The Curt Jester goes all social-justice on us, reminding us of the duty and right to be a conscientious objector. It is probably time to re-read the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, to strengthen our wills.
"Unjust laws pose dramatic problems of conscience for morally upright people: when they are called to cooperate in morally evil acts they must refuse....Such cooperation in fact can never be justified, not by invoking respect for the freedom of others nor by appealing to the fact that it is foreseen and required by civil law. " -- CSDC #399
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Somewhat more women scientists than men are dissatisfied with work-life balance or put off having children because of it, but it is really a significant problem for both, says the Chronicle of Higher Education. (And, of course, if higher-ups realize it affects men too, maybe they will take it more seriously.)
Most research on work-life balance in ...STEM field tends to focus on women... But... efforts to make the academic workplace more family-friendly for scientists will keep falling short as long as women are allowed to serve as the primary faces of work-life balance gone awry.
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Derek Lowe of In the Pipeline, guest blogging for Megan McArdle: An anecdote about the divide between tech workers (specifically drug development chemists, but it applies to engineers and other scientists as well) and the HR and other management folks. Emphasis mine, because I love this line:
I remember trying to get this across to representatives of the managerial group pushing this new system. We kept hearing about how better goal alignment, "coaching for success", and a good dose of positive attitude would make this whole thing a success, and I couldn't take it any more. "Look", I said, "I can't 'just put down what I'm going to be working on for the year', because I don't know. I can't 'just focus on the projects that are most likely to succeed', because I don't know what those are. I don't care what it says on the org chart. I'm in research, and my real bosses are a bunch of cells in a dish and a bunch of rats in cages. They determine what I'm going to work on next. And they can't be coached for success, and they don't care how much team spirit I have, because they don't listen to me."
This didn't go over well. My audience from HR seemed to think that I was either lying, trying to be funny, misinformed, or (most likely) just not enough of a team player. But the argument illustrated two different ways of looking at the world....
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A list of four proposed reforms to reduce class divide includes this provocative tidbit:
The bachelor’s degree has become a driver of class divisions at the same moment in history when it has become educationally meaningless. We don’t need legislation to fix this problem, just an energetic public interest law firm that challenges the constitutionality of the degree as a job requirement.
After all, the Supreme Court long ago ruled that employers could not use scores on standardized tests to choose among job applicants without demonstrating a tight link between the test and actual job requirements. It can be no more constitutional for an employer to require a piece of paper called a bachelor’s degree, which doesn’t even guarantee that its possessor can write a coherent paragraph.
(Besides ditching the B.A. B.S., the author suggests we should get rid of unpaid internships that mostly benefit those who can afford to work for free, drop the SAT in college admissions, and adopt colorblind socioeconomic affirmative action.)
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From "Rebecca" in the comments on the REALLY REALLY GOOD post by Amy Welborn I linked yesterday:
One of the most illuminating things I ever read on “talents” was in the book “The Gift of Faith”, by Father Thadeusz Dajczer. (see here at
http://www.inthearmsofmary.org/thegiftoffaithbyfrtadeuszdajczersoftback.aspx )
He writes that an illness can be a talent; a misfortune, a loss, a cross can all be talents. Having nothing – as in, being deprived of something- can be a talent. Anything that can be turned into spiritual gold, as it were, is a talent, and is given to us as a rich resource if – if – we know how to use it.
This little book is a quiet gem. I can’t recommend it enough.
Yup -- a talent in the Bible is a unit of currency. Something that can be converted, and changed.
my real bosses are a bunch of cells in a dish and a bunch of rats in cages.
It was funnier when I first read it; I was skimming and thought he was calling his human bosses those things.
Posted by: entropy | 10 March 2012 at 04:23 PM