From the way this is described it will still be within Brisbane's city limits, or at least close enough to not make a great deal of difference.
I still think it's a cool idea, but it's not like it's going to be an isolated science city, more of a science suburb.
(Posting from UQ right now)
I wonder if what really needs to be fixed is the public perception of what science is and does. For better or for worse scientists (in my experience anyway) are not the best communicators with lay people. For example, if I went to a conference and said that I've found a knock out mouse that models a particular illness it is understood that I'm not saying the gene being knocked out causes said illness, I've only found a model, but that's not what the nightly news will report it as.
Maybe science needs to be knocked down a few pegs in the public perception? As far back as the 50s and atomic power (and earlier) the public has been told that science will solve all their problems, has been built up as infallible by the media and by ourselves, so any signs of fallibility are instantly descended upon and torn apart by the public, held up as unacceptable when people in the field know that trial and error really is just how science goes.
Not sure exactly what I'm getting at here, except that we scientists are surely partly to blame for this and if we don't bother to try and fix people's understanding of how science works, well, not one else is going to care enough to bother.
I love how this completely contradicts the basic principles of modern economics and government: The profit motive and market competition. This would make more sense:
"I won't let profit cloud my judgement, even though profit is the foundation of my existence." The point is that one shouldn't let potential profit impair or influence their judgment or how they report their results (thereby influencing others judgment).
There are certainly people who make huge profits by misrepresenting (or simply being sufficiently rigorous with) their results. These people can make huge profits but are not good scientists. The fact they can make money by doing this doesn't justify their actions.
No one is saying that people shouldn't profit from their work, the fact it is so immediately addressed in the the oath is an implicit acknowledgment of how important profit is. That said, science is the pursuit of truth and just because something is profitable does not mean it is true.
Most scientists do not intend to deliberately mislead people for their own gain but to be a good scientist you always have to be looking over your own shoulder to make sure your desires (subconscious or otherwise) are not influencing your interpretation of results.
Or whatever the equivalent is in your lab. I did a bit of undergrad volunteer work (I'm an RA now after my honours year and am scouting for PhD projects)and most of that time was putting together a database of the labs custom synthetic compounds. The sad truth is they probably can't afford to trust you with anything too important (and therefore interesting) so take what you can get and learn everything you can.
You say you are going into a molecular lab, if you hear people talking about running gels and blots see if you can sticky beak in and get an idea of what they are doing and how they do it as protein and DNA gels are a fairly typical assay and a good skill to learn. This goes for any commonly used technique or assay in your lab, you may not have the background to fully understand it but even having a superficial knowledge means you'll pick it up more quickly when you have to learn it 'for real' in your future undergrad work (I assume you're going into science) and will be able to relate it back to a real world situation rather than having to learn about it in a vacuum.
My experience is similar to other science types who have posted here in that research labs aren't anything like a corporate environment. If anything they are like a cult with a charismatic leader and strong inclination towards independence from any larger institute they happen to be a part of. This isn't a bad thing but it does change how to approach your boss and so on. All head researchers came up from undergrad through PhD and post doc so there's no middle-management class who have no idea what the people at the bottom are doing (though some are better than others).
If you're lucky you'll get a small lab and get some one on one time with the lab head, if not you should still learn what you can from the RA or PhD student or whoever has been assigned to take care of you. Everyone will know more than you, at least in their specific field, so there should always be something to learn.
At the end of the day have fun, and keep your eye out for projects you are interested in since it should inform your future study choices.
I watched that tape when I was in school! The fact that he was asking if anyone spoke american was part of the joke because he eventually finds someone who speaks 'English' to which he replies 'Close enough!'.
Maybe it's funnier because I don't actually live in america but I can't understand why that would be censored for political correctness, the joke is based on Big Bird being an idiot.
This isn't that useful with me being in a different country (Australia), but when I did market research and social research surveys (for companies as well as universities) the call lists often came with the job so while we could ensure someone wasn't called again in relation to that particular survey there was no system in place (as far as I was aware, I was only a lowly phone peon) to ensure we never called them again for any survey. But many of the jobs we did (particularly the government jobs for the university) involved issues relating to specific areas (e.g. surveys of the community before gaming licenses could be approved, local water recycling plans) so we only called within the areas affected and I'd imagine our overlap was relatively low. Most people are pretty nice about it too, even if telemarketers have made them paranoid as hell.
He was cringeworthy but...
on
Steve Irwin Dead
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· Score: 5, Informative
.. it's sad to see him go.
As an Australian it was always a bit embarassing the way he perpetuated that particular stereotype but he did a lot of good for the country, not just for tourism but for conservation as well. A fair chunk of his money went straight back to buying up tracts of land for conservation.
While I can respect your opinion (though I disagree with it) your example is pretty poor: Pauline Hanson went to jail in 2003, she wasn't a noticable force in australian politics since (at best) 1999.
Ignore the system fine, yeah it's fairly broken, but don't go acting like the Man is going to come down on you if you try to do something about it.
What I would like to know is how they are counting uniques. There are three wireless DS games out there at the moment (AC, MK and Tony Hawk) all generate unique friend codes so are we just talking about a million unique friend codes or can they (and are they) counting each individual DS that logs on?
Potentially if they are only counting unique friend codes the actual number of people to log on may be as low as 300k (assuming I 1:1:1 split among the three games, I'd say 5:4:1 is more likely, and I imagine you can guess what order those are in).
300k is still impressive no doubt, but its not 1 million.
Slashdot Mirror
From the way this is described it will still be within Brisbane's city limits, or at least close enough to not make a great deal of difference. I still think it's a cool idea, but it's not like it's going to be an isolated science city, more of a science suburb. (Posting from UQ right now)
Maybe science needs to be knocked down a few pegs in the public perception? As far back as the 50s and atomic power (and earlier) the public has been told that science will solve all their problems, has been built up as infallible by the media and by ourselves, so any signs of fallibility are instantly descended upon and torn apart by the public, held up as unacceptable when people in the field know that trial and error really is just how science goes.
Not sure exactly what I'm getting at here, except that we scientists are surely partly to blame for this and if we don't bother to try and fix people's understanding of how science works, well, not one else is going to care enough to bother.
If I had mod points they'd be yours.
No one is saying that people shouldn't profit from their work, the fact it is so immediately addressed in the the oath is an implicit acknowledgment of how important profit is. That said, science is the pursuit of truth and just because something is profitable does not mean it is true. Most scientists do not intend to deliberately mislead people for their own gain but to be a good scientist you always have to be looking over your own shoulder to make sure your desires (subconscious or otherwise) are not influencing your interpretation of results.
Or whatever the equivalent is in your lab. I did a bit of undergrad volunteer work (I'm an RA now after my honours year and am scouting for PhD projects)and most of that time was putting together a database of the labs custom synthetic compounds. The sad truth is they probably can't afford to trust you with anything too important (and therefore interesting) so take what you can get and learn everything you can.
You say you are going into a molecular lab, if you hear people talking about running gels and blots see if you can sticky beak in and get an idea of what they are doing and how they do it as protein and DNA gels are a fairly typical assay and a good skill to learn. This goes for any commonly used technique or assay in your lab, you may not have the background to fully understand it but even having a superficial knowledge means you'll pick it up more quickly when you have to learn it 'for real' in your future undergrad work (I assume you're going into science) and will be able to relate it back to a real world situation rather than having to learn about it in a vacuum.
My experience is similar to other science types who have posted here in that research labs aren't anything like a corporate environment. If anything they are like a cult with a charismatic leader and strong inclination towards independence from any larger institute they happen to be a part of. This isn't a bad thing but it does change how to approach your boss and so on. All head researchers came up from undergrad through PhD and post doc so there's no middle-management class who have no idea what the people at the bottom are doing (though some are better than others).
If you're lucky you'll get a small lab and get some one on one time with the lab head, if not you should still learn what you can from the RA or PhD student or whoever has been assigned to take care of you. Everyone will know more than you, at least in their specific field, so there should always be something to learn.
At the end of the day have fun, and keep your eye out for projects you are interested in since it should inform your future study choices.
I watched that tape when I was in school! The fact that he was asking if anyone spoke american was part of the joke because he eventually finds someone who speaks 'English' to which he replies 'Close enough!'. Maybe it's funnier because I don't actually live in america but I can't understand why that would be censored for political correctness, the joke is based on Big Bird being an idiot.
It's more likely than you think.
This isn't that useful with me being in a different country (Australia), but when I did market research and social research surveys (for companies as well as universities) the call lists often came with the job so while we could ensure someone wasn't called again in relation to that particular survey there was no system in place (as far as I was aware, I was only a lowly phone peon) to ensure we never called them again for any survey.
But many of the jobs we did (particularly the government jobs for the university) involved issues relating to specific areas (e.g. surveys of the community before gaming licenses could be approved, local water recycling plans) so we only called within the areas affected and I'd imagine our overlap was relatively low.
Most people are pretty nice about it too, even if telemarketers have made them paranoid as hell.
.. it's sad to see him go. As an Australian it was always a bit embarassing the way he perpetuated that particular stereotype but he did a lot of good for the country, not just for tourism but for conservation as well. A fair chunk of his money went straight back to buying up tracts of land for conservation.
While I can respect your opinion (though I disagree with it) your example is pretty poor: Pauline Hanson went to jail in 2003, she wasn't a noticable force in australian politics since (at best) 1999. Ignore the system fine, yeah it's fairly broken, but don't go acting like the Man is going to come down on you if you try to do something about it.
What I would like to know is how they are counting uniques. There are three wireless DS games out there at the moment (AC, MK and Tony Hawk) all generate unique friend codes so are we just talking about a million unique friend codes or can they (and are they) counting each individual DS that logs on? Potentially if they are only counting unique friend codes the actual number of people to log on may be as low as 300k (assuming I 1:1:1 split among the three games, I'd say 5:4:1 is more likely, and I imagine you can guess what order those are in). 300k is still impressive no doubt, but its not 1 million.