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Science 'Not for Normal People'

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on 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".'"

4 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Is this really a problem? by nwbvt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "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...

    --
    Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
  2. Re:Yeah, well... by Dogun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Part of maturing is also realizing that people were full of crap when they wrote you off as a teenager. Sometimes a 6th grader actually has a deeper appreciation for ethics than his or her instructor, or is entitled to an opinion that the author was actually being sarcastic in this essay, or that Steinbeck really was actually not all that talented, or that spending a full year on trig is a waste of time.

    Polling youths can tell us some valuable things about the coming perceptions of society. It is doing the world a disservice to exclude them from voicing their opinions and participating in debate. In this case, kids aren't identifying with scientists, and perhaps that is something worth examining.

  3. Re:It IS boring by SillyPerson · · Score: 5, Informative
    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...

  4. Geeks get no dates by phorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.