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Quickies Science

Science 'Not for Normal People' 232

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the time-to-get-in-another-space-race dept.
Ant writes "BBC News reports that teenagers 'value the role of science in society, but feel scientists are "brainy people not like them".' This was according to a recent study by The Science Learning Centre in London that asked 11,000 pupils for their views on science and scientists. From the article: 'They found around 80% of pupils thought scientists did "very important work" and 70% thought they worked "creatively and imaginatively". Only 40% said they agreed that scientists did "boring and repetitive work". Over three quarters of the respondents thought scientists were "really brainy people".'"
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Science 'Not for Normal People' More

Science 'Not for Normal People'

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  • wtf (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jest3r ( 458429 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:07AM (#14536762)
    wtf are these little homepage teaser articles all about?
    • Got your attention though, didn't it?
    • If you mean the gray bar, I have no idea.

      I even checked the slashcode page, but it mentions no upgrades or new features or whatever. It's kinda friggin weird though.

      • Re:wtf (Score:2, Informative)

        by rev_g33k_101 ( 886348 )
        Look, if you would get off your butt and look at your options you would see

        In your Preferences page, under home page a section labeled "Customize Stories on the Homepage" depending on how you rank the importance of each of the sections on /. it will make stories smaller or larger.

        Ones that you rank as low importance will appear smaller, sometimes as small gray bars

        It took me like 10 seconds to figure this out
        • I went there and tried the simplified page. Went to the index page and went, "Ugh!" Back to preferences and undid that. Checked the index page and the whole article was back. Made no other changes. Weird!
        • I went to that page [slashdot.org]. I saw some strange icons under 'customize stories' that I was trying to figure out. So I clicked on "Learn more about your options for controlling the amount of content on your index page." Guess where that took me? Back to the home page. Seems there is a bad link there.

          I'd use the Bugs feature to report, but I forgot my SourceForge ID/password.
        • So every time they add a new feature to the mainpage, I'm supposed to dig around in preferences to try and figure it out? I read this like it was a newspaper, I don't play it like I would a video game...
    • Maybe slashdot got slashdotted?
    • Page views are king. If they can make you click, they can make a buck.

    • Re:wtf (Score:5, Informative)

      by balster neb ( 645686 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:49AM (#14536920)
      It looks like something CmdrTaco has introduced over the weekend. Basically it seems that "minor" stories that earlier used to appear only in subsections such as science.slashdot.org now appear as little stubs on the main page. For registered users, this can be customised -- see your Preferences page, under Homepage. You can use that to turn this feature off, or make full summaries for all stories appear on the main page.

      CmdrTaco has been hinting that he will be making some major changes to Slashdot over the coming weeks/months. Check out some of his comments in this recent story [slashdot.org]. See this [slashdot.org], this [slashdot.org], this [slashdot.org], and this [slashdot.org]. These indicate that major changes to the moderation system are also to be expected.

      This particular feature is probably the first of these changes he's experimenting with. When it first made an appearence on friday/saturday, the stubs would appear on a plain white background. They added the grey styling a bit later. The prefs for this still have to be fleshed out a bit it seems.

      Expect CmdrTaco to make a post about this soon.

      • Re:wtf (Score:2)

        by zCyl ( 14362 )
        It looks like something CmdrTaco has introduced over the weekend. Basically it seems that "minor" stories that earlier used to appear only in subsections such as science.slashdot.org now appear as little stubs on the main page.

        It's a nice change. Sometimes I would catch stories I would have read off to the side in one of the subsections, but I'll catch them a week or so late since I don't always check that. This way I can scan through them quickly as they appear, but without cluttering up the screen too m
    • I have to say these are a fantastic idea. Kudos to you and team on this one Taco, I look forward to new innovations. It is too easy to be critcal all the time (dupes, mod point abuse ect..)

      This is an excellent step forward.

    • Re:wtf (Score:2)

      by tsa ( 15680 )
      What do you mean? I've looked all over the /. page and I can't find them.
    • They're called "Quickies". This section has been available for submission since I had joined /. a year ago.

  • Enfin... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alx5000 ( 896642 ) <alx5000&alx5000,net> on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:11AM (#14536781) Homepage

    This stigma's been pursuing society for ages. There's still some fear (call it fear, call it respect, call it heyiwonttouchititmayburn) towards science, whereas Arts are a far more familiar field.

    Maybe it's got something to do with science always ending up being a filter for students; teachers make it feel as if it were designed only for 'smart' people, and somehow generate some kind of disdain from pupils.

    • "This stigma's been pursuing society for ages. There's still some fear (call it fear, call it respect, call it heyiwonttouchititmayburn) towards science, whereas Arts are a far more familiar field."

      Are you claiming the arts don't have that stigma? If anything, they are considered even more elitist than the sciences.

  • Then perhaps.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wkitchen ( 581276 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:12AM (#14536783)
    We should be teaching children that scientists are really brainy people, just like them.
    • Well, not to the stupid ones.
    • One particular mark about a (wo)man of science is that (s)he keeps wondering why things work.

      Leonardo wondered what people were made of, and he came up with great tomes of anatomy (he wondered many other things, like why birds fly, etc., but you get the idea).

      Newton wondered why things fell to the ground, so he came up with the law of gravity.

      Einstein wondered why when falling one couldn't feel his own weight, and he came up with the theory of relativity.

      Pasteur wondered why people got sick, and he came up with vaccines.

      Scientists always find a question and search for the answer. Their curiosity never stops. This is why teaching science shouldn't be about giving kids information, but giving them questions. I remember professor Jaime Escalante (in the movie "Stand and Deliver") taught the students: "Negative times negative equals a positive". And then he punched them with the question: "Why?"

      A great mistake of teaching science is that teachers don't let the students ask questions. If instead you give them interesting subjects (artificial intelligence, for example) and practical examples (build your own speech synthesis program with this toolkit - ok, that's more appropriate for college students but you get the idea), they'll progress.

      If science appears boring, it's because all you see is someone thinking equations. But dig into his mind and visualize the data he's thinking about... that's another thing science is missing. Sometimes it's much easier to understand something if you can visualize. This is why astronomy is becoming more popular after the Hubble photos.

      See, it's all about awakening the curiosity of your students. That's all they need.

  • From the summary... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Blondie-Wan ( 559212 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:15AM (#14536797) Homepage
    From the article: 'They found around 80% of pupils thought scientists did "very important work" and 70% thought they worked "creatively and imaginatively". Only 40% said they agreed that scientists did "boring and repetitive work".

    Everyone who gave one of those three answers was right.

  • Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nwbvt ( 768631 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:15AM (#14536798)
    "Among those who said they would not like to be scientists, reasons included... "because they all wear big glasses and white coats and I am female"."

    Is it really a problem that this student doesn't want to go into science? For some reason I doubt she was in line to cure cancer anyways...

    • Yeh, we have so many blue collar jobs left for them.

      On the flip side, we'll probably outsource all our science research to India too.

    • Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Funny)

      by appleLaserWriter ( 91994 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @04:46AM (#14537258)
      We aboslutely need more female scientists. White lab coats and glasses are acceptable, but black fitted catsuits and stylish glasses are also acceptable.
    • Is it really a problem that this student doesn't want to go into science?

      It's a tradgedy. Reread the quote.

      "because they all wear big glasses and white coats and I am female"."

      ...and I am female. This essentially means that one of the students main reasons for dismissing science as a career was because she felt that women either were not welcome to do science, or that it was somehow inappropriate for women to do science.

      It's a reflection of the broader cultural sterotyping that people are subjected to. Chi

      • Society causes many artificial barriers but I think money is probably still the number one barrier stopping people from finishing higher education. Before we spend a lot of time trying to change soft barriers we should work on fixing hard barriers like a lack of funds.
      • Yeah, it would be great for us to have more women going into the sciences. That doesn't mean this particular woman (who thinks if she became a scientists she would have to get thick glasses and wear a white lab coat everywhere she went) is a good candidate. She sounds like she has an IQ at best in the lower 80s. I don't think she ever had a rewarding career in the sciences looking ahead of her.
    • I for one vote on requiring female scientists to wear something sexy and revealing at all times. They need to always look like the brainy girls of science as shown in romantic comedies and porn movies. I think this will solve all our problems. More hotties will get into science causing more men to get into science and as they mate and produce attractive yet brainy children humanity will evolve. I can't wait to have myself a hot geek girl in tight black latex as my overlord.. err mistress.

    • Is it really a problem that this student doesn't want to go into science? For some reason I doubt she was in line to cure cancer anyways

      I think the relevant question here is: does this result from nurture or nature?

      Many people are limited by what society (e.g., parents, friends, media) tells them they are capable of. Armed with this mindset against the influences of intellect and progress, they set out in the world destined to not even attempt exceeding the status quo. Personally, I am inclined to b

  • It IS boring (Score:5, Insightful)

    by martinX ( 672498 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:21AM (#14536830)
    After years of working in diagnostic labs (moderately interesting) I got my science degree, thought research was a good place to be and promptly got a job in a research lab. It is so boring. Months (and eventually years) to get a result. I got out and into web design.

    I have nothing but respect for those who do research and do it well, but don't try and glam up research for the kids. It takes phlegmatic, methodical people to do it and stick to it. The flighty, can't-settle types should be in another field. Like web design :-)
    • Typically, yes. Unless you make some sort of major breakthrough or solve something important. I can't imagine a bigger rush then figuring something out noone else could, or creating something noone has ever seen/thought of. Although yes, a very small percentage of scientists will know that feeling. So I agree with you overall. Some Einsteins and Newton's exist, but unless you have the potential to reach their level, it will probably be boring.

    • Re:It IS boring (Score:5, Informative)

      by SillyPerson ( 920121 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @03:03AM (#14536974)
      You got into the wrong field. I worked for eight years in mathematics, and it was an exciting, wild, mad ride throughout. Non mathematicians will never believe this. I am still sorry I had to leave university, because I suck at the publish-or-perish game.

      Now, do applications of artificial intelligence for business software. Quite exciting and new, and actually with more direct positive results, but not the rollercoaster ride of the olden days.

      Oh, well...

      • What you say is incorrect, because mathematics is not science. Almost all science requires doing empirical work. And that work can be mind-numbingly tedious. Nowadays you have to be extremely careful in performing experiments; every tiny little detail has to be checked and rechecked with great care. You sometimes have to hand-examine thousands of samples in order to find one that is not contaminated, corrupted, or otherwise inappropriate.

        There is even an argument that extremely intelligent people cann

    • Re:It IS boring (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NitsujTPU ( 19263 )
      While I don't agree that research is at all boring (I've had an RAship for about 9 months now, that I'll be sitting in until I start my PhD), I must admit that society's approach to finding more researchers seems to be all wrong.

      It's hard to discuss it without stepping on anyone's toes, and it's an emotionally charged issue for some, so, I'll reserve my rather harsh criticism of most modern programs.

      Simply put. When I was a kid, I went to lectures at a particle accelerator, and they were cool. I liked pro
      • Besides... Given the choice, would you rather:
        1) Have more non-nerds/geeks going into technical fields?
        or
        2) Have more nerds/geeks (who by their nature go into technical fields)?

        Somehow I think #2 might be more useful, since non-geeks tend to not know anything outside what they learned in class, and lack any real genuine interest in their field.
    • There goes my dream of getting out of web design and into research. ;-)

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:24AM (#14536838)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "Geeks get no dates, and science is unpopular. ...but then there's always alcohol."

      And roofies.

    • Re:NEWS FLASH (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ozmanjusri ( 601766 )
      Then you're too smart for your own good and you intimidate women so much they stay away from you.

      No, that one's a rationalisation to justify your own awkwardness with women. I know this will surprise you, but women are people too.

      What the majority of young women want is pretty much what you'd expect - entertaining, interesting, confident and funny men. If you're intelligent as well, it'll be a bonus for them.
      • What the majority of young women want is pretty much what you'd expect - entertaining, interesting, confident and funny men.

        I'd add that they also want a man who is physically attractive, but other than that, you're absolutely right.

        Although I don't think women are turned off by intelligent men, I do think it is wise not to let women know you work in a scientific field until they have an opportunity to learn that you are entertaining, interesting, confident and funny. Otherwise, some of the stereotypes abo

    • Re:NEWS FLASH (Score:4, Informative)

      by micheas ( 231635 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @04:08AM (#14537172) Homepage Journal
      Read some of Richard Feynman's tales.

      (probably the only member of the Manhattan Project to be commissioned to do a painting by a massage parlor.)

    • Geeks get no dates (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phorm ( 591458 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @04:17AM (#14537200) Journal
      I think that the correlation between one and the other is rather false. Being smart does not exclude you from social interaction, sexual interaction, or relationships of any variety. Lacking in social graces does, and certainly some geeks do exhibit such traits, but I've never know somebody to be unpopular beyond say, high-school, just because he or she is following a geeky career.

      Also, remember that there are both male and female geeks. For that geeky male scientist out there, perhaps an equally geeky female scientist, or vise-versa.

      Of course, this way probably a joke anyhow, but really I find that the biggest problem many geeks have is that the tendency to have a superiority complex over their fellows.

      Me, I'm a geek. I'm a smart, and skilled. I also associate with people from many walks of life, and won't jump to the conclusion that just because somebody went into massage-therapy, web-design, or plumbing that that person is any less valuable in life... well, except for maybe the web designers :-)

      There is a bit of humour to this all too, of course... but really in many ways geeks are receiving great recognition overall. From the lab types in CSI to the computer hackers... we've been made cool in many days. Get down off your pedestols and associate with your fellow humans, and you might find they don't have any problem associating with you.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • For that geeky male scientist out there, perhaps an equally geeky female scientist, or vise-versa.

        Up to a point. But if what you want is geeky and brainy, there is evidence [wikipedia.org] that there are more men than women at both ends of the IQ bell curve, which means that while there are a lot of very smart women out there, they're vastly outnumbered by the very smart guys. (And likewise, the male morons outnumber the female ones.) I've read in a couple places, though haven't found the source material to back this u

  • Truth is somewhere in between.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In the research organization I worked, the importance was given to creativity management. The days are gone when somebody brainy can sit in closet and dream about the universe. Experiments (results and analysis) have a lot of importance.

    Creativity management allows everybody to participate in the decision making process how the experiment will be performed. Brainstorming, ideas extension and lot of techniques are put in action to bring more and more ideas on the table. Normal people might not know, how ma

    • Management by committee? You're suggesting this is an improvement, rather than reason there has been relatively little progress in fundamental ideas over the past decades? I'm sure Einstein would have valued your input.
      • "Management by committee?"

        It's called "goal orientated research" and was formulated by Edison, some say the modern idea of a "lab" was his greatest invention but quite a few alchemists are still turning in their grave.

        "relatively little progress in fundamental ideas over the past decades"

        Let's use your example of Einstien, his insights were so remarkable that 100yrs later every physicist dreams of finding a flaw in his work, so it's certainly not from lack of effort or applied brain power. Could it

  • Campaigning to get more people to study science... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:29AM (#14536851) Homepage
    ...is useless. I mean, the only good campaign is one that shows what working in science is all about: doing boring repetitive work, surrounded by weird, very brainy people. OK, now I exaggerate a bit, but this is many a scientists' almost daily experience. I live in Holland and I have never seen a campaign for science that was to the point and appealing to the target group (young people of around 15 years of age who have to choose what type of work they wantto do). And I wonder: is this really so bad? People who fall for a 'Science is hefty fun!' campaign will most likely be extremely disappointed when they find out the real thing, and people who are already interested in a scientific career will study science anyway. And they are the best you can get. So in a way, campaigning will only get you people who are not really motivated and would be more useful to society in another job.
    • I think the problem is that so often, a sense of exploration and experimentation gets hammered out of the education. If one has a science class that is restrictive and doesn't at least try to appeal to the interests, then it will get boring. It is dumb to just make lots of explosions.

      The big breakthroughs are often done by people that think "outside the box", are willing to take risks, even though most of the actual work is boring. In the same way all entrepeneurs fail, all scientists fail, even using co
      • One thing that will help to get people motivated for a carrier in science is pay them a normal salary. I don't understand why my sister-in-law, who works for a pharmaceutical company basically selling stuff, earns about twice as me AND has a company car. I also know a few people who emigrated from Holland to Switzerland because they get better pay there.

  • It depends... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bjorniac ( 836863 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:34AM (#14536868)
    To an extent, it depends on which aspect science you are talking about. Experiments (and in particular fact checking/verification of data) can be laborious and a bore at times, but again sometimes during this process you detect something new. As a theorist there is a lot of banging ones head against a brick wall, or following tracks that lead nowhere, but also there are sometimes insights that set your mind ablaze and excite you so that you work on them until you realize it's 6am and you told your wife you'd be home at 5 the evening before...

    A lot of science, yes, is repetetive due to the nature of statistics - you need a large sample if you're going to reliably claim anything. That said though, there are again exciting, nerve-wracking moments when the data comes in and you find out whether or not you've discovered something.

    As for science being "just for the brainy" this a ridiculous statement. Science is done by people who have incredible insights into the world and people who slowly and methodically puzzle things out. What non-scientists don't seem to understand is that 99% of the time the scientist is just as confused as everyone else is, they just spend the time and effort to try to come to terms with things. I'm not saying that scientists aren't smart, but a lot of hyperbole scares the normal person away from spending a while as confused as the scientist was when he first thought about things and trying to piece together the way that it works.

  • Intelligence and Normality not Mutually Exclusive (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @02:50AM (#14536926) Homepage Journal
    First there's the requirement to define normal. Measuring IQ, not a straightforward task, places highly intelligent people out on the tail of a bell curve, but many highly intelligent people are emotionally stable and vibrant.

    There's a public conception that assigns eccentricities to highly intelligent people. From Disney's 'The Nutty Proffesor' to real life cases like Paul Erdös [wikipedia.org], to the idea of genius and madness, recently portrayed in 'A Beautiful Mind'. I doubt there's any weighty corellation between high intelligence and eccentricity.

    Reasoning toward rigorous, elegant and robust conclusions is just plain old hard work requiring a tool set that in itself is difficult to acquire.

    • I doubt there's any weighty corellation between high intelligence and eccentricity.

      I take it you haven't done many post graduate science or engineering studies, then. :-)
    • Is that most other people seem stupid to you.

      Simply put, things that to you seem stupendously obvious (conclusions/insights), for a lot of people are things they can hardly begin to understand.

      The higher one's inteligence, the higher the percentage of stupid people the world seems to contain.

      It's hardly surprising that those that are very inteligent, find inteligence the most important characteristic of people and cannot bring themselfs to explain things at a level that non-experts/non-genious can understan

      • Re:The problem with an above average IQ (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DCheesi ( 150068 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @11:23AM (#14539246) Homepage
        The flip-side of this is that highly intelligent people tend to "overthink" things. With all that extra brain-power, it's possible to see second and third order effects of many everyday actions/interactions of which 'normal' people are blissfully ignorant. And the thing is, most of the time the average joe gets away just fine without considering those indirect effects (perhaps in part because societal rules are geared towards correcting for such unintended side-effects?). Meanwhile the more intelligent person is left with a minefield of possibilities, which often leads them to indecision, excessive caution, or to making "weird" choices...
    • many highly intelligent people are emotionally stable and vibrant.

      Vibrant? certainly. Emotionaly stable? not in my field (number theory).

      Scientists less so - but I have never met a single mathematician (myself included) that wasn't slightly broken in the sanity department.

      • Scientists less so - but I have never met a single mathematician (myself included) that wasn't slightly broken in the sanity department.

        Oh, but it's not the matter of IQ, it's a matter of choice.
        Of course the prerequisite to become a mathematician is high IQ. So there's lots of wackos who want to become mathematicians, but only the intelligent ones can become one.
    • First there's the requirement to define normal. Measuring IQ, not a straightforward task, places highly intelligent people out on the tail of a bell curve, but many highly intelligent people are emotionally stable and vibrant.

      Yes, but that's just a different bell curve. Different standard deviation, but still a bell curve twisted one or other way. So there IS correlation.
      Changes in brain that allow for a genius aren't necessarily implying changes relating to "madness". But they imply -generally- a high prob

  • Damn! (Score:4, Funny)

    by rscrawford ( 311046 ) <rscrawford&undavis,edu> on Monday January 23, 2006 @03:17AM (#14537019) Homepage Journal
    Next they'll find out that the jocks are getting all the girls, too!

  • Social skills partly to blame? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ChePibe ( 882378 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @03:46AM (#14537097)
    Don't get me wrong - I've met many fascinating, friendly, and sociable people in the various physical sciences. My old college roommate was a chemical engineering major who was the easiest guy to get along with and who explained many of the difficult concepts he learned in a way that a poor political science major, like myself, could understand. However, I'm sure many will agree, that a large portion of them are difficult to approach.

    I don't chalk all of this up to their "superior intellect" as a few other posters have claimed. I consider myself to be a reasonably bright and sociable person. I think a great deal of it has to do with an inability to discuss topics of common interest outside of the sciences. Most people simply do not understand more advanced concepts in science, which is understandable - they have little incentive to. That said, most people don't understand the details and intricacies of other academic and professional disciplines. If I spent most of my time discussing the small differences between traditional realism and neo-realism, I wouldn't be a very interesting guy to hang out with, either.

    The claims that people don't want to talk to scientists because they are "smarter" may reflect another problem - simple arrogance. In my experience this problem is, thankfully, limited to a small group. But it certainly can be a problem. No one wants to talk to someone who is secretly thinking, "I am so much smarter than this idiot who doesn't know the periodic table of elements backwards." I appreciate the contributions of those who work in the physical sciences, but for these reasons they can be a bit difficult to approach.
    • The claims that people don't want to talk to scientists because they are "smarter" may reflect another problem - simple arrogance.

      It's extraordinarily difficult to be interested in something, to in fact devote your life to something, that is completely outside the realm of what most people are interested in or find relevant. It's difficult to make small talk when your mind is full of astrophysics or whatnot. It's even more difficult when people consider your pursuits to be lacking in merit or pretentiou

  • Define 'Normal' (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Centurix ( 249778 ) <centurixNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday January 23, 2006 @03:51AM (#14537120) Homepage
    Being normal is overrated.
  • What percetage of the surveyed teenagers, demographically, go on to become scientists? If the answer is around 30% then that is the 30% who *did not* dissassociate themselves from scientists by saying that scientists were 'really brainy people.'

  • From the Article... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Orrin Bloquy ( 898571 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @04:53AM (#14537272) Journal
    "...after seeing beakers explode and million-dollar equipment destroyed by idiots, we've also come to the conclusion that normal people aren't for science, either."

  • where? (Score:4, Funny)

    by SolitaryMan ( 538416 ) on Monday January 23, 2006 @04:54AM (#14537276) Homepage Journal
    ...teenagers 'value the role of science in society, but feel scientists are "brainy people not like them".' This was according to a recent study by The Science Learning Centre in London
    Well, yeah, so?

    Sorry, couldn't resist... :)

  • Loser Caste (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ObsessiveMathsFreak ( 773371 ) <obsessivemathsfreak.eircom@net> on Monday January 23, 2006 @06:25AM (#14537591) Homepage Journal
    I think a lot of this goes down to the rather brutal teenage subculture that actively demotes intellectual persuits and scientific ones in paticular.

    No one wants to be that mythical "geeky" student who loves only science and has no friends. Even though such a creature rarely exists, a lot of students will shy away from science for fear of "becoming" such a wretch.

    The article shows that lot of teenagers have a view that scientists, though it is awknowladged they do important work, are still are not respected by teenagers. They are unattrative, "not like them", a subculture. Almost another caste. This reflects the wide scale rejection of "geekery" by the mainstream teenage culture. So it's not too difficult to imagine that teenagers might thinl that scientists are a kind of alien caste in society.

    It's like this. When you're 15 years old, and about to decide on your future career, having spent the last 3 years in a regressive subculture, you are much more likely to pick a career choice that would draw respect rather than derision from your peers.
  • Public schools leave children unable to understand complex subjects, differentiate between science and magic or distinguish between scientists and characters from a space opera.

    Video podcast at 11.
  • Why are scientists seen as so "different"? Or maybe... they are?
    Well, most scientists are pretty intelligent people. And this applies to all the "genius level" people. High IQ is resulting in ability to analyse -everything- at higher ease than most can. Generally used in their domain, but they also think about the world as a whole, society, life, the universe, God, all that important stuff. And instead of swallowing what the "authorities" say and accepting it ("they said that on TV so it must be true" or at
    • Look, guy: I'm glad you can explain women away so easily. If that's all it is, please explain to me, precisely, the workings of "conscience." Let's face it: science isn't about what you know, it's about how you come to know it. ANYONE whose IQ even approaches, say, 90, can practice scientific principle (including your much pitied "Joe Sixpack"). And, once you're practicing scientific principle, and apply it on a daily basis, as far as I'm concerned, you're a scientist. You may not be pulling down the b

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