I’m very interested these days in how the various social media can be used in order to improve learning in universities.
Notice that I wrote “learning” and not teaching.  Learning is different to teaching, learning is what the student does, teaching is what the teacher does.
Ultimately, the student has to learn and the proposition for the […]

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In 1994 the Fine Gael / Labour government abolished university tuition fees.  The reason that was given was that this was a barrier to some people going to university.  This was, of course, complete nonsense.
At that time, those from less well off families received grant support that paid their fees and indeed some received additional […]

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A really good research-driven university should have a staff to student ratio of about 10:1.This would mean that staff could divide their time meaningfully between their research interests and their teaching and administration commitments.Currently in the department of biology at NUI Maynooth, the ratio is much, much worse.  It might be as bad as 30:1 […]

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OK, I have to spend a lot of my time thinking about what I eat and how much I eat, simply because I like to eat a lot and I sometimes like to eat badly.
However, right now in Ireland, you cannot help but notice the surge of obese people, particularly young people and particularly young […]

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As an evolutionary biologist, I have developed a sort-of obsession with viewing the entire world in evolutionary terms.  I see religion as a consequence of natural selection, languages evolve, change over time and are related to one another and I see adaptation as an intrinsic feature of humanity.
So, right now we are in a time […]

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I see in the news today that Louis Vuitton has recorded a staggering 11% jump in sales for the first quarter of this year.  Also in news today, the Restaurants Association of Ireland has appealed for the minimum wage to be lowered so that poorly-paid people can be paid less.
What does this mean?  Well, for […]

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The nation is tearing itself apart right now.  There is anger on the part of the teachers who have been hit by the govenment levies, the pay cut and the paycut-by-another-name, the pension levy.  There is anger on the part of the private sector people who, by virtue of the fact that they don’t have […]

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I took a look at the news online today and my eye was drawn to an item that seemed to be a bit of good news.
Good news, you say? Well, we all need a bit of good news, what is it?
Well,  as I said, it looks like good news, but in fact it is a […]

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Let me first of all alert you to a quote from Monsignor Alex Stenson, who was Chancellor to three Bishops in the 80s and 90s.  In a recent interview for a Catholic newspaper he says:
What abusers did was wrong. It was dreadful, but was it always sinful? It was always wrong. Sinful? I am not […]

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This morning on Pat Kenny’s radio programme there was a clinical psychologist and a homeopath discussing whether homeopathy had any validity.
First of all, it always galls me that the media, in the interest of ‘balance’ has a scientist and a quack on opposite sides of a debate.  They are not equivalent in any way.  One […]

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