What’s A Scientist?
Sep 20th, 2011 | 15 responses
If I asked you to close your eyes and conjure up a scientist, would would you see? Would it be an aging Einstein, a dapper Doctor Who, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Madam Curie?
What if I then asked you, “What do scientists do?” Could you answer?
With science and math scores at abysmal levels in the US, perhaps this entertaining chat with six (very non-stereotypical) scientists should be incorporated into every U.S. K-12 classroom. It could accompany a U.S. version of the British classroom “game” I’m a Scientist, Get me Out of Here, an “X Factor-style competition for scientists, where students are the judges.” (Survivor meets E=mc2). It sounds more fun than Engineering Is Elementary, sponsored by ChangeTheEquation with its network of 110 CEOs.
+Stephen Curry, a scientist at Imperial College London, produced this film; he also blogs about science.
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15 Responses to “What’s A Scientist?”
Thanks for the post Kathy. Good movie there (Stephen Curry) and it’s certainly an important subject. We need to get kids interested in science again, no doubt about it.
Glad you like it!
Kids are fascinated with SCIENCE, they just aren’t taught the basics of it anymore-it’s more important in schools to teach them whatever the current dogmas are, than the methods needed to do science for themselves.
What do scientists do, you ask?
They profess, pontificate, procrastinate, promulgate, propitiate, permeate, placate and are generally prostrate by noon.
Great job to have.
“They … are generally prostrate by noon”
That sounds like exactly zero of the scientists I know.
Anyway, thanks for the link, Kathy.
RORO.080
Hell I know two whom are drunk by noon, EVERY DAY, and are making 200+ grand a year, but maybe I’m just lucky.
My dad was a successful research chemist and is a very down to earth person. He always encouraged his kids (my brothers and sisters) to be curious and questioning (a common requirement for scientists, as noted in the movie) and had much to do with my own love of nature. He wasn’t rich or eccentric or a heavy drinker; he was a family man – and still is. My mother was a school teacher (from a long line of teachers btw) but primarily she was a wonderful mother. I’m well into my 6th decade now, and while I have some unwelcome challenges, I count my many blessings (in the generic sense of course
every day, starting with my good fortune in being the member of a large and close family. Again, I especially love the accentuation the interviewed scientists put on curiousity. Taking the world around us for granted is such a waste, might as well have your eyes closed. There is so much out there we look at every day but don’t really see.
Allen — I work with about 400 scientists and engineers. I suppose it’s possible 2 might be drunk by noon, but it’s highly unlikely.
roro80
Really?
Boy I don’t believe that.
Hmm… let me take a quick peak at the picture on my desk… Yep, that’s a scientist.
She works 70 hours weeks… I kid you not.
She’s constantly traveling to collaboration partners and international meetings.
She is teaching our future scientists.
She is applying for research funding.
She is writing research papers.
She is reviewing research papers.
She is editing research journals.
She is 34 years old…full professor…in a scientific field and national culture where women are normally only around to get coffee.
sometimes she’d like to drink, just to ease the mental stress, but she doesn’t have the time and she’d never drink before noon.
I have to add this side note…
She recently applied for an award for young scientists in our state. The award committee told her that they wouldn’t consider her for the award because she has been too successful and it would not be fair to the other applicants…even though she was under the age threshold.
men don’t take her seriously.
women say she is too successful.
It is like living on Mars.
“roro80
Really?
Boy I don’t believe that.
”
What world do you live in? I’m certainly one who would love to be drunk by noon. Working with heavy machinery and fun burny chemicals and gas doesn’t allow that possibility. I’m an engineer, so not strictly science, but I don’t think the PhDs in the lab have that different a lifestyle from myself…
ShannonLee — Your wife (wife, right?) sounds awesome. I think we would have a lot to talk about. The women-folk have it kind of rough in the science/math/tech jobs.
Oh come on SL, I know plenty good female research scientists. Most doctoral candidates are female I believe. It ain’t that rough on the girls. They generally work with more intelligent people to begin with.
Roro80
Naw, all science, no engineering. The engineering degree is a manager. Engineering is farmed out when needed. But I feel your pain.
Wow, Allen, you really know very little about this.
“The engineering degree is a manager”.
I honestly have no idea at all what that means. As for being “farmed out”, I really don’t know what to say. Engineering is one of the few careers that has an unemployement rate under 3% right now. If it’s being farmed out, it’s because we’re not producing the engineers we need.
I don’t live in the US Allen…
and an engineering degree is in no way a manager degree. A degree in business and a degree in engineering are two completely different things. The one reason German economy is much stronger than the US right now is because they have many very good engineers…and they would never outsource development because you can’t outsource precision engineering…. ie high quality.