koryos: thatssoscience: smilesandvials: embracing-the-shadow: imaginarycircus: patchfire: cardozzza:
koryos:thatssoscience:smilesandvials:embracing-the-shadow:imaginarycircus:patchfire:cardozzza:purplecloudcenter:I laughed a little too hard at this one.“No, I want science that is accessible to me, I do not have a doctorate in this field and therefore articles written by people with doctorates to communicate theories to other people with doctorates is not something I can readily comprehend. I also prefer to read about basic first aid instead of in-depth medical books three inches thick on IV treatment, but still have the audacity to say I think medicine is interesting.”Seriously, why does this elitist bullshit keep popping up on my dash? ‘What, you like science? Name three albums by science! Fake sciencer.’Additionally, science has become so specialized that academics in the same departments at universities often can’t understand their own colleagues’ work in terms of peer-reviewed journals. Scientific articles and books written for laypeople are generally edited for accuracy as well as being written FOR communicating with the general public. I can confirm this is 100% true. Scientists don’t read someone’s article like it’s an article from Time magazine. It doesn’t make perfect sense immediately. If someone wanted to truly understand the science they’d have to spend time reviewing the data carefully and unpacking the equations. Math is a short hand. They usually provide a few equations and leave out a lot of steps that you can’t just intuit from the ether. Take the famous e=mc^2 - it takes so much math and theory to explain how you get there. The paper is long and you need to have a solid understanding of things like Newton’s Principia, Maxwell’s equations on electrodynamics, Minkowski, and especially Lobachevsky’s non-Euclidean geometry–in order to work through the paper. It takes time to unpack the equations in detail and follow how the proof works. (You also have to know how mathematical proofs work.) It might take many blackboards packed with equations to fill in the steps in between equations in order to rigorously understand the paper. I spent weeks doing that with both Maxwell and Einstein after I’d studied the math needed. I worked for cosmologists working on very specific problems in optical astronomy. They could not pick up someone’s work in X-Ray or Radio astronomy and read it once and totally understand it. They had an idea of what was going on, but not a true, solid understanding of what the work meant. It wasn’t their field and they didn’t need to know most of the time. If you make car tires–there are things you need to know about how cars are built and work, but you don’t need to know everything about engine design or maintenance. Being able to explain science clearly to a lay person is a talent. I’ve known brilliant scientists who were completely unable to explain their work to graduate students in astronomy, never mind a lay person. “Science has become so specialized that academics in the same departments at universities often can’t understand their own colleagues’ work in terms of peer-reviewed journals.”I’m a PhD student studying cancer biology and this is basically my life. I can read my colleagues’ work and just be like “dafuq did I just read”, and it took me a long time to realize that it’s not because I’m a crappy scientist.ALL OF THIS. ALL OF IT. GOOD COMMENTARY. Science superiority complexes are absurd because we should strive to be accessible. Yes, journal articles have their place but to expect people to read them for fun is kind of absurd. I strive to be accessible. I have an undergrad thesis due this month and a defense in May. I practice speaking for non-chemists. Can my roommates understand me? One of my committee members, who is the one outside of the department, is an expert in the French Revolution and seems to be expressing nervousness at being the only non-scientist in the room. That’s not a good attitude to see in people or one to encourage this way. I can’t count the number of times people come up to me at poster sessions and say, “…I don’t think I’ll get it, I’m a [liberal art field]” and I strive to work in a way to explain it to them. That is what needs to be done, not sassing people because they don’t keep up with Macromolecules or Organometallics or Physical Letters. You can even give talks and media that is both accurate to high level chemists and understandable. I hate this attitude. I hate that this attitude often exists along side disdain for people not liking science because it’s this kind of snobbery that is discouraging.Reblogging for the excellent commentary. “No, I want science that is accessible to me"^ THIS THIS THIS Don’t be a snob. Let people love what they love enthusiastically. Science is hard. Reading journal articles is damn difficult for people in THEIR OWN SUBJECTS.Quotes and photos tell the story of science in a way that’s moving and emotionally appealing. AND THAT IS A GOOD THING. Steve Irwin’s passion inspired me to get into science. Maybe a freaking picture from the Hubble Space Telescope will do the same for someone else. So shut up. Let people learn things without being a condescending jerkface. I’m glad someone expressed this sentiment, because it’s been bothering me for a long time. The academic crowd, intentionally or not, seems to set up a lot of barriers that make scientific understanding hard to access for the layperson.Even teachers are guilty of this. I’ve had professors proudly talk about the high dropout rates for their classes, because the students “didn’t have the stuff,” “couldn’t handle it,” etc. But if large portions of your audience are being shut out by what you’re trying to teach, maybe it’s your fault.Sure, there are very legitimate issues with the way a lot of research is reported in popular media today. But that isn’t the fault of the people reading it. -- source link
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