Practicing for Scholarly Censorship in Modern Dystopian America

I figure that I should get practice at censoring my scholarly research, which naturally is neither evidence-based nor science-based (even when I publish it in a journal called "Archrival-of-Nature Advances").

(Where is George Carlin when we need him?)#CDC7words pic.twitter.com/WvNuUSpKn5

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) December 17, 2017

Urban Bacon Network: Can I Publish my Study in an OUP Journal?

Really, Oxford University Press? What a horrifying and depressing type of censorship. (Tip of the cap to Katy Remy.) Then again, it seems that pigs are not actually banned from OUP publications, though they might not make the cut in, for example, the choice of what animals to put in a background picture sometimes. (I am bothered by that statement in the explanation in the Guardian article, though I'm glad to hear that the reported censorship was exaggerated rather than factual.)

OK, now my collaborators and I really need to analyze the shopping data set (the "Stanford Basket Data") with the urban bacon network (and also a suburban bacon network) so that we can find something scientifically interesting enough to publish. And clearly we need to submit this paper to an Oxford University Press journal.

Also, you might not want to work on topics like Graham Higman's PORC conjecture. (Thanks to Ursula Martin for passing that link along.)

Meanwhile, for your viewing pleasure, here is a visualization of the "Urban Bacon Network" from the Stanford Basket Data.

Google.cn

I have just gained a lot of respect for Google.

The only other thing that I have to say is: Way to go, Google!

(Tip of the cap to Dave Relyea.)

Disciplined Minds

I imagine I heard of this book before, but after an e-mail I received today, I am interested in taking a look at it.

This book was written by Jeff Schmidt who used to write for Physics Today but was apparently fired as a result of writing this book.

First, let me quote the wikipedia entry (which I imagine will be expanding a bit in the near future):

Jeff Schmidt is a physicist who worked as an Associate Editor of Physics Today, the magazine of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), for 19 years before he was fired for writing the book Disciplined Minds[1]. Schmidt's firing led to a public campaign involving academics and physicists, the largest number of physicists to ever speak out on a freedom of expression issue. The public campaign in turn led to a legal case, carried by a law firm specializing in civil liberties issues, that produced a favorable settlement for Schmidt, including anti-discrimination policy changes at AIP.

According to the e-mail, "Based upon examples from physics graduate training and beyond, it provocatively critiques workplace hierarchy in general and the politically subordinate role of people hired to do creative work.[2]"

Schmidt ended up taking legal action and AIP recently settled the case; they agreed to shell out a lot of money and make germane public statements.


Reference [2] is the Disciplined Mind home page.