Comments on: How a visit to Fermilab changed kids' perceptions of what a scientist is, and who can be one

By: NuOrder72

NuOrder72 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Scientist and Mathematicians are all perceived alike and it doesn’t seem to be getting much better. I’m a mathematics teacher and I cannot tell you how many parents come up to me and FREELY admit, “I SUCK AT MATH!!!” or “I HATE MATH!!”, blah, blah, blah…The general population has no problem admitting to such ineptitude, but you NEVER hear a parent (or anyone else for that matter) admit (freely), “I SUCK AT READING!!!” or “I HATE TO READ!!!”

Long story short, the “NERD” stigma attached to someone being good at Math or Science is quite common and accepted by most people.

By: websorcerer

websorcerer — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I am a Ph.D. Chemist (Kansas State University, 1966), and during my career with the Dow Chemical Company I put on chemical magic shows for 5-th graders at the local schools. The idea was to amaze the students and then explain how the tricks work by explaining the science involved. I told them that the understanding of the world around them that studying science provides, allows them to do amazing things.

The tricks involved having the group mentally turn water into ink; stuffing 30 3 ft long sausage balloons into a thermos of liquid nitrogen, extracting them with tongs, and watching them blow up again; an attention solution that changed from blue to clear when someone was not paying attention and then turned blue again upon shaking, …

There was a Q & A session afterward which allowed me to interact with them. They were generally interested and excited.

If you are a teacher reading this, contact your local section of the American Chemical Society to see if they can arrange for something like this.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Seriously guys, just set up an RSS feed from MeFi to the BB front page, it would be easier and you wouldn’t miss as much good stuff.

By: Xenu

Xenu — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This makes a lot of sense, you have to teach kids at a young age that being a “nerd” leads to a fun life, but being “famous” actually means waiting tables.

By: Jerril

Jerril — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pinker’s a founding member :D

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

What happened to the stereotype that scientists have long crazy hair like Albert Einstein and Doc Brown?

By: coaxial

coaxial — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

What’s more important is that more 10% of the afters were women.

Hopefully this quote from a kid at Maker Faire might make your heart warm (or at least cause an ironic gafaw), “Are there any guy engineers? Or are they all women?”

By: m_dow

m_dow — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love how the simple fact of seeing scientists wearing striped shirts made such an impact on how the kids saw them.

By: tjvm

tjvm — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I like Andy’s pictures, because the real scientist is only slightly less evil than the imaginary “before” scientist:

http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/andy.html

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The “before” description of a scientist sounds much more awesome than the “after” description.

explosions with chemicals >> volleyball

By: brooklyntwang

brooklyntwang — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

But labcoats are rad. Why can’t scientists wear lab coats anymore? I went to Fermilab with my wife and we brought our own lab coats for the tour and we were the only ones with lab coats! Come on folks, we don’t have to get rid of EVERYTHING people picture about scientists. Bring back the lab coats!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35848785@N08/sets/72157614386021469/

By: David Carroll

David Carroll — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mainstream media and the general public’s misconceptions are not restricted to scientists.

The majority think there are only two jobs in TV and film: Cameraman and Director, almost always men. Even TV shows and Films perpetuate these myths.

To be fair, many journalists I have worked with do try to avoid stereotypes. It is often (but not always) met with resistance from older/slower lifeforms higher up the food chain. Darwinism can work backwards in my field.

P.S. I got into TV based on a sixth grade field trip.

By: ill lich

ill lich — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I recall listening to some right-wing blow-hard on AM radio going off about how he “didn’t believe these ivory tower eggheads talking about global warming. . . these scientists don’t live in the real world. . .” etc. As he was saying this I was driving past the MIT campus in Cambridge MA, and just shaking my head– seems he had the same stereotypical view of scientists as a bunch of schoolchildren.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

well, whenever I was asked to be a model in the club by photographer or whenever random guys tried to hit on me, the one thing I did to get rid of them is to claim my true identity–a scientist. That worked most of the time, if didn’t work, I then explained to them what I study–prostate cancer. And I have my last resort–tell them the chances of them getting some sort of tumor in their prostate by the age of 75 is 85%. Yeah…I’m a nerd…

By: ian71

ian71 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a scientist and when I’m in the lab I wear a lab coat, but I wear it because I don’t like getting chemicals on my clothes.

Also my clothes are not normal, they are AWESOME. :)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

oh, you want to talk about negative stereotypes of professions? try being a CPA! (for the record, i’m a 43 year-old female with long wavy blonde hair, green eyes, no glasses, 5’7″, 135 lbs. And i don’t do taxes either)

By: ian_b

ian_b — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

before: the nerdy scientist from half life.
http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/amy.html

after: Gordon Freeman
http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/kyle.html

By: PFlint

PFlint — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

CSI, Bones,… I was starting to complain that the (TV) lab person has to be some quirky goofball. Yeah, my wife watches those, not I…

brooklyntwang: Did you feel the power? “Young man, DON’T TOUCH THAT! It’s. Ve-ry. Delikit. Equipment.”

By: surreality

surreality — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Have you considered that simply more people suck at and hate math than reading? ”

Personally, I don’t know if this is true, but I think the way math is taught is what causes a lot of that trouble. I didn’t think I was “good at” math until I had a good teacher. I think a lot of people are the same way and never get that good teacher.

Anyway, these are pretty adorable.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lab coats are hot… and I don’t mean “Wow, she’s hot!”… I mean “Can we get a fan in here?” hot…

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The lab coat/vs non lab coat issue is really one of experimentalists vs. theoreticians. Experimentalists may spill dangerous things on themselves. At worst, theoreticians may stain their clothes with coffee.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ‘after’ drawings are much better, but I prefer most of the ‘before’ descriptions. That might be because they’re selectively quoted though.

A scientist is someone who might also enjoy racketball and a good salad? I guess, but that could just as easily be used to describe a politician, a bricklayer or even a blogger.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Okay, I am a scientist and I work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, so I think I have a pretty good sample of scientists to generalize from. And in my opinion, scientists are not normal people. Yes, they are normal in the sense that they wear clothes they bought at the store, they have hobbies, they put their pants on one leg at a time, etc., which might be surprising enough for a kid. But really, most of them are pretty peculiar compared to the average person. They tend to be somewhat arrogant, obsessive about their work, and to carry their obsessiveness into their hobbies. They don’t just go biking, or play the banjo, they are full-on bicycle geeks and banjo geeks. Whether they are male, female, people of color, christian or atheist, they tend to share this personality type. And I say this with all affection for scientists, and I include myself in all of this. Why would anyone expect scientists to be normal people? Why does science need to be perceived as normal for people to go into it? I don’t think scientists were perceived as normal in the 1950s, but they were all over popular culture, and kids wanted to be like them. Science tends to emphasize certain personality traits and competences that are not necessarily widespread in the general population. Why can’t scientists just be geeky, or cool, or interesting, or weird? Normal is boring. So I just don’t get why we need scientists to be normal in order to attract people to science.

By: xzzy

xzzy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Scientists aren’t quiet and reclusive, either!

In fact, once you get them talking about their experiments, your biggest problem will be getting them to stop talking about it.

It really does astound me that science is on such a decline here in the US, because I can point at pretty much anything here at fermilab (I’ve worked IT here for several years), ask a physicist “what’s that for?” and get a 30 minute description of the function and why it’s important.

Everyone should have access to a large research laboratory like fermilab, we’d be much better off as a country for it.

By: jo3lr0ck5

jo3lr0ck5 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sorry, I saw all the drawings and thought none of these kids will be sketch artists…anyway this goes to show that children need to read more, media portrays scientist in a not very flattering fashion. I once wanted to be a rocket scientist and I knew that scientist had lives outside of work.

By: Hans Davies

Hans Davies — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m really enjoying the GBVness of your comment

By: Courtney

Courtney — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I thought these were cute, but I was a little sad to see that only 10% of the ‘before’ drawings were of women.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Well thats just priceless actually, whats interesting is these children had an iron clad stereotype of scientists, but did not or were not ever told that they themselves were scientists. A childs curiosity, rather curiosity in general is what propels most of us. Though there are just as many scientists that fit the stereotype. I sometiimes walk around the campus where my laboratory is, and well yeah….we are a strange bunch in our own right. Then again, this comes from a tattooed Entomologist who runs feverish while staring at flies! usag

By: Linda

Linda — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In college I was very active in the physics club, and have spend the past few years doing “Physics Magic Shows” to local schools. I love when kids can see science in a way they never thought of it before. Science can be cool and fun in the same way that scientists are just regular people.

By: jaypee

jaypee — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Andy and Joe’s depictions leave me feeling concerned and intrigued, respectively.