Revised UMM job ad

This is the same ad I posted for a position in our biology department the other day, with one very significant difference — I had used the copy we’d put together before we got absolute final approval to fill the position, and once it was locked down, we changed the date.

Notice: We start screening applications on 22 October. If you’re interested, send in that application soon, soon, soon!

Assistant Professor of (Cell) Biology
University of Minnesota, Morris

The University of Minnesota, Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education to fill a tenure-track position in biology beginning August 15, 2011. Responsibilities include: teaching undergraduate biology courses including a sophomore-level cell biology course, an upper-level genetics elective course, an elective in the applicant’s area of expertise, and other courses that support the biology program; advising undergraduates; conducting research that could involve undergraduates; and sharing in the governance and advancement of the biology program, the division, and the campus.

Candidates must hold or expect to receive a Ph.D. in cell biology or a related field by August 15, 2011. An area of expertise of relevance to our pre-health professional students and complementary to existing faculty interests is preferred. These might include, but are not limited to: immunology, pathophysiology, cancer biology, bioinformatics, and cell signaling. Experience and evidence of excellence in teaching undergraduate biology is required. (Graduate TA experience is acceptable.)

The University of Minnesota, Morris is a residential public liberal arts college serving over 1800 students. As one of five campuses of the University of Minnesota, UMM is located 160 miles west of Minneapolis in the rural community of Morris, MN. The student body is talented, diverse and engaged. The Morris student body is one of the most ethnically diverse in the University of Minnesota system with 20% students of color (12% are American Indian students) and a growing international student population.

The college values diversity in its students, faculty, and staff. The college is especially interested in qualified candidates who can contribute to the diversity of our community through their teaching, research, and /or service because we believe that diversity enriches the classroom and research experience at the University.

This tenure-track position carries all of the privileges and responsibilities of University of Minnesota faculty appointments. A sound retirement plan, excellent fringe benefits and a collegial atmosphere are among the benefits that accompany the position. Appointment will be at the Assistant Professor level for those having the Ph.D. in hand and at the Instructor level for those whose Ph.D. is pending. The standard teaching load is twenty credit hours per year.

Applications must include a letter of application, resume, transcripts, a teaching statement (in which teaching goals and methods are discussed), a research statement (proposing a research program that is viable at a small liberal arts college and accessible to undergraduates) and three letters of reference. Send applications to:

Biology Search Committee Chair
Division of Science and Mathematics
University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267-2128

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Screening begins October 22, 2010. Inquiries can be made to Ann Kolden, Executive Office and Administrative Specialist, at (320) 589-6301 or koldenal@morris.umn.edu.

The University of Minnesota shall provide equal access to and opportunity in its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. To request disability accommodation or material in alternative formats contact: UMM Human Resources, (320)-589-6024, Room309, Behmler Hall, Morris, MN.

Elder Packer poll

By now, everyone knows that the hateful gerontocracy of the Mormon Church was on proud display by Boyd Packer. Besides the message of ignorance he’s passing on, this video also reveals something we became familiar with in our years of living in Utah: the leadership of the church is really a collection of feeble-minded, doddering old fools, who frighteningly have an audience that thinks they’re wonderful, no matter what they say.

A Salt Lake City television station is running a poll on whether the audience agrees with that benighted homophobia. The numbers aren’t as bad as I expected, but then, SLC is full of gentiles.

Do you agree with President Packer’s statement on homosexuality and same-sex marriage?

Yes (59.8%)
No (40.2%)

Catching up with old news

Some people are in the news that I’ve covered before. Let’s do a quick update.

How many ways can we screw up little girls?

i-a4b3e5c4b33f12617bfd7546f3479975-myprincessbible.jpeg

You already know I dislike religion; it’s a dreadful tool for distorting human values. I’m also an opponent of sexist socialization that short-changes women, in particular. How about if we combine both? Behold, My Princess Bible(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), a book you can give to your little girl to turn them into Disneyesque Bible freaks.

I’m a little disappointed, though. Is there also a Bratz Bible?

Sadly, this thing gets mostly good reviews at Amazon, and there’s only one 1-star review. That’s not the worst of it, either: the one bad review complains that there isn’t enough Jesus and too much focus on the women of the Bible.

Of course they were quick to respond

The head of the Pontificia Academia Pro Vita, the specifically crazy anti-choice arm of the Catholic Church, has already issued a statement about the Nobel Prize awarded to an IVF pioneer. He’s against it, of course.

Among his peculiar complaints is the objection that it “didn’t treat the underlying problem of infertility but rather skirted it”, which is rather odd. This:

Couples can’t have children
↓
Couples use IVF
↓
Couples now have children

Looks to me like a rather direct way to treat infertility. Where they once could have no children, now they have children.

They also don’t like the fact that the procedure produces excess embryos which are then discarded, stored, or used in further research in reproduction. They prefer the natural method of intercourse, which produces excess embryos which are then flushed down the toilet to rot in the sewers.

The church is also deeply concerned that the technology has produced a market for women to sell a few cells from their ovaries, when everyone knows that women are supposed to be sold whole and intact and dedicate every aspect of their lives to their owners.

As yet, there is no word from Bill Donohue.

A surprising Nobel

I would never have guessed this one. The Nobel Prize in Medicine has gone to Robert G. Edwards for his pioneering work in in vitro fertilization. It surprises me because it’s almost ancient history — he is being rewarded for work done over 30 years ago. It’s also very applied research — this was not work that greatly advanced our understanding of basic phenomena in biology, because IVF was already being done in animals. This was just the extension of a technique to one peculiar species, ours.

I don’t begrudge him the award, though, because the other special property of his research was that it was extremely controversial. These were procedures that simply burned through scores (or hundreds, if you count the ones with such little viability that they weren’t implanted) of human zygotes in order to work out reliable protocols, and throughout faced serious ethical risks — these were procedures that had a chance of producing the worst possible result, a viable embryo that came to full term, but had serious birth defects. The public opposition to the work was tremendous, funding was tenuous, and even many in the scientific community opposed the work and ostracized Edwards and his colleague, Steptoe (who did not live to see this day, and so did not receive the award).

Nowadays, IVF is practically routine and about 4 million people were ‘test tube babies’. It’s still controversial, though, with extremist anti-abortion groups, such as the Catholic church, still fighting it, and the redundant, unused zygotes from the procedure still being a point of major contention (ever heard of ‘snowflake babies’? That’s what they’re talking about).

I’m reading a couple of messages in this award. One is simply acknowledging a hard-working scientist, but the other is a signal that we should soldier on through all of the opposition to reproductive health technologies, that science will be rewarded and the Luddites will find themselves in the dustbin of history. I can’t help but see this as, in part, the Nobel committee making an unmistakeably rude gesture at the anti-science, anti-choice fanatics of the religious right.

(For those who are unfamilar with the IVF procedure that Edwards and Steptoe developed, here’s a lovely summary diagram from the Nobel Foundation.)

i-5d01af28ca8b01b68397187e22e125c4-ivf-thumb-317x450-56550.jpg

I applaud Language Log’s bold new policy

Bravo! A blog about language gets, as you might expect, a few fairly repetitive responses to common issues, and Language Log gets lots of unimaginative comments about ending a sentence with a preposition…and they’ve reached the limits of their patience.

Unable to bear any longer the tedious work of seeking out all the instances of these two dopey comment types and deleting them, I have decided that from now on I will hunt down the relevant commenters and kill them.

I realize that it is unusual for a popular science blog to launch upon a policy of killing its own readers. That is why I thought an explicit warning should go up on the site first. This is that warning.

Since there is now a precedent, I will happily follow suit. I have a few peeves of my own that I think will have to be treated with the death penalty to all offenders.

  • The man waiting for rescue from a flood “joke”. No, I will not repeat it. And remember, if you try to repeat it in the comments, it is now a killing offense. (If you really need to know what it is, it’s in my book.)

  • Any statement about how science is just another religion.

  • In any thread about the problems women face in our culture, any man who starts crying about his poor butchered foreskin will join it in the biological waste disposal.

  • Any claim that atheists ignore the ‘sophisticated’ claims of theists without telling us exactly what those brilliant neglected arguments are.

There will certainly be others added to this list, because I am capricious and vindictive.

Geoffrey Pullum has contracted out the termination job to two of his staffers, Luca and Enzo. I do not employ “people” with sufficient autonomy to have warranted names, but instead will be dispatching the faceless (literally) molluscan horde to take care of the condemned. A suggestion: if you receive a death sentence, head for the nearest seacoast and wait for the tentacles to arise; they’re savage, quick, and painless. Trying to hide in landlocked areas means you’ll be taken care of by the snails and slugs, which means execution by slow, painful radulation.

Congratulations to John Dixon

Dixon, you may recall, was the fellow who mention on twitter that he was hurrying past the Church of Scientology “in case the stupid rubs off”, and for his casual contempt was rewarded with a lawsuit from the ever-sensitive Scientologists. It didn’t work. Dixon has been cleared.

I think that in his honor everyone should get on Twitter today and write something dismissive and rude about Scientology.