Posts by Lucy Stewart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Islander,
There seems to have been connections for at least 2-3 centuries after the first settlements in ANZ. Some of the info coming out of the major settlement in North Westland is…very intriguing. Hope to learn more at my tribe’s major hui-a-iwi in late November.
Huh, interesting.
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Islander,
Lilith, ANZ has a very long history (upwards of a thousand years) of being an entirely independant archipelago.
Please correct me if I've got this wrong, but there's no evidence of trade between ANZ and the rest of the Pacific post-migration, right? Easy to be independent from the rest of the world if you're unconnected to it.
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Lilith __,
I remember my heart sank, not so much that the world was being damaged but that it was being diminished. Suddenly we were no longer a puny lifeform amid nature’s grandeur, we were monsters and nature was at our mercy.
I find it fascinating how he’s managed to miss, mmm, all of popular science for the last thirty years, which has largely emphasised why the grand and merciless scale of the universe obliges us to be careful with the one bit of it that we’re adapted to survive in.
As our greatest Man Rutherford said:
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to richard,
In the US, all NSF grants have a “broader impacts” component, and larger grants typically require a specific outreach plan. I have sat on NSF panels, and this was taken seriously.
Fair point. But, ultimately, it's writing those grants - and publishing papers - which matters more to academic science careers than enacting that outreach. The attitudes I have encountered have, with some exceptions, been that the outreach elements of grants are hoops to jump through more than goals to be enthusiastic about. In NZ, the PBRF is, for individual researchers, pretty much entirely about number of papers published.
My own feeling is that it is not necessary for all scientists to be actively engaged with “the public” but that it is vital for some scientists to put effort into this, and at an institutional level it is important that this work be properly recognized and supported.
I agree entirely. I think we'd be much better off encouraging people into (and properly funding) science communication jobs - both as a channel for broader science communication and help for people who want to improve their direct communication with a lay audience. Expecting every scientist to develop expertise in engaging the public with their work overestimates the amount of spare time most researchers have available and underestimates the effort required to do so effectively.
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Sacha,
Accountants don’t tend to rely on mustering public support for their funding quite so much as scientists.
You gotta remember, though - scientists usually rely on public funding at the end of the chain, but the proximate source of funding and support for them is a) publication record and b) grant applications. These are communications with other scientists. You don't get rewarded for mucking around with lay audiences, quite frankly. Depending on your chain of supervision, it can be viewed as a direct detriment to the important work of improving your university's PBRF ranking. This isn't always the case - NASA, for example, places a lot of emphasis on education and public awareness - but it's pretty common.
There's also a range of non-scientific audiences, from the well-educated non-specialist to schoolchildren. Communicating with all of them is different.
-
Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to Russell Brown,
Parents want only to see their children in schools that promise the best results. They do not care about the home circumstances of other pupils.
I see whoever wrote this editorial is having terrible trouble differentiating what people say and what they mean. And also with the concept of things which lack mutual exclusivity.
-
Capture: Ice Rink Luck, in reply to Jackie Clark,
If I didn’t know how cold it was, and how many people in Christchurch are displaced, I would envy people who live in places where it snows.
It's all fun and games right up until you get two feet of snow while the leaves are still on the trees and every powerline in the state is brought down and the power takes a week to come back on. (But it was, to be fair, gorgeous just before dawn the next day.)
-
As a point of interest, I just stumbled across this blog post indicating the average age of graduation with a biomedical PhD in the USA is 30-31.
-
Up Front: You're Telling My Child What, Now?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Isn’t that because they spend their 16-18 period getting ready for the prom, and then their first degree learning a diverse mixture of translated Proust, quantum physics for non-mathematicians and history of art?
(unless they’re a jock, in which case they do translated Enid Blyton, basic algebra for non-mathematicians and history of baseball. With a tutor to do all their assignments. Allegedly).
(I exaggerate based on novels and TV, but there’s a modicum of truth…)
Check out this in-depth profile of how damaging the sports/university link can be for some student athletes - who theoretically are supposed to be its beneficiaries.
I do feel for some NZ students I meet, for so much depends on finding a dedicated and skilled PhD supervisor, as well as the need to sustain enthusiasm for your chosen topic over three or more tees.
As much as I gnashed my teeth over the mandatory lab rotation programme my department brought in between my acceptance and arrival, it's extremely valuable for a lot of people in terms of letting them pick a supervisor and project they can actually worth with. With only three years to finish your PhD, you have to get it right first time. That's hard.
-
Up Front: You're Telling My Child What, Now?, in reply to Ray Gilbert,
Um – usually closer to 25 actually. Most of our PhD students track school/honours or masters/PhD/first real job – that should see you finshed around 25-27 NOT 35
She'll be thinking of the American context, where you do a 4-year undergrad, a 2-year MSc is not uncommon, and then a 5-7 year PhD - add on a few postdocs before you get a "real" job, if tenure-track academia is your goal...35 would be old for finishing a PhD but young for starting a tenure-track (i.e. hopefully permanent) job. You can get a PhD by 25 in NZ but that's assuming you do the whole thing as quickly as possible, straight out of school. I'd be surprised if it was the average. It is an exaggeration, though.
