an iterative process: start with an outline and some rough notes; take a pass over the paper and improve it a little; rinse; repeat. When the paper changes little with each pass, it’s at diminishing returns. One or two more passes over the paper are all it needs at that point.

   I recognize that it is difficult (an understatement on my part) to make papers perfect and that there is always room for improvement. I do not necessarily think that “‘Good enough’ is better than ‘perfect’” though.

4. Procrastinate – Self explanatory
5. Go rogue too soon/too late – By going “rogue,” Dr. Might means breaking off into your own ideas. You need to find the right time to where you are ready to do it, but not too late. I think this one will prove to be the trickiest for me.
6. Treat Ph.D. school like school or work – Wow. Dr. Might gives so many nice quotes here. I think you should just read what he has to say and let me know your thoughts.
7. Ignore the committee – Do not forget what your committee tells you. They will remember what they’ve told you.
8. Aim too low – I’ll discuss 8 & 9 together. I tell my friends (in other disciplines, it holds for math too) to never compare yourself with the student next to you (I’m guilty of it though). Doing this will not allow you to do your best. You will either get discouraged by the prodigy who outshines everyone or you will stop working because folks are not performing at your level. Either way, it is a recipe for disaster (not to use clichés or anything).
9. Aim too high – see above
10. Miss the real milestones – Dr. Might says the real milestones are three good publications. 
    

What do you think about Dr. Might’s list? Do you agree with all he has to say? Let us know in the comments section below!

This was made for a grade 7 worksheet so thought I'd share it on here too!