OK, not Jennifer Rohn (JR) the illustrious author of books, or the collection of muscle, bones and sub-cutaneous fat that constitutes but one example of Homo sapiens (lol, don’t see me getting a call to contribute to lablit any time soon), but rather JR the postage stamp-sized avatar that stares at me every time I log on to NN. At one level I could be thinking about JR in terms of “blog envy”, but at another I’m thinking about what it means to be a scientist. I am reflecting on an article in this week’s Times Higher which has some interesting things to say about scientists (e.g. for some, universities are “places where people with Asperger’s get asylum”; for others, their classes are “padded cells for obsessives”, for whom writing books stops them from “assaulting strangers and being the biggest bores that ever existed”). Let’s be honest guys we are odd. It’s why people like talking to us at cocktail parties; we are an interesting source of benign entertainment. It’s also, I think, why we enjoy each others’ company (you don’t have to justify why your clothes/hair/appearance looks shite, or why you think some miniscule element of detail is important, or why you’ve been up half the night sweating over some ostensibly inconsequential fact or other). Is it good to be a scientist or a curse?
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The Bleet by Ian Wright
Thoughts of a scientist who is no longer "career young". The Bleet is supposed to be half-way between blog and tweet, although it used to mean "blogger elite" (hardly myself). Onomatopoeically pleasing to a grumpy old man. See also, the Urban Dictionary.
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In which I think about Jennifer Rohn
- Date:
- Sunday, 15 Mar ch 2009 - 23:13 UTC
Last updated: Sunday, 15 Mar 2009 - 23:13 UTC
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Comments
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It’s OK.
Thanks for linking to the article, Ian; it’s a great read. The quote of Rivka Isaacson – “A head of department told me that I should consider a career in academic science only if I think about science all the time.” – probably tells me something, as I, for one, like to think that I don’t. And I’m going to check out the Bruce Charlton paper: “What we need are stratospherically intelligent semi-crazies. But what is left at the end of the modern process are hard-working, moderately intelligent dullards… .” Makes me think of Hannibal Lecter.