As I rode home on the Underground this evening, packed in shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow commuters, I couldn’t help but notice the headlines in the forest of tabloids brandished at eye level around me. No minutiae of the world of sport seemed above mention: the tortured apology of a referee for awarding a controversial penalty against Bolton in their defeat by Manchester United on Saturday; the vital statistics of the fifteen England players just selected for the Test series against India; the innermost angst of Arsene Wenger after Arsenal’s defeat by lowly Hull (an outcome which Mind The Gap, a firm Spurs supporter, can only applaud).
A game with two halves Could science survive live coverage?
As the carriage rocked with hypnotic rhythm in the rising heat and dwindling oxygen supply, I suddenly had a vivid hallucination. Did that headline in the Evening Standard truly declare,
Tenacious post-doc solves long-standing regulatory puzzle in formin regulation?
I blinked, and the words dissolved into a cautionary tale about a Brazilian driver whose chances in the Singapore Grand Prix were scuppered after he screeched away from a pit-stop with fuel hose still attached.
But imagine, Dear Reader, what the world would be like if science were put under the same media scrutiny as sport. What if our every daily triumph or embarrassing gaffe was trumpeted for all to see in the tabloids and broadcasts of the world? What if people rang up radio phone-in programs to wax lyrical about the latest paper in Nature or to complain that the big grant had been awarded to some young, brash hotshot when it clearly should have gone to the more reflective and deserving woman down the corridor, or to take their favorite scientist to task for messing up a crucial maxi-prep just when the supporters needed that plasmid to be ready Friday for the Big Experiment?
We got a small taste of that a few weeks ago when the LHC went live, didn’t we? Perched on a stool in the kitchen in my dressing gown with the dark-matter cosmologist who’d come to visit from Paris, clutching cups of coffee, we listened, rapt, to the coverage on Radio 4. Although the language for live commentary of science events has not yet been invented, Andrew Marr did a pretty good job of appropriating the vivid, engaging language of sport to paint the scene before him.
“The packets of protons are champing at the bit at the starting gate,” he joked, as in the background, the many-accented scientists emitted clipped, Star Trek-like dialogue. We could scarcely breathe as the first attempt to herd the particles into the tunnel was aborted (“And I don’t know why,” Marr said cheerfully. “Something about ‘the Dump’ “). “We are waiting for extraction,” explained a man with a Pakistani accent, not terribly helpfully, as a French voice muttered Non, non behind him. Painful seconds lapsed as the beam was restarted – then wild applause and cheers burst out as it finally “took”.
At that moment, I wondered how we could get more coverage of science into the world; not rehashed, regurgitated and mangled press-released data, but the sweaty, messy, human endeavor as it unfolds before us, outcome uncertain and all to play for. Such attention might not be comfortable for scientists, but if mere athletes can stand the heat, why couldn’t we?
I have to wait another week ’til I can show off my cover.
Fortunately it is not as optically painful as Dr Gee’s.
{looks at tags}
Can I be the photographer?
Nothing gets past you, does it?
That’s the idea.
A nice thought but please tell me you mis-heard him and he actually said protons. Photons don’t usually require an accelerator to get them up to speed! Really, it isn’t any more complicated than the off-side rule…
Oh, and commiserations on Spurs’ forthcoming season…
Ha! Well spotted. I’m off to do a judicious edit before someone more scathing notices…
(But you get a red card for endorsing that tediously sexist stereotype in my salon.)
Come on ref! I was implying that Mr Marr didn’t understand the rule…
Back-chatting the ref gets a 10 metre penalty in my code…
As for football, there’s a beautiful explanation of the off-side rule in Bend it like Beckham
I’m sure it was my error, not Marr’s. I plead low blood sugar, not ignorance of the quantum world.
If scientists start attracting the same attention and pressure as professional athletes, would they deserve the same pay?
Well I don’t know about you dearie, but I’d be worth every penny.
As more of a grants facilitator than an actual scientist, I would start earning the equivalent of, what, a player’s agent? That’d do me…
James Prescott Joule had his theory of the equivalence of work and heat first reported in a Manchester Newspaper (ref). However, that was probably because reputable journals thought the caloric theory was correct and that Joule was a provincial madman. Nonetheless the theory was newsworthy, although the facsimile of the article in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester shows that the report was not on the sports page.
Wouldn’t science be a bit slow for sports fans? Even a test match takes less time than most pieces of research.
I’ll refrain from discussing football whilst there are Spurs and Newcastle fans around.
bq. Wouldn’t science be a bit slow for sports fans?
I’ve thought about that, and there are two things.
First, live commentary probably would not work except in rare cases, although we could probably have cloning challenges or ‘spot the Higgs’-type events that’d be fast enough. If you have enough labs working on the same thing you could do a week-long event, hopping all over the world…
Second, there is enough science going on all over the world to fill an hourly news bulletin. Several times over, I’d wager.
I’m sorry, but it doesn’t get much slower than some of the sports items I’ve seen in the papers – breathless accounts of this bowler’s migraine or that striker’s marital mishaps. The bar for what constitutes ‘news’ in sports is incredibly low.
Let’s show people pipetting for the Cause!
There is an easy way to test this out. All scientists reading this thread, with a current Facebook account, are requested to make three updates a day (press releases if you will) around the science-related activity that they are conducting.
Now I just need a metric for interest. Ideas, anyone?
Why 3 for each scientist? That’s a shedload of potential news.
3 so that we get down to the resolution of migraines. I’m sure you write in your lab notebook at least three times during the day, no?
@Brian – thanks for the link about Joule (I’m a fan of 18-19th C thermodynamics as well as some sports). That facsimile wouldn’t be available online by any chance?
There is a key difference between sport and science that has been overlooked here so far. Sport very often gives us a theatre of competition in which teams or individuals battle it out out the pitch or the track or wherever. That direct conflict is what provides the drama. The drama in science is rare – a spat at a conference, perhaps. More often, it is perceived in retrospect and therefore not suited to daily reporting (though it can make great history).
I was thinking more along the lines of Man against Nature — which is more or less omnipresent in the lab. At least in my lab.
Heather, I think that’s an excellent idea, so I’m in if others are. It would be an interesting thought experiment.
I’ll do it, but my (one of my) current lab book(s) doesn’t really lend itself to facebook updates…
Not 3 a day, anyway. Maybe one a day, or 50.
@Stephen I saw the facsimile in a display on Manchester Science in the 19th century. You would probably have to ask the museum or possibly the Joule Archive at the John Rylands Librart UoM.
3 so that we get down to the resolution of migraines. I’m sure you write in your lab notebook at least three times during the day, no?
The three headlines don’t have to be ground-breaking results, do they, or even lab notebook fodder? They could merely document what had been done. For example, I just had a mighty battle with the liquid nitrogen tank and burned my finger. It was touch and go there for a while.
Just had the following comment on my Facebook status:
It’s a nice idea but what about us behind fire walls who can’t access “fun playing non work related stuff” ??? I mean, soon enough they might even ban nature network…..*
*I highly doubt it but there are some strange blocked sites where i am. Lucky for me, some of my favourite science blogs are ok, for now.
The problem with most science is that
it lacks exciting scenery
it lacks drama
most people wouldn’t have a clue what the protagonists were doing (_pace_ the offside rule)
and wouldn’t care less even if they were told.
As for live commentary
I was fantasizing recently about a parallel world where sports persons were relatively unknown and paid peanuts, whereas scientists were A-list celebrities earning megabucks. Huge numbers of people turned up or tuned in to see them debating burning scientific issues of the day.
You can imagine the tribal loyalties that would develop. “Do you support the Imperials?” “Nah, I’m a Birkbeck fan”.
I’m in the same boat as Asa – no FB access from work! Besides, “still working on funding details section of PI’s CV” wouldn’t be that exciting for anyone, even me.
_The problem with most science is that
it lacks exciting scenery_
Football pitches are not exactly breathtaking either. Not are race tracks, snooker tables, cricket grounds, basketball courts, swimming pools et cetera.
it lacks drama
Bollocks.
most people wouldn’t have a clue what the protagonists were doing (pace the offside rule)
Cricket is one of the most impenetrable sports we have, to outsiders. This does not stop hundreds of thousands of people from learning all the arcane rules and deriving a lot of pleasure from following all the statistics and minutiae of the game.
and wouldn’t care less even if they were told
As in cricket, above, once you understand something, it is a lot more fun. I used to think American football was boring, but that was because I had no idea what was going on. As a teenager, when I started watching and learning and following all the teams, it transformed into an entirely different experience.
I’ve never understood the offside rule in cricket. Is it silly mid-offside? Or leg-before-off-side?
Me too Frank. I always get stumpted with the balls-on-wicket and arse-over-elbow rules.
So, Nature had fun with this concept already – the news team reported on a 24 hour day of science across the whole planet. Even though the day they chose coincided with a press deadline that also coincided with a local fire that meant we had to evacuate the building and as an emergency relocate our production offices to Oxford (journal editorial production) and Basingstoke (web production) we got the darn thing out on time. A great demonstration of how to make science exciting in real-time:
Science on the solstice Nature 441, 1040-1045
_Every day, all over the planet and beyond it, scientists try to make sense of the world in which they live. Here we present a composite picture of just one day — 21 June 2006, the Northern summer solstice. See [email protected] for a greatly expanded version of this feature
Offside and cricket rules pale by comparision with memories of passing that special!
Cricket is one of the most impenetrable sports we have
Baseball is worse. Truly, the basest of balls.
Quite,
‘The Batsmen of the Kalahari’ of course is indecipherably hoggish yet amusing. Let’s see the replay:-
Sport also has the advantage over science that it is utterly, utterly pointless and therefore lends itself to hyping/trivialisation by the media as so wonderfully demonstrated here:
You boys will be kept behind after class.
Anyone who thinks that we can just show labs working without context is an eejit. Look on the BBC Sports website—they have whole pages dedicated to explaining laws and rules of various sports precisely to help increase the viewer’s enjoyment.
The LHC saga was a missed opportunity to explain what was really going on, with all the talk of black holes and whatnot the real message was missed. But I believe that people would get excited about that with just a tiny bit of foreknowledge.
(And anyone who watches AFL knows that understanding the rules—there aren’t—does not detract from enjoyment anyway).
Exactly.
Really, Richard? the BBC has all those explaining pages? I thought there was a Y-linked gene for all that, rendering it unnecessary. (Women, of course, are too intelligent to need to recourse to such matters as pages or genes.)
Really Maxine. They’re quite useful for reminding me of the fielding positions, and I found an excellent explanation of swing bowling a couple of years back.
And if any man calls into question my manhood because I look up stuff like this, I’ll see them in the car park.
You won’t reach the car-park – Graham and I will get you behind the bike-sheds. Sir.
In any case, I think my point was well made – and your comment about the LHC dropped-catch reinforces it: the media have a hunger for the trivial, shiny, eye-catching bits. ‘So, how long before this breakthough results in a cancer treatment, Prof Trellis?’ And so on.
Reality check: people are way more interested in sport than science. Period. For some people, science just isn’t that compelling and perhaps never will be. The question for us, which I guess was Jenny’s point all along, is what can we do to make it more appealing to folk? Your remark about context is supremely important. But I can’t see how daily reporting is the way to go.
bq Reality check: people are way more interested in sport than science. Period. For some people, science just isn’t that compelling and perhaps never will be
But why?
(and just to prove I can do a blockquote…)
I’ve faced down the mighty Gee. I can take any four mortal men of your choosing.
But why?
Short answer: it’s a mystery (someone should study it).
I do think it has something to do with the greater level of drama to be found in sport. (Yes, there is drama in science but it’s less evident). Why else would I spend time in the summer watching cycling on the telly? There is great drama in two people racing on an oval track after 4 years of training, all for the sake of being olympic champion. The stakes are high and the different between triumph and disaster is wafer-thin. (Though, to be fair, even the BBC struggled to make sailing interesting.) In retrospect I think, what was that about!? But, at the time, it seemed compelling…
I’ve faced down the mighty Gee. I can take any four mortal men of your choosing.
And there’s your mistake Dr Grant. You are assuming that I am mortal…
I thought that the documentary Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita put science in an engaging and meaningful context. Although the film included personal and bioethical storylines, it also presented a decent amount of actual day-to-day science discussion, benchwork, struggles with interpretation of data, the frustration of failed experiments, and writing up results.
Of course, if the goal was for scientists to resemble top athletes and other celebrities, then they should cultivate followings and fan bases, members of which would be enthralled merely to read about the frequency and physical characteristics of their idol’s daily excreta. The science becomes secondary; what matters is the mystique, and then even tedious, repetitive chores like setting up PCR reactions, or counting cells, become riveting for the audience. Fans could send gifts of lab supplies to their scientist idols (“Dr. Velipalatini needs a new multichannel pipettor!”), and the idols could then endorse various products and receive huge sums of money.
There are a few of these out there, and they get on the rest of our nerves no end.
Or – maybe not, Heather, if it’s done modestly. Say in a well-written blog by an engaging scientist. I could see this happening if the writing was good and if the reader could be drawn in.
I do think it has something to do with the greater level of drama to be found in sport.
I keep getting stuck on this point. I still feel that it is lack of familiarity that is the culprit, more than the drama. Some people, for example, are endlessly fascinated by reality TV, the sort without dramas or challenges (e.g. Big Brother) in which hardly anything happens. And they are fascinated because of the characters. If scientists could be seen as characters with personality, I think it could go a long way towards interesting people in what they are doing.
Fascinated to read in today’s Independent newspaper a story about footballers who have brought out a cookbook to combat obesity.
Perhaps this is something scientists should emulate?
I don’t think anyone would be interested in cooking to my lab’s protocols. Formaldehyde fettuccine, anyone?
But seriously, I like the idea of such publicity stunts. We could do with more of those.
Formaldehyde fettuccine, anyone?
Sounds like something Damien Hirst might cook.
bq. Say in a well-written blog by an engaging scientist.
No chance of that then. laughs
One dept I was in did a lab recipe book—recipes contributed by members of the lab, that is. And one of my current coleagues is going to be painted pink under the clock tower, or something. Maybe I misunderstood.
@ Richard: I’ve faced down the mighty Gee. I can take any four mortal men of your choosing.
What made you think I was doing anything but lulling you into a false sense of security?
@ Jenny: apologies – I really do seem to have pissed you off. Well, nothing like stirring things up…
The reason people like watching Big Brother is that (a) the contestents are
orkish prolesordinary people, just like they are, and (b) there’s a small chance that they might be caught indulging in sex, violence, or both together.A ‘Reality’ presentation about science wouldn’t work because (a) the people are not like the viewers (that perceived separateness is a big issue – even if people aren’t inherently suspicious of scientists, they tend to regard them as wizards, in whose affairs they should not meddle (b) the protagonists are unlikely to have sex in the laboratory (c) what they are doing, on a day to day basis, is incomprehensible and therefore boring. No, there is no more drama in a science lab than there is in any other sphere of activity. Most of what goes on can be described as a few moments of excitement (again, incomprehensible) punctuating long periods of hanging about.
You made the point that sports pitches were no more exciting than lab benches, and that if people are capable of understanding the arcana of sport, then they should be able to apply the same faculties to science. I think your response was the terribkly scientific epithet ‘bollocks’.
Well, perhaps, but people understand what’s going on in sports pitches, and, in contrast to most lab settings, they can do so without having to acquire a great deal of specialist knowledge first. A complete rookie can get the hang of all but the finer points of cricket after watching a game or two, but understanding what people are doing in labs, and why, takes a lot, lot longer from a standing start.
I respectfully suggest that because you have been so long immersed in the scientific milieu, you have internalized the tortuous processes that have allowed you to grasp concepts such as – say – ‘transcription’ as intuitively as a footballer can grasp the offside rule.
And, besides, your position as a postdoctoral researcher suggests that you are cleverer than than almost anyone you are likely to meet ouitside the scientific environment. I know it’s terribly un-PC to say so, but science takes brains, combined with exposure to an environment that encourages literacy, numeracy and an inquiring mind, and most people, frankly, have neither the aptitude nor the opportunity to hone what little grey cells they might have the good fortune to possess. This is why I think that science will never, ever, be as popular as the kinds of sports we see on TV.
Well, I’m hooked.
Pass the popcorn, Stephen.
In defence of the
stupidhumble sportsman, to reach the stage where you are likely to be of watching interest to the vast majority of the world’s human population (let’s exclude American ball sports here for at least one of the previous caveats and focus on association football, or, arguably, cricket), you need to have some inherent qualities of balance, hand (or footand mouth)-eye coordination and the ability to work coherently as part of a team.These qualities are undoubtedly improved upon through years of rigourous training and coaching, leading to international class sportsmen, whose skills are enjoyed by billions the world around, and exploited by
our evil overlordthe global business world.Many of us armchair pundits and yokels (I include myself) labour under the frankly ridiculous illusion that one day we may finally get the chance to represent our
countryboyhood heroeslocal amateur sidepub hatchet menwell, anyway, by performing to the best of our limited ability, just because we have the opportunity to watch our current “heroes” on TV and think “I could do that, for a fraction of the price”, while the heroes have the grace and dignity to refrain from saying “Don’t be such a tosser, you have no idea what it takes to get here”. Or perhaps they are so disconnected from the real world that they themselves don’t realise what combination of luck/natural gifts and meticulous planning and it took.And therein (finally!) lies an important difference. Sportsmen don’t make it blindingly obvious to the general (supporting) public that what they do is difficult. Scientists, through a variety of mechanisms, do.
Oh, and people can play easily football in the park, street, back garden or sauna if they want, with a cheap ball or pair of rolled up socks if they want. DNA sequencing or colliding large hadrons requires slighlty more sophisticated
undergarmentsequipment.Henry, I wasn’t angry; nor am I as serious as you probably think: the post, and my subsequent comments, were slightly tongue-in-cheek. This topic was intended as a thought experiment. I don’t think any of us seriously think science could ever be as sexy and popular as sport, not would usually lend itself to spectators – but it is interesting to frame the problem that way, and to think about ways we might make it a little bet less unsexy.
Mike, some science is do-able by amateurs (apparently astronomy has a big contingent of volunteers who actually make worthwhile discoveries), and I’ve seen a number of interesting presentations recently by scientists trying to get people involved in real experiments via online input or massive multiplayer gaming. I think some of these endeavors are really worthwhile and could lead to more enthusiasm.
But isn’t is almost “sports like”, science in those shows “How do you make it” (on History channel here in the States) and “Myth busters” (Discovery)?
I mean, in general they use science (albeit not always state so) in order to explain…. there need just be another linker maybe? i.e. easier access.
Then there is that idea of a cook out and maybe a chemist or two who can explain why different spices “marry differently” depending on the context.
Then of course, we could make a “sprint” – two or more scientist sit in front of a bench and get a DNA sequence. THe first one to correctly make a primer by hand, and successfully make the PCR… wait, it takes time to order primers. Ah well, never mind.
I think we should go for using scientist to explain things around us in the world. And to takes beautiful photos of our things and sell them as posters. One of my PhDcollegues took EM pictures of fungi. Oh my gosh they were beautiful. Imagine a Penicillum in greensih shade? With the small spores just about to loosen from the stem. Or a bunch of cute Streptococci growing in chains and getting lit from behind in pink…. 🙂
ok, that’s art and not sport so maybe I need to think up something more “appealing to the public”
some science is do-able by amateurs
Liz Lyon , Director of UKOLN, mentions so-called citizen science quite often. Galaxy Zoo is one example and of course there is SETI at home and others like that.
“Citizen science”: I knew there was a catchy name for it, but had forgotten.
Then there is that idea of a cook out and maybe a chemist or two who can explain why different spices “marry differently” depending on the context.
There’s a chemist in the UK called Hesten Blumenthal who seems to be pretty popular, doing just that.
Science art posters are great, I think. Maybe it’s lightweight, but as Tesco’s says, “every little helps”.
I think we are all missing something here. This thread is really all about fame and of course there are already famous scientists. These select few (Stephen Hawking is probably number 1) are well known and get gossip stories about them. They are our sportsmen already. There is gossip about scientists from the past – consider Albert Einstein as Pele. We live in a time when science is perceived as imporatnt but the scientists are in the most part low profile. Science is seen as a sport in a jounalistic sense with the Nobel prizes our World Cup (complete with nationalistic cheering). We can stretch the analogy further with a transfer market as eninent scientists are hoovered up by rich US private universities. The trouble is that most of us are playing in the public park and not at the great stadia.
Things were different in the past. How many public statues are there to contemporary scientists? In Manchester there are at least two from the 19th century (Dalton and Joule) and one of Turing in the 20th. This would be an interesting comparison can we get the data on NN for the ratio of statues of scientists:sportsmen in various cities?
It’s not difficult to think of Stephan Hawking’s name. It’s the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty names that would give people trouble.
And things were different in the past: science was actually cool, and something that all cultured people thought they had to be at least conversant with. It is no longer this way, which I think is a real shame.
bq. The problem with most science is that
Pah! Here’s me doing fieldwork:
On, um, Birdshit Island. That not exciting enough for you?
@ Jenny: Cram 50,000 chanting Geordies into a lab and I’ll agree with you that labs are just as exciting as sports arenas!
BTW I got my hands on the Torygraph yesterday, courtesy of my boss, who was fresh off a flight from Heathrow and not terribly impressed that I went straight for the sports section. I forget the actual headline, but the gist of it was that “Spurs are in such a dire situation, they are making even Newcastle look good”. So there you go.
The feature that Maxine linked to was great by the way, I was surprised not to see more discussion of it when I logged back on this morning. Exactly the kind of coverage that I think Jenny had in mind!
@ Bob – the likes of thee and (formerly) me and I guess Raf and some of our NN regulars have exciting scenery. But Jenny and Richard and most of the rest have four bare walls and a lot of machines that go ‘ping’.
@ Brian D/ Jenny: very good points made about fame. Brian said
We live in a time when science is perceived as imporatnt but the scientists are in the most part low profile.
*WHY?*
I have a suspicion that many scientists are, in fact, uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity. Some will say that it demeans and cheapens the Noble Name of Science, but even a cursory look at many of the famous scientists and popularizers of science of the past – Darwin, Haeckel, Huxley, Lankester, Eddington, Hoyle, Medawar, Einstein, David Attenborough, Bob Winston and even (sticks fingers down throat) He Who Must Not Be Named – shows that, in general, they attracted kudos and respect for science, rather than cheapening it.
No, I think that the whole ivory-tower mentality is a front, disguising a fear of exposing oneself before the public gaze. For some reason, many scientists find this terrifying, even though the ability to perform on stage is an essential part of the scientific education. I know a person, for example, who is bright, lively and talkative, but who clams up at the very thought of giving a lecture. And most of my colleagues seem to have little idea even how to use a microphone, even after they have been told how to do it.
Here’s a thing. There are many editors at Nature, but very few who post anything in NN, or indeed have a blog or an internet presence at all. If you look at the Nature website, you’ll see biogs and photos of our news staff — but hardly anything at all about the editorial teams.
Why?
If you ask them, they’ll say that they’re afraid of giving the wrong impression about Nature, or of comebacks from authors, and so on. I suspect that this is, again, a cover. I, in contrast, who have no shame, don’t give a tinker’s cuss. Yes, this has occasgionally got me into trouble, but I contend that the net effect on Nature‘s reputation has been positive. After all, I know from experience that authors tend to have a much more enjoyable interaction with a journal if they can feel some kind of personal connection with the editor handling their paper.
In conclusion, I think that if scientists put themselves about more, were less shy about becoming ‘celebrities’ (with a small ‘c’) then science would begin to take its rightful place at the table of culture and public life.
I’ll put myself about just for you, Henry.
But seriously, folks. You are absolutely right, Henry, except I think that scientists are no more shy than any other sort of person. But you are arguing that they should get over it for the good of the cause, and I would agree with you. The biggest impediment for scientists, I think, is that the label ‘media luvvie’ is possibly the worse insult that you can mutter about a colleague behind her back.
Go on TV once and people titter. Go on multiple times, and your very science is suspect.
I’ll put myself about just for you, Henry
Bless.
The biggest impediment for scientists, I think, is that the label ‘media luvvie’ is possibly the worse insult that you can mutter about a colleague behind her back. Go on TV once and people titter. Go on multiple times, and your very science is suspect.
Isn’t that just the problem? I reckon a lot of this kind of reaction is down to jealousy.
Definitely. Everyone wants to be famous – except they’re terrified of it, as you say.
Sod it. This is no time to be a shrinking violet.
But does anyone really want to be out for a nice relaxing dinner and hear the words “‘scuse me, aren’t you that woman off the telly that works on endogenous retroviruses? Your minipreps last week were terrible”.
Bob in a remix photo makeover shocker:-
Q. Where is science in the eyes of the media?
A. It is less interesting than attempted murder.
Let me explain… I appeared on local television with a live spot on the lunchtime news (Northwest Today or something like that). I appeared in front of some kit (industrial inkjet printers if you must now – Local Scientist Prints Skin was the tag). I was instructed to wear a lab coat as that would make it clear that I was a scientist.
After the shoot (2 minutes of interview) I found out why they were interviewing me. The University is very close to Minshull St. Court and the crew had been assigned to cover a story on an attempted murder trial but the case was changed to GBH (grevious bodily harm) and it wasn’t newsworthy anymore. So they followed up a university press release and got me instead.
So we have a scale: Murder > Attempted Murder > Science > GBH. Now where to we put sport?
Did my appearance generate fame? The next time I went to pick up my kids from school I was recognised by the other kids in the class.
I’d love to be that (in)famous.
In my department there’s a lot of resentment directed at one particular media-friendly unit, but it’s primarily because although they bring in some money, the science is terrible.
Bob drinks Dave’s Insanity Sauce?
He deserves to be famous.
Look, guys, this is all very fascinating (especially that pic of Bob the Champagne Girrafe), but don’t you just like it? Aren’t you all doing science because you are just plain interested in it, never mind the rest?
Up to the age of about 19, I loved sport and watched it avidly. Well, cricket anyway. (Farouckh Engineer, anyone?). But then the marketeers and the sponosorites came in, and I just turned off and tuned out. Never watched sports since.
What interests me, and you lot I suspect, and all good, true honest types, is the sheer enthusiasm of the amateur– or rather, person who does job because they like it,not because they want wife who is famous for hairdo and standing with pout, or husband who flexes muscles and underpants in Times Square.
Though have to admit he looks quite handsomeI sense I am the wrong generation to be commenting in this thread, but if great age has taught me one thing, it is that doing what you like (ie Bob pic One) is warmer and lovelier than Sports Flash Celeb (ie Bob pic Two).
A virtuous woman, her price is above rubies.
Bob drinks Dave’s Insanity Sauce?
Utter buggeration – Grant wins (spits) 1.34 stamps for naming the bottle. Unintended competition.
Apparently so, (when Beast ain’t looking) and he’s wearing pertinent protective clobber.
bq. Aren’t you all doing science because you are just plain interested in it, never mind the rest?
Lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel. But don’t sports celebs do what they do because they like it? Is there not the same level of passion?
Maxine, do you also select wool and flax, get up while it’s still dark and work with eager hands?
Oh, and talking of paparazzi …
{giggle}
Maxine, if more scientists flexed their underpants in Times Square, I wouldn’t need to be writing posts like this.
Yes, Jenny. But that’s because most of them would be arrested for indecent exposure of their beer guts.
I can’t work out what that is in the top left-hand corner of the make-over photo. The rest is pretty accurate (the trick is to empty the bottle, wash is out several times, and then put some salmiakkikossu in it).
Yes, Jenny. But that’s because most of them would be arrested for indecent exposure of their beer guts.
Speak for yourself, honey.
I thought it was a flying manta ray. But hey, you’re the field scientist.
Well, there’s the problem – you don’t get many manta rays in fields.
you don’t get many manta rays in fields
But see the first image on this page .
Groan.
Frank, that’s awful.
Picking up on Maxine’s point, What interests me, and you lot I suspect, and all good, true honest types, is the sheer enthusiasm of the amateur— or rather, person who does job because they like it,
Apparently there are entire companies out there who decide what sort of salary range various jobs are ‘worth’. And it turns out it has little to do with experience or how much education is required, and more to do with whether the job is considered to be creative and ‘enjoyable’ (read, the latter will do it for peanuts because they like it). So in the journal offices where I worked previously, one of these companies (I believe it was called Kroner) was consulted, and the pay scale was duly rejigged. It turned out that editorial — the journalists and editors — were at the very bottom, whereas roles like PR and marketing were supposed to be paid more than double. Never mind that you needed a PhD to be a managing editor but only an undergraduate degree to become a marketeer (and we can argue about which is more ‘skilled’) – it wasn’t about that at all.
Personally, I found that quite offensive.
@ Bob. In the top left of the remix shot is a F15E Vapour.
The shot was taken by Flickr’s Chris M0EEG [1] and with their permission, I included it in my blog banner
[1] Clinical Scientist
Jenny, that thing about ‘enjoyability’? Gets my goat too.
But a rant for another day.
Why rant today when you could put it off til tomorrow?
My sentiments exactly. Graham, that’s a lovely piece of kit.
There are a few of these out there, and they get on the rest of our nerves no end.
I agree, Heather, and at times wonder whether they have ADD, in the sense that they can never get enough attention.
At many universities in the US, contact between scientists and the news media is tightly controlled; in fact, there is usually a person, or department, whose entire job it is to monitor and mediate such interactions. Professor Cara O. Tidd-Sinus of State University, identified as such, cannot discuss her hypertension research, or show her laboratory, or whinge about federal funding to reporters, without going through the media relations office first. So it can be a) annoying, b) time-consuming, and c) disruptive to research and teaching responsibilities.
the protagonists are unlikely to have sex in the laboratory
Perhaps not the human protagonists, but mice and rats and Drosophila and C. elegans on the other hand …. Anyone who has managed colonies of transgenic mice has thrown young virgin females into a cage with a grizzled old stud male on more than one occasion. I try not to think of Hugh Hefner or Michael Douglas on such occasions.
the protagonists are unlikely to have sex in the laboratory
{I am going to resist, yes firmly resist, saying “speak for yourself, honey” yet again. Indeed I am.}
Back to the citizen science thing for a moment. Interesting snippet on the local news this morning about Barnet football club.
Ten GCSE students from Ravenscroft School were chosen to analyse Barnet FC matches and help improve the team’s performance using computer technology
assistant headteacher at the Barnet Lane school bought the £10,000 software as a fun way to teach students analysis skills and develop business links with the community
Seems like a bit of third-stream engagement that could be adapted to the scientific area.
Cath – thank you so much for your kind comment about the Solstice special. It was a mammoth effort for the news and production teams to put together, even without the fire, and they are rightly very proud of it. (It all happened in real time.)
Richard – I don’t know about how eagerly I do it, but I am very driven so I am often up very late at night as well as ludicrously early in the morning gathering the flax or whatever, and thinking about aspects of it in the interim. So that must say something.
Jenny – interesting what you say about marketing vs editorial salaries. A few years ago one of my jobs was to liaise with our marketing department on various issues, and I went on a few external courses and seminars. I was told then how it was so incredibly difficult to get into marketing and PR because everyone wanted to do it, basically you had to live and breathe it and be prepared to work for nothing, practically. No comment on the NPG salaries (actually the time I am talking about is before NPG was formed, late 1990s), but for sure the starting salaries then were a lot less than editorial starting salaries. And advertising jobs are commission-dependent salaries (bonus culture – but so far as I am aware, ad execs actually have to generate revenue by selling ads before they get their bonuses 😉 ).
The comments about beer guts in Times Square are reminding me of that Women’s Institute nude calendar, that eventually became a film and has been much-copied by various groups since. Has anyone done a science version. (Please, Graham and others, restrain from posting videos of any of it! I beg you!)
I think a science version of the nude calendar would have to be a series of scans by different imaging modalities, or perhaps a DNA fingerprint or two.
Here’s the live blog day link on Friend Feed. It is probably in the comments above but here it is again if so.
Phew, thanks, Frank! My rescuer.
The comments about beer guts in Times Square are reminding me of that Women’s Institute nude calendar, that eventually became a film and has been much-copied by various groups since. Has anyone done a science version.
I’m game.
Jenny, I dare you to challenge me to articulate my own intentions as they apply to myself, in the guise of an excretory product of bees.
bq. I think a science version of the nude calendar
has been done. In my dept. (Un)fortunately before I got there.
It was very tasteful, private parts hid behind
tinymagnets, etc.has been done. In my dept. (Un)fortunately before I got there.
Ah yes. As I recall you’re in the Philosophy Dept of the University of Wollamalloo, aren’t you?
Something like that, Bruce. Crack another tube.
There was an urban myth circulating a few years ago that a group of female postdocs in, I think, Barcelona or the Pais Vasco put together such a calendar with tastefully placed pipettors and the like, to raise money for their institute. But try as I might, I couldn’t track down or find anyone who had actually seen one of these mythical calendars.
Henry, I don’t want to know.
I’ve seen the one our dept did. It was all male, don’t think they did a female one.
Aw, nuts to it.
… as it were
99
100?
Richard, I think you just violated the off-side rule, bringing this topic thread very neatly back to full circle.
My fans expect it of me.
Fan_s_?
Pfft.
And here is William Hill’s longlist for sports book of the year.
I’m actually thinking about Henry scripting some celebrity-type items. He seems to be the resident DH Lawrence.
Scripting for what?
I’m just going to point at XXX in the stars and leave it there.
I didn’t think you minded sex: it was the release of calcium from intracellular stores you found offensive.
And did you mean this?
I never said I minded sex.
It’s just that purple cover. My God, it burns.
You won’t like this one, then
Simply outrageous Dr Gee – I love it.
Since Dr Gee has gone daft on his
Release of Calcium from Intracellular Storeschutney to chrome levels, here’s a version (image not chutney) that does not cause instant blindness:-That’s enough book promotion – Ed. (Apart from by the owner of this blog, that is.)
Aha…These books don’t really exist yet. They are fantasy books. Does that matter?
Quite.
So for now, it’s goodbye to ‘rage of stars’ and hello to ‘we let the stars go free’ from (my) good friends, Prefab Sprout.
Neat timing Henry.
In my view (as I do not like sport :-), the science is much more near to PHILOSOPHY than to sport… at least science from Galileo to Prigogine. Science resembling sport is, I think, not about beauty of deep ideas… you can admire genuine science centuries later, the rest
vanishis sport.Einstein´s words:
“In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is why we love him.
I am quite aware that we have just now light-heartedly expelled in imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly, responsible for the building of the temple of science; and in many cases our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances. Now let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult question and no single answer will cover it. To begin with, I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strong¬est motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the townsman’s irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.”
That’s a great quote, Boris. It’s only a pity that he didn’t envisage any women in the temple as well.
Do you think, Jenny, that’s because he was deliberately excluding women or is he using ‘men’ in a gender-neutral sense, as in ‘mankind’?
I’m genuinely curious. He was writing in a different time, the zeitgeist is changéd. It’s interesting that he has ‘there are many’ without a noun, but then says but there would still be some men and continues in that vein.
Today we would have written ‘people’, perhaps, or even ‘scientists’.
Maybe that’s a topic for another entry, though (unless you want to go for 200 comments?!)
Jenny:
That’s a great quote, Boris. It’s only a pity that he didn’t envisage any women in the temple as well.
Boris: Thanks! I agree with Richard. I am not sure, but I suppose the quote is translation from German… However, the IDEA is important, the question about the expression etc. is rather about ourselves :-).
I’m genuinely curious. He was writing in a different time, the zeitgeist is changéd.
Boris: Yes, Richard. The “zeitgeist” is the right word… hegelian Geist on the Napoleon´s horse (when anybody says “zeitgeist” I hear the first tones of Eroica) :-).
good one
Science does actually get the spotlight; to this day, the most watched television event in history is the moon landing!
You may be interested to read a comparison between science and sport I tried to draw a good three years ago, that got published in Chemistry World (pasted below, it’s restricted access). Looking at it again, I’m not sure I’ve thought it through very well (I was still an undergraduate at the time), but any comments?
I think it was the France vs Croatia game in Euro 2004 that brought home to me the peculiar parallels between the scientist and the football fan. Nil – nil in the first half, and les bleus were stroking the ball around with all the elegant precision and control of a white-coated Laboratoire Garnier chemist.
I appreciated their wonderful skill but I couldn’t get fired up about the match. For me to feel real passion, England had to be up there on the screen or, better still, my own club team (Oxford United, since you ask). And then came the thought: a scientist’s love for a particular science can be as committed and irrational as a fan’s love for a particular team.
We all realise that our irrational obsessions with football teams can’t possibly be communicated to people who don’t share them, however much they appreciate the beautiful game. As with football fans, so with scientists. We’re all interested in science, but we also have a special fascination, a love for one area in particular. I appreciate superstring theory (dimly), and I have great respect for those DNA-decoding biologists. But I have an irrational, extra-special love for chemistry.
Other scientists might be interested in chemistry, but they are not generally passionate about it. Yet for some reason, speaking for myself alone, I am fascinated by the logic of the periodic table, the beauty of molecular structures, the clean lines of a mechanism. Not that I shout this in the streets, you understand – not in the same way that I proclaim my support for Oxford United. It’s an inner dedication, which at the moment is helping me plough through vast textbooks to complete my course.
You see the parallel with football: the appeal of one particular club or topic is intrinsic. (Obviously one’s choice of club is rooted in childhood and one’s environment – but then the same could be said for one’s preferred science.) I welcome good science and I enjoy good football, but I only get hugely excited about chemistry or Oxford United.
In an important way, though, scientists are very unlike football fans: they insist on thinking that it is possible to make others share their intrinsic delight in a subject. Many are the articles I have read that bid to thrill me with a description of a newly-discovered binary star system, or a summary of the formation of sedimentary basins.
Well, I’m vaguely interested, but I’m simply not going to become a convert to astrophysics or geology. Likewise, I’m not going to be persuaded to support Stoke City, however much a friend might interest me in their fortunes.
How can I persuade a non-chemist to get genuinely enthusiastic about chemistry? If I merely point them towards the more obviously ‘interesting’ aspects of chemistry – pretty colours, explosions – then, although I might have them temporarily fascinated, they haven’t properly understood my love for the subject. I haven’t transferred my own appreciation of chemistry to them. I have cheated, as if I were trying to pass on a dedication to all things Liverpool by showing a video of their recent Champions League success.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too depressed that not everyone can be converted to the inner beauty of chemistry. Good science, like good football, is appreciated by everyone and maybe we should leave it at that.
But we should always remember that our fascination with one science doesn’t always translate to other scientists, let alone to the general public. Some of you may even have failed to be fascinated by this article – for which Nick Hornby in his novel Fever Pitch provides a suitable disclaimer:
‘I tend to overestimate the metaphorical value of football, and therefore introduce it into conversations where it simply does not belong. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who has had to listen to my pathetically strained analogies.’
Richard, that’s a great piece – thanks for sharing it.
Not sure I agree with this statement:
“Good science, like good football, is appreciated by everyone and maybe we should leave it at that.”
Does sound like a ‘not’ missing.
I think that sentence works without a ‘not’ – when I say ‘everyone’, I meant just ‘science fans’, the subject of the piece. I’m not talking about the general public here. I think science fans appreciate good science – even if they’re not excited by it.
Jenny: I think I would disagree with my earlier self that ‘maybe we should leave it at that’, which does seem rather defeatist.
This is a personal fantasy of mine.
For a while when Popbitch was new and exciting, I thought about creating Sciencebitch, as it is the trivial, the mundane and the belittling that many like – and if we want scientists to be on a visible public level alongside footballers and politicians and writers, why shouldn’t we gossip about them? But is that what scientists would really want? Where’s your circle of shame, Jenny?