Comments on: Great moments in irony

By: mocon

mocon — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 01:59:00 +0000

“…won the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.”

No matter how many times I see this written or spoken, it always looks/sounds to me as if there is some doubt as to which Nobel Prize the person won.

But that’s my issue to work through.

By: Ritchie The Riveter

Ritchie The Riveter — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 17:03:00 +0000

Must respectfully disagree, at least somewhat.

The true scientist listens … but there is a difference between listening to, and acceptance of, what is being said.

And the true scientist will insist on doing his/her work with intellectual honesty, even when such honesty demands that they refuse to conform to how others believe they should be doing that work … or even when the truth leads them to a way different than their own.

It is the difference between the effort to determine what is real and true … and trying to define reality as one would like it to be.The former, is true science … the latter, leads to junk science.

By: Wojtek Swiatek

Wojtek Swiatek — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:50:00 +0000

I was tested at school to check if I would be better in “scientific stuff” or “classical / liberal arts”. The result was obvious: I was clearly gifted for literature and, unfortunately, had a “scientific IQ” between a worm and a flea.
They were right: I am very proud of the nice wording in my PhD thesis in physics.

By: John Personna

John Personna — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:18:00 +0000

A great moment in motivation?

After my first freshman mid-term in chemistry, my prof asked me “are you sure you are cut out for this major?” It worked for me. Though I took my chem degree and ran off to computers.

By: Ritchie The Riveter

Ritchie The Riveter — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 15:07:00 +0000

Looks to me like this guy could be the embodiment of what Edison described at the intersection of perspiration, inspiration, and genius.

A person does not have to be a Rhodes scholar to rise to the top in the areas of science and technology … but they do have to have both initiative AND intellectual honesty if they are to rise in a sustainable manner.

In fact, those who do not have “natural” genius, but have to work at everything they ever did from grade school onwards to rise, can rise to greater heights than those who can rely on their “natural” genius (or the mere appearances of it) to get by … because the former has had to develop the initiative and discipline to “perspire” to genius, and also has had to develop a low tolerance for rejecting the facts and replacing them with how they (or their funders) wish things were, to remain there.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 13:08:00 +0000

Well, training to be a factory worker is at least something with actual, tangible, benefit to the student, because personally, I don’t find: “expert standardized test-taker” to be a viable vocation.

By: Louis Gonzales

Louis Gonzales — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:39:00 +0000

GK Chesterton is wonderful! :(

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:50:00 +0000

To be fair, schools back then were about training people to become reliable factory workers. Not unlike today.

By: welcomeabored

welcomeabored — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:47:00 +0000

Yep, ‘Death By Parents’ professional suicide.

By: drabkikker

drabkikker — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:16:00 +0000

Why did they re-type the excerpt in an electronic typewriter font while they had the original card at hand?

By: silkox

silkox — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 05:31:00 +0000

No way! Read The Man Who Was Thursday.

By: robert feller

robert feller — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 04:13:00 +0000

Can you image if teachers gave that type of input today!?!?!

By: Daemonworks

Daemonworks — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 01:51:00 +0000

he will not listen, but insist on doing his work his own way

In other words, do exactly what makes somebody a good scientist.

By: Xof

Xof — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:15:00 +0000

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/irony

By: Marvin Tucker

Marvin Tucker — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:52:00 +0000

Can we all agree that this is not a moment of irony?

By: AverageRandomJoe

AverageRandomJoe — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:15:00 +0000

No, there would be result bias. I am sure if you asked this same teacher about a Prize winner, he would say he knew he would do great things for science . . . until you showed him the old report card. Few people are going to say that they someone who got the Prize would never make it.

By: Jean-Baptiste Bianquis

Jean-Baptiste Bianquis — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 21:46:00 +0000

Seriously ? I am sure there are exceptions but saying it’s a toss up is a huge stretch. For instance, if you consider at the (20 or so) French laureates of the Nobel prize in physics or the Fields medal (the maths equivalent), every single one of them was a top (as in top 0.1% at least) student by the end of high school. This doesn’t mean their teachers necessarily liked them (though it’s likely) but they certainly wouldn’t have labelled them hopeless failures.

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:42:00 +0000

Have you read any Chesterton? I have, and it seems to me that teacher made the right call.

By: RedShirt77

RedShirt77 — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:35:00 +0000

Right, I fully concur that we want scientists that think up bullshit, I am just not sure we want them to believe it after testing shows it is bullshit.

By: niktemadur

niktemadur — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:32:00 +0000

Teacher as “expert pundit” filling air time, and we all know that suit & tie “experts” on the teevee are correct about as often as The Amazing Criswell.

At least this wasn’t GK Chesterton’s teacher, who told GK (I paraphrase, but only slightly): “If we should crack your head and inspect the contents inside, we should find not a brain but a lump of white fat”.

By: Ramone

Ramone — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:19:00 +0000

If you polled every teacher of every Nobel winner, far more of them would say “That kid was really going places” than “That kid was doomed.” Really? I’d think it was a toss up.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:07:00 +0000

They’re bound to find a genuine loser sooner or later!

By: The Rizz

The Rizz — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:06:00 +0000

So, as long as the teacher bullies every non-conformist equally, it’s OK?

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:04:00 +0000

Of course. The vast majority of non-conventional thinking is bullshit, for the same reason that most possible claims are false. However, science requires changing our thinking in in the direction of being more right, so that those few true sentences that future science will find evidence for and later endorse are guaranteed to currently be among those not currently believed by the mainstream. Most free thinkers are not going to become Nobel prize winners, but Nobel prize winners must necessarily be comfortable rejecting mainstream views.

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:02:00 +0000

“While every successful person has had failures, repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success” — Eric Hoffer

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:55:00 +0000

Every Nobel winner – maybe. But there are certainly some who simply weren’t good at school when they were kids. My own kid is intellectually gifted, but because of mild ADD, he is definitely not academically gifted. Maybe he will grow out of it; maybe he will find a way to excel that doesn’t involve tests and term papers.

The good news is there are teachers and programs that help kids like this shine. The bad news is they’re always on the chopping block.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:54:00 +0000

To be fair to the teacher, I bet they wrote several similarly-worded report cards for noncompliant kids who didn’t go on to win Nobel Prizes.

By: RedShirt77

RedShirt77 — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:53:00 +0000

This is the Scientist’s report card. that Isn’t public record is it?

It sounds more like this guy kept the report card and sent it to the press as revenge after he won. Which I fully endorse.

This teacher was clearly terrible.

By: mtdna

mtdna — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:48:00 +0000

This has been getting a lot of press, and obviously it’s totally disgraceful. But it’s also a shame how rare it is for the media to track down the teachers who saw the potential in these students and encouraged them, which good teachers do. If you polled every teacher of every Nobel winner, far more of them would say “That kid was really going places” than “That kid was doomed.”

By: RedShirt77

RedShirt77 — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:44:00 +0000

Is there a link between this guy being a creative and non conventional thinker and people that believe in superstitious bullshit?