One really good ding-dong on the radio was on Start the Week, Nature and Nurture. You feel sorry for the geneticist because he is attacked quite vociferously by the guy whose thesis is that genes are not very important, but he keeps his cool and tries to explain his case. I think the fact is that most of us just don't understand genetics.
Find this programme here. Plus a lovely picture of new babies. Aaaaaaaahhhhhh, babies!!
The other programme was about scientific papers and the practice of rating scientists by the number of papers they have published, with more points scored for the big -name journals, and the number of times their work has been cited. The big-name journals, meanwhile, want to attract a large readership so tend towards publishing papers whose findings are surprising or on a hot topic, so they skew the numbers game towards the kinds of research papers they favour. It's oddly circular and something that you would have thought scientists would try as a body to avoid as their method of rating scientists is so unscientific. Saving Science from the Scientists
We do hear from one hiring academic a bit of common sense about how he tries to assess the scientists who apply to his department.
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