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.

Reblogging for the comments, ‘cause I’m tired of seeing this on my dash.

(via space-tart)

studentlifenetwork:

Canada’s Luckiest Student 3 has officially launched. Since it’s the third time around, we’re starting with three awesome prizes that will have one Canadian student thanking their lucky stars. 

Check them out: http://canadasluckieststudent.com .

Prizes are coming fast and furious, so keep an eye on your inbox. As always, it’s the prize that just keeps getting better.

imagineatoms:

euronews-editorschoice:

[Picture of the day] The moon is pictured traveling across the sun partially blocking its view in this NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory image from October 7, 2010 released on June 13, 2013.

(Photo Credit: Nasa)

This doesn’t make any sense can someone please link me to the source of this picture because the moon should not be lit when the sun is behind it… that’s literally what an eclipse is

This is precisely why everyone should be sourcing things correctly. It’s not that difficult. It drives me mad to click on a source and be taken back to someone’s personal blog.

(Source: euronews-tv-blog)

abrightyoungthing:

onelifeninehearts:

 A Spiteful Snake - Meshuggah

(via abrightyoungthing)

…. I can’t believe this still exists.

Hahaha. In all seriousness though, I don’t understand what about my blog has poor navigation… You shouldn’t have to type in /page/2 or /ask because there are links at the bottom of my page to navigate through the pages and there is a link to the right of my blog to go to the ask page. What’s so difficult?