Productive (adj)

Here is a playlist of clips I showed in a guest lecture for Megan Halpern 's Intro to History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science course at Michigan State. I used clips from wildlife films, trailers, behind-the-scenes features, and the CBC Fifth Estate documentary Cruel Camera . The most popular clip was the viral sensation Iguana vs Snakes from Planet Earth II (2016) .  Enjoy!

When all of the seasons of Friends were released on Netflix this winter, many of us took the opportunity to catch up on a show from our 90s childhoods. But when I did I couldn’t help but be struck by how awful its characters could be to others within the TV universe, Ross most of all. Many of Ross’ shenanigans were related to his job as a palaeontologist, first at a natural history museum and then as a lecturer (later tenured ) at NYU. Ross is a terrible person, and that bleeds into him being a terrible palaeontologist & professor. Binge-watching the series really drives this home, as you can see from this parade of professional nonsense: -He has an after-hours date, then sex , in the museum and gets caught the morning after by kids on a field trip. -He yells at and threatens his museum coworkers, leading to a forced leave of absence while he undergoes anger management training. -His papers are widely discredited . -He forgets to attend his own classes (this runni...

Apologies for this post being a little later than I'd have liked, but I've been under a cloud of "blegh" for the past week and it's been difficult to get anything done. Like having a lingering cold, except instead of sneezing you don't have the energy to do anything except watch season 3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In this week's roundup over at The Bubble Chamber  I wrote about some new research exposing the potential pitfalls of sexual stereotyping, and linked to the disastrous EC's "Science: It's a Girl Thing" video (which was so offputting when released this past summer that it immediately went viral). Fortunately, the marketing for the EC's continued " Science: It's a Girl Thing " campaign seems to have overcome its initial pinkwashing and now features girl models doing more than strutting the catwalk: taking pictures, standing in front of blackboards, and daydreaming. Writing about "Science: ...