Category Archives: Sociology
The conflict between science and religion as an “invented tradition”
Author:
Jaume Navarro received his PhD in history of science from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (1998). He has been a researcher at the universities of Cambridge, Imperial College (London) and the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin). Currently […]
Growing inequalities in science
One of the most common misconceptions regarding inequality consists of thinking that an unequal distribution of resources is the result of an unequal effort to achieve them. Although this might be the case in certain situations, when it comes […]
Stories of the past as promises of the future
Author:
Robert Bud is an historian of science, technology and medicine. Also the Principal Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum, he has worked at the Museum in a variety of roles, for more than 30 years. He was […]
The market for blood
Slonim et al. (2014) discuss the problems of blood allocation in different countries and suggest a mechanism that can improve it. The present article is a summary of their main ideas.
In the wealthy countries blood is mostly supplied […]
Going postal: When radiation dosimeters got into a box
Author:
Maria Rentetzi is associate professor of history and sociology of science and technology at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece. She received her B.Sc. in Physics at the University of Thessaloniki, an MA in History and […]
What are we talking about when we talk about glass ceilings?
Every year, as the International Women’s Day approaches, a classic topic for the media is to summarize statistics related to the gender wage gap. The empirical evidence is overwhelming: differences between men and women in the labor market are […]
To approve or not to approve: this is not the question
Authors: José Carlos R. Alcantud and Annick Laruelle
José Carlos R. Alcantud is a professor of Economics at the department of economics and economic history and a member of the multidisciplinary business institute (IME) of the University of Salamanca
Annick […]
Why schools inflate grades
In 2012 the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was granted to two mathematicians, Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth, “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design”. The market design in their theory was not exactly […]
Research funding: big vs. little science
With the delicate economical situation that many developed countries are experiencing in the last years, a significant number of questions and concerns have been risen about how to properly assign and distribute funding to scientific institutions and research group leaders. […]
The effects of Affirmative Action policies against discrimination
No one denies that there exist some forms of discrimination in the labor market and in many other places of our societies. There is, however, debate about the cause or causes of this discrimination and about the best ways to […]