Like so many today, the author being interviewed (David Weinberger, senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, who has just published Too Big to Know) questions the changes in learning over the last 10-100 years and contemplates how our inventions are changing us – even the way we think.  The discussion is pretty standard until Weinberger is asked about Darwin and the claim that his science would be done very differently today:

[Darwin] was so reluctant to write; he remained relatively private about his theory for decades and published only when somebody else, Wallace, was on the verge of beating him to it….  Darwin today would not be operating this way. He would very likely be tweeting from the Beagle. He would be announcing his findings and initial ideas online, and people would be arguing with him all along, taking his ideas, applying them elsewhere, pushing back, criticizing him deeply — all of the things we do on the Web. That work has revolutionary, incredible value, but put into the Web, it gets teased out, amplified, corrected, as well as misunderstood and degraded. Nevertheless, that Web itself has more value than the individual content, so I would expect that Darwin today would be gathering his data from clouds of linked data, trying out ideas on the Web, and drawing those ideas in the tussle. The old rhythm of knowledge and science not coincidentally is the rhythm of publishing. The Web has completely broken that rhythm.

This surprises me.  Does it surprise you?  Has your way of doing science changed in the past decade (other than the typical maturation path)?

Why or why not?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-girls-12142011.html?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories#

What do you think about this?  Is this great news for girls, that it might encourage them to build and create more? 

These toys won’t be out until after the holidays in the US, and roll out on Dec 26th in the U.K. but should be on the shelves already in France.

Happy holidays everyone!

As you finish your 2011 goals and open your 2012 datebooks, don’t forget these deadlines, just around the corner:

• Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (19-23 March 2012) – abstracts due 10 January 2012;
• AbSciCon (16-20 April 2012) – abstracts and student travel grant applications due 31 January 2012;
• Solar System Exploration @50 Conference (18-20 October 2012) – abstracts (and vita) due 1 February 2012;

Students, check this out too, if you’re not already involved in NASA research:

• NASA Internships, detailed in “How to apply for a NASA Internship,” brought to you by the Oregon Space Grant Consortium blog – with over 100 comments since it was featured on Freshly Pressed this morning! – due date for most opportunities is 1 February 2012.

What other conferences are you putting on your schedule this year?