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Antivaccine Movements (Carpiano and Reich)

Annex Sociology Podcast
Annex Sociology Podcast
Antivaccine Movements (Carpiano and Reich)
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In today’s episode of The Annex Sociology Podcast, we discuss the antivaccine movement with two outstanding experts on the topic. Jennifer A. Reich (University of Colorado, Denver) is the author of Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines (2016, NYU). Richard Carpiano (University of California, Riverside) is a Professor of Public Policy with a long research record on anti-vaccine movements.

Photo Credit. By Spencerbdavis – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=103378357

Rating British Departments (JP Pardo-Guerra)

Annex Sociology Podcast
Annex Sociology Podcast
Rating British Departments (JP Pardo-Guerra)
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In this episode of The Annex Sociology Podcast, we discuss the British system of evaluating departments’ scholarly productivity with JP Pardo-Guerra from the University of California, San Diego. JP recently authored “Research Metrics, Labor Markets, and Epistimc Change: Evidence from Britain, 1970 – 2018“. Pardo-Guerra explains how the system works, and how it shapes intellectual production. Special guest co-host Charles Gomez (CUNY Queens College).

Photo Credit. By Michael D Beckwith – Own workAlternative: https://unsplash.com/photos/whvzQn_11Vc Michael D Beckwith, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59421390

The Paywall and the ASA

Annex Sociology Podcast
Annex Sociology Podcast
The Paywall and the ASA
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Today, we sit down with Philip Cohen (University of Maryland) to discuss the American Sociological Association’s opposition to a Trump Administration proposal to mandate the immediate public release of federally-funded research.

Background

The Trump Administration recently proposed a regulation that would require that publicly-funded research be distributed openly upon publication. This policy drew immediate opposition from the publishing industry, who makes money by selling licenses to view this research within the first 12 months of publication.

The American Sociological Association co-signed a public letter opposing the regulation, arguing:

The current 12-month embargo period provides science and engineering society publishers the financial stability that enables us to support peer review that ensures the quality and integrity of the research enterprise. Further, it enables us to drive advancement in our respective scientific fields through our meetings, programs and outreach…

…To take action to shorten the 12-month embargo would undermine cooperative efforts to address these bigger, higher priorities, and risks the continued international leadership for the U.S. scientific enterprise.

Some sociologists, including members of the ASA Publications Committee.

Committee member and University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen assembled a petition of sociologists opposing the ASA’s decision to immediately oppose this regulation proposal.

In this episode, we invited Philip Cohen to discuss the ASA’s position.

Statement from ASA

We reached out to the ASA Communications Office for comment. They responded:

The letter ASA signed, along with more than 50 other learned societies with similar missions related to advancing science and scientific scholarship, expressed concern about an Executive Order rumored to be coming out with almost no notice or consultation with the scientific community.  The letter asked President Trump to slow down and “engage with a broad array of stakeholders to collaboratively ensure openness and reliability in research and development.” In signing the letter, our primary goal was to encourage discussion by the Administration with the scientific community before moving forward precipitously and unilaterally with policy changes that will affect scientific publishing. Given (as you probably know) that the Trump administration has not been particularly friendly to scientific advancement (see https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/climate/trump-administration-war-on-science.html for some examples), an unexpected and hurried executive order related to science policy was met with skepticism.  

Given that we still do not have full information about the content of the possible Executive Order, we are focused on ensuring consultation as it is developed so we have no additional comment now. 

I should also mention that the decision to sign the letter was made following ASA’s policy for responding to time-sensitive public issues—with a vote of the President, President-elect, Past President, and Secretary. Needless to say, these elected leaders take this responsibility very seriously and do their best to reflect the interests of the sociologists who are our members.

Photo Credit

By Martin Falbisoner – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Spinning Abstracts

Annex Sociology Podcast
Annex Sociology Podcast
Spinning Abstracts
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We discuss a recent paper from Samuel Jellison and colleagues in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, “Evaluation of Spin in Abstracts of Papers in Psychiatry and Psychology Journals”, which found that published research in their field routinely use rhetorical tactics to magnify the purported strengths and impact of one’s findings. We discuss whether the practice is common in sociology, and whether it is a problem.

Photo Credit

By Mykl Roventine – https://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/3405291415/, CC BY 2.0, Link

UC Walks Away from Elsevier

Annex Sociology Podcast
Annex Sociology Podcast
UC Walks Away from Elsevier
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The University of California recently walked away from negotiations with academic publisher Elsevier. This move could represent a major dramatic change in the relationship between universities and publishers. We discuss publishing costs, and the role of publishers in higher education.

Communicating the Limits of our Knowledge

Annex Sociology Podcast
Annex Sociology Podcast
Communicating the Limits of our Knowledge
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Joe, Gabriel, Pat Reilly (UC Irvine) and Daniel Laurison (Swarthmore) discuss whether social scientists do enough to communicate the limits of their knowledge in public debate.

The Anti-Vaccination Movement (Richard Carpiano)

Annex Sociology Podcast
Annex Sociology Podcast
The Anti-Vaccination Movement (Richard Carpiano)
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We discuss the politics of under-vaccination with Richard Carpiano of UC Riverside. Richard recently published “Public Attitudes towards Child Undervaccination: A randomized experiment on evaluations, stigmatizing orientations, and support for policies” Social Science and Medicine.