The perils of being a scientist

[owlice]

lol, Amir!!

[Beyond]

lol, Amir!!

What she said.

[Ann]

Indeed, our very own Art Neuendorffer is inspiring!

Thanks, Amir!

Ann

[neufer]

Indeed, our very own Art Neuendorffer is inspiring!

[img3="The last of the crew needs especial remark,
Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea—but, that one being "Snark,"
The good Bellman engaged him at once."]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... late_3.jpg[/img3]

---

.
He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only kill Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
And was almost too frightened to speak:

But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,
There was only one Beaver on board;
And that was a tame one he had of his own,
Whose death would be deeply deplored.

The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,
Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
Could atone for that dismal surprise!

It strongly advised that the Butcher should be
Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Bellman declared that would never agree
With the plans he had made for the trip:

Navigation was always a difficult Art,
Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
Undertaking another as well.

The Beaver's best course was, no doubt, to procure
A second-hand dagger-proof coat—
So the Baker advised it—and next, to insure
Its life in some Office of note:

[bystander]

The Heartland Institute sinks to a new low
Discover Blogs | Bad Astronomy | 2012 May 05

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The Heartland Institute, a far-right climate change denying "thinktank" has put up a series of billboards so disgusting, so vile, that I find it difficult to find words to tell you just how disgusting and vile they are.

So instead, I’ll show you one: ...

[Chris Peterson]

The Heartland Institute sinks to a new low
Discover Blogs | Bad Astronomy | 2012 May 05

Heartland is a corrupt lobbying arm for anti-science special interests. I'm not sure they can sink any lower. I guess this one backfired on them a bit, though; apparently, they've already pulled the campaign.

[geckzilla]

According to their website, they only planned to run it for 24 hours to begin with. I wonder if that's true?

[bystander]

Probably as true as every thing else they have to say.

[Chris Peterson]

According to their website, they only planned to run it for 24 hours to begin with. I wonder if that's true?

I don't think you can even rent a billboard for 24 hours.

[geckzilla]

Well, it was an electronic one.

[Ann]

Hmm. I love their arguments. The question is not what the scientific data says, but who the people behind the data are.

Consider what that means. Suppose that someone takes an intense dislike to the Hubble Space Telescope and everyone involved with it. Therefore this person considers every Hubble picture false, and any scientist who claims to know something because it has been revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope is a fraud. Or possibly a murderer, tyrant or madman, to borrow the rhetoric of the Heartland Institute.

But what if other telescopes confirm the Hubble findings? If so, that just goes to show that those other telescopes are also abominable and the astronomers using the other telescopes to prove Hubble right are also murderers, tyrants or madmen.

Let's toy with the idea that one of the Heartland Institute people had a heart attack when a serious climate scientist was present. (Let's assume that the climate scientist has found, and published, strong evidence that climate change is real and mostly man-made.) Let's assume that the Heartland person wasn't breathing and his heart had stopped beating, and the climate scientist was doing CPR on him until an ambulance arrived and the Heartland person could be taken to hospital. In other words, the Heartland person was saved by the climate scientist.

Would the Heartland person ask to have his cardiac arrest back?

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

[bystander]

No, I believe in an oblate spheroidal Earth.

[geckzilla]

I bet Ted Kaczynski played video games.

[neufer]

I bet Ted Kaczynski played video games.

<<Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, to second-generation Polish Americans Wanda (née Dombek) and Theodore Richard Kaczynski. At six months of age, Ted's body was covered in hives. He was placed in isolation in a hospital where visitors were not allowed, as doctors were unsure of the cause of the hives. He was treated several times at the hospital over an eight month period. His mother wrote in March 1943, "Baby home from hospital and is healthy but quite unresponsive after his experience."

As a result of testing conducted in the fifth grade, which determined Kaczynski had an IQ of 167, he was allowed to skip the sixth grade and enroll in the seventh grade. Kaczynski described this as a pivotal event in his life. He recalled not fitting in with the older children and being subjected to their bullying. As a child, Kaczynski had a fear of people and buildings, and played beside other children rather than interacting with them. His mother was so worried by his poor social development that she considered entering him in a study for autistic children led by Bruno Bettelheim.

Kaczynski attended high school at Evergreen Park Community High School. He excelled academically, but found the mathematics too simple during his sophomore year. During this period of his life, Kaczynski became obsessed with mathematics, spending prolonged hours locked in his room practicing differential equations. Throughout secondary schooling Kaczynski had far surpassed his classmates, able to solve advanced Laplace Transforms before his senior year. He was subsequently placed in a more advanced mathematics class, yet still felt intellectually restricted. Kaczynski soon mastered the material and skipped the eleventh grade. He was encouraged to apply to Harvard University, and was subsequently accepted as a student beginning in 1958 at the age of 16. While at Harvard, Kaczynski was taught by famed logician Willard Van Orman Quine, scoring at the top of Quine's class with a 98.9% final grade.

---

Kaczynski also participated in a multiple-year personality study conducted by Dr. Henry Murray, an expert on stress interviews. Students in Murray's study were told they would be debating personal philosophy with a fellow student. Instead they were subjected to a "purposely brutalizing psychological experiment" stress test, which was an extremely stressful, personal, and prolonged psychological attack. During the test, students were taken into a room, strapped into a chair and connected to electrodes that monitored their physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a two-way mirror. Each student had previously written an essay detailing their personal beliefs and aspirations: the essays were turned over to an anonymous attorney, who would enter the room and individually belittle each strapped-down student based in part on the disclosures they had made. This was filmed, and students' expressions of impotent rage were played back to them several times later in the study. According to author Alston Chase, Kaczynski's records from that period suggest he was emotionally stable when the study began. Kaczynski's lawyers attributed some of his emotional instability and dislike of mind control to his participation in this study. Indeed, some have suggested that this experience may have been instrumental in Kaczynski's future actions.>>

[owlice]

There has GOT to be a better way to educate very bright kids than whatever is usually available to them.

[Moonlady]

There has GOT to be a better way to educate very bright kids than whatever is usually available to them.

My experiences are that ignorance is a combination of scientists on high horses hiding their data of fear being stolen and published by others, and after years of education,
only be able to talk in terms used in their profession, bad public school teachers who can not explain basics in science, ( and I doubted many times, if they comprehend
what they teach at all or do they just be a parrot?!) Difficult and expensive (! ) access to information, ( till Worldwideweb appeared but still not all languages provide scientific information),
I moved a lot as a kid and went to different schools, it is the same everywhere, teachers can influence kids much, but when they start speaking in a language no one but physicist
understand, kids or people in general, turn away, get bored etc.
It is important for me that science should not generate more and more abstract terms, till they sound "intelligent" or feel special because of their way to
commuinicate, but still be understandable. Terminology is not about sounding complicated.
People shouldnt feel excluded from scientists and scientists should leave from time to time their ivory tower.

As Rob said, communication is the key, exchange of information and understanding what is said, can make science more attractive and all the misinformation or superstitions go away.

Hmmm I met science professors, sadly hardly interested in explaining what they do, the ones who teached were not really volunteers, they would rather do studies...
So I became an autodidact...at first learn some English, then learn some science basics...meeting APOD

[geckzilla]

You really think that having concise words is deliberately designed to make people who don't know them feel bad? Part of learning about science (or anything, really) is becoming familiar with definitions of words. I don't even think it's possible to simplify some topics more than is already done. There's some pretty esoteric words (and especially acronyms... so many acronyms!) when you really start to dig but for the broadest topics I've always found a Wikipedia article or a quick Google search helps me understand well enough. Then again, I kind of take my constant connectivity to the internet for granted. It would be a lot more difficult to understand any of this stuff without it.

[owlice]

I have no issue with "terms used in their profession." Precision in language is good when one needs to be precise, whether in the arts or in science. Every profession has its vocabulary. If it's difficult to get to a library or school, then yes, that would be a barrier to information, but I don't see that as an issue, either.

Very bright kids generally get, at best, some gifted services in schools. Maybe they have some enrichment services in a classroom, or possibly skip ahead a grade or skip a course. But then, they are still moving as slowly as the class into which they've been moved, or at least their teacher is.

There has GOT to be a better way.

[Chris Peterson]

My experiences are that ignorance is a combination of scientists on high horses hiding their data of fear being stolen and published by others, and after years of education, only be able to talk in terms used in their profession, bad public school teachers who can not explain basics in science, ( and I doubted many times, if they comprehend what they teach at all or do they just be a parrot?!) Difficult and expensive (! ) access to information, ( till Worldwideweb appeared but still not all languages provide scientific information),
I moved a lot as a kid and went to different schools, it is the same everywhere, teachers can influence kids much, but when they start speaking in a language no one but physicist understand, kids or people in general, turn away, get bored etc. It is important for me that science should not generate more and more abstract terms, till they sound "intelligent" or feel special because of their way to commuinicate, but still be understandable. Terminology is not about sounding complicated. People shouldnt feel excluded from scientists and scientists should leave from time to time their ivory tower.

As a professional scientist, I'd argue that your assessment is seriously in error.

You are confusing scientists and educators. Only a small percentage of scientists are educators. Most scientific data are presented in formal papers. These depend on a standardized vocabulary which is understandable to specialists, and will generally not make sense to non-specialists. This is necessary, and neither can nor should be changed. It is rare for scientists to be in "ivory towers" or on "high horses". Their job is generally not to make their specialized work accessible to the public, or necessarily even to science students. That is the job of educators.

Almost all science produces uncontroversial conclusions (outside of specialist circles, at least). Much of this is presented in sketch form to interested non-scientists, and is quite accessible. Only a few areas produce public controversy (evolution, climate science), and that's because there are non-scientific interests which deliberately attempt to obfuscate and confuse the public. Until recently, scientists (who again, are not generally educators) have not known what to do about this. This is starting to change, however, as influential scientists are beginning to focus on changing the culture, and teaching more scientists to communicate effectively with non-scientists about their work.

As Rob said, communication is the key, exchange of information and understanding what is said, can make science more attractive and all the misinformation or superstitions go away.

It isn't that simple. The problem is that much of the public is very poorly educated, and easily led around by their noses by those who deliberately mislead (and that isn't the scientists). It's a problem that can only be fixed with more people capable of critical thinking (which is a skill unrelated to science)- and in the U.S., at least, the trend seems to be towards an even less educated general public.

[Moonlady]

You really think that having concise words is deliberately designed to make people who don't know them feel bad? Part of learning about science (or anything, really) is becoming familiar with definitions of words. I don't even think it's possible to simplify some topics more than is already done. There's some pretty esoteric words (and especially acronyms... so many acronyms!) when you really start to dig but for the broadest topics I've always found a Wikipedia article or a quick Google search helps me understand well enough. Then again, I kind of take my constant connectivity to the internet for granted. It would be a lot more difficult to understand any of this stuff without it.

I have no issue with "terms used in their profession." Precision in language is good when one needs to be precise, whether in the arts or in science. Every profession has its vocabulary. If it's difficult to get to a library or school, then yes, that would be a barrier to information, but I don't see that as an issue, either.

Sadly having access permanently to knowledge is a barrier and expensive.
Since I got access to internet, I can do help myself better, the scientific books do not always suffice.
The last years, scientific books which are used at the university are translations from US authors, these are the best educational ones. They are extremely expensive.
As for the terminology, it is not only my personal opinion, but the experiences made in clinics, my collegues and me were not allowed to talk only in medical terms in front of patients who
were not educated in a medical profession. It made them feel less if spoken only in medical terms, not able to understand what is going on while undergoing any procedure and not able to
decide on their own what is good for themselves, but I can only speak for the places I worked and the country I live. Terminology should be used understandable for ordinary person.
As among scientists it is of course obligation to use terminology of each profession.

Oh I think I must have been in the worst public libraries in the world...in one city I lived, it was even closed because it couldnt be funded and the most
horrible one was, when I lived for two years in another country, I was banned from the public library because of the political opinion of my stupid parents.

[Moonlady]

This is starting to change, however, as influential scientists are beginning to focus on changing the culture, and teaching more scientists to communicate effectively with non-scientists about their work.

that is my point!

As Rob said, communication is the key, exchange of information and understanding what is said, can make science more attractive and all the misinformation or superstitions go away.

It isn't that simple. The problem is that much of the public is very poorly educated, and easily led around by their noses by those who deliberately mislead (and that isn't the scientists). It's a problem that can only be fixed with more people capable of critical thinking (which is a skill unrelated to science)- and in the U.S., at least, the trend seems to be towards an even less educated general public.

Less educated than it is? Scary...if the government, any leader does not accept, or worse, does not encourage open-minded, critical , sceptical citizen, they just want sheeps

[neufer]

Oh I think I must have been in the worst public libraries in the world...in one city I lived, it was even closed because it couldnt be funded and the most horrible one was, when I lived for two years in another country, I was banned from the public library because of the political opinion of my stupid parents.

Are we ever going to learn where these places are that you are talking about

[Chris Peterson]

Less educated than it is? Scary...if the government, any leader does not accept, or worse, does not encourage open-minded, critical , sceptical citizen, they just want sheeps :shock: :?

Sheep is precisely what many of those in positions of power want. And it seems to be what they're getting.

[neufer]

if the government, any leader does not accept, or worse, does not encourage open-minded,
critical , sceptical citizen, they just want sheeps [sic]

Sheep is [sic] precisely what many of those in positions of power want. And it seems to be what they're getting.