Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to David Winter,
@ David Yes and No
Yes sometimes it is possible to easily explain the science, in which case you should. BTW most scientists (including me) really just want someone who will listen to them. The usual experience is people being bored spitless and walking away.
But some science is complex. And if you brush over the complex and say "it's a big piece of equipment we made to test and idea" then you verge on patronising and people really hate that and are really good at detecting it.
Yes you are right to some degree the important thing is the process of approaching problems using the scientific method. But some folks want to know more.
In my field if I'm given enough time I can usually explain everything about what I'm doing. But I don't have to deal with the math which can become truly impenetrable. But even then the person has to actually be interested otherwise it becomes really boring. Can I describe the exciting bits in lay terms? Sure, but some of the excitement comes from knowing some of the details.
But the one thing that has come to piss me off unbelievably about explaining science is the "So how is it going to make money?" question. Tips for young players - that question will make most scientists, especially me, grumpy. If that's the question you're interested in then I'd rather talk about the rugby thanks.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Danielle,
Also, I can still name all the parts of an egg. Albumen FTW
What's that membrane between the shell and the white called?
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Megan Wegan,
In that setting, men are not men anymore, but metro sexual and emotional beings that are there to serve the purpose as a never-criticising soul mate to the new age feminist woman goddess.”
And that's a bad thing because??????
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Rich Lock,
work
Speaking of which time to go sow my petunia seeds
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Rich Lock,
Comedy, it's complicated.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Russell Brown,
That’s an inane discussion …
At least our inane discussions are about important things … like coffee
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Rich Lock,
magnates: how do they work?
They're magnates because they don't work.
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The events in Norway have brought me to tears several times this week. It's hard to view any of it without getting some sense of the terror the teenagers on that island must have experienced.
Unlike like many here I don't believe free speech is a right. I believe it is a privilege earned and maintained by hard work. When the folk on Kiwiblog speak the way they do, it is hard to imagine much of a difference between their voices and the voice of someone shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. When your speech does demonstrable harm is there any way you can claim a "right" to such speech?
But suppressing such speech doesn't do any good either. So we are left with watching scum like Kris K spew their evil into the town square.
And that brings tears to my eyes as well.
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Sacha,
I wonder what our nation’s woeful private sector contribution to research and development does for science’s perceived value?
And for the relationship between that value and the funding of particular work. The current government is more explicitly focusing on applied research – or in other words, what business thinks is valuable rather than what scientists might choose to pursue. Government and business decision-makers seem like relevant audiences to consider as well as the general public.
/hobby horse
I find policy makers difficult beasts to deal with. They have assumptions so vastly different from my own world view. For them the only value of science is economic gain and they are only interested in the most cost effective way to achieve that gain.Sadly that has led to funding of science that is predicted to lead to economic gain and over 20 years that has only resulted in lower quality science being funded (because it had higher perceived economic benefit). Sadly it has turned out that trying to guess which science directly leads to economic gain is ... er ... difficult.
This isn't a result that is new, many countries have tried to "pick winners" and failed. In the end the only successful funding strategy has been to fund based on quality of science. Somehow by funding purely on quality you end up with greater economic gains.
In some senses because the bureaucrats are not excited by high quality science, because they don't see the beauty in an elegant experiment, because nobody has managed to excite them about the science, they have defaulted to simply managing the dollars. That hasn't been a good thing.
/dismount -
Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
the number of students who show up with the idea that they don’t like writing, so they’d like to do science is kind of terrifying
I totally agree Lucy. Now when I talk to school-kids who come through our institute one of the things I emphasize is how important English is to their ability progress in science.
But having good skills at English still won't necessarily help with communicating science to anyone other than another scientist, in your field.
The problem is that most fields in science use a language that is almost unique. Even when English words are used their meaning is different from field to field. I liked the idea of appreciating science the way you appreciate art but the problem is in this case the art is in another language. Think of it as a great piece of literature written in Arabic. If someone shows it to you and says "wow this is amazing" you look at the scribbling and nod and smile. If you want to appreciate the art you'll need to learn another language first - or you could watch the rugby.
It's even more difficult than simply the language. In any field the cutting edge stuff - the really exciting cool stuff - is built on a foundation of assumed knowledge. It's like trying to explain why Jonah Lomu's try was so cool to someone who has no clue about the rules of the game.
"Why didn't he just around the Englishmen?"
"Because he would have gone out"
"Out? Oh and why was he carrying that funny shaped ball anyway?...."Yes the rock stars are often not the best scientists in their field, but they combine good scientific skills with skills that allow them to explain a game no-one knows the rules of, in a language no-one understands. They may have flaws but they deserve credit for doing someone that I know from experience is very hard.