al-mofhariz

My undergraduate course in discrete mathematics introduced me to some of the paradigmatic problems of the field, including Euler's Seven Bridges of Königsberg or the Gas-Water-Light puzzle (the latter a creation meant, in my experience, to frustrate the solver and make the poser feel smug). Both problems reduce practical or real world situations to fascinating and generalized mathematics. The practical becomes the pure, in other words. At a variety of talks and sessions that I attended at the annual meeting of the History of Science Society (program here), it struck me how flat and unsatisfying a picture of the interactions of science and practice such examples provide us.



I first thought of Königsberg during a fascinating paper by James D. Skee (UC-Berkeley) exploring the use of operations research (OR) in the design of Disneyland and other parks. As Skee persuasively argued, consultants like Harrison Price trained in wartime operations research successfully sold their skills to a…

This post concludes my four-part series on the cultural context of contemporary popular science writing. The preceding three parts are here, here, and here. Though there's more to be said, I hope you enjoyed what I managed to get in here!

This past Monday, there were two public lectures given to packed Princeton auditoriums. Both drew on material from the social sciences, but neither of the speakers—New York Times columnist David Brooks and Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein—holds an advanced degree from (or is employed by) a social science department.

Academic employment and/or credentials are standard benchmarks for "expertise" in any field, and their absence suggests interesting things about the shifting status of science's relationship to the public. Since that's been one of the main themes of my posts on the fall of Jonah Lehrer, it's a fitting way to start the final post a little closer to home. 

Now, my opening is a little misleading: Cass Sunstein and D…