…and this is a 
We have an image problem
Category: Academics
Posted on: February 21, 2008 1:19 PM, by PZ Myers
RPM has put up an amusing bestiary of typical science seminar attendees — it's all true, I've seen all of those people.
But you know what the problem is? It's a collection of pedants and old people! Where are the celebrities misbehaving in our talks? Maybe we'd get more attention for science if we had a Paris Hilton vamping around, or a Britney Spears breaking down and flashing her anatomy, or a Mel Gibson getting drunk and haranguing the speaker about his Jewish background, followed by a Chris Crocker histrionic shrieking at everyon to leave the speaker alone.
Scientists are a pretty dry and sedate lot, I'm afraid. I've never seen anyone like that at a seminar.
Comments
You have not yet been to a TAM, I see.
Posted by: Anon | February 21, 2008 1:22 PM
Scientists are a pretty dry and sedate lot, I'm afraid. I've never seen anyone like that at a seminar.
Not since Richard Feynman, anyway.
Posted by: aiabx | February 21, 2008 1:23 PM
The problem with this, in my opinion, is that the scientific community is not inhabited by people who throw money at a problem in order to solve it, and by people who engage in money-fights as a form of recreation.
As soon as those two types of people show up in the scientific community, the press will arrive in great humming swarms.
Posted by: Stanton | February 21, 2008 1:28 PM
Yeah, & it's pretty much the same at a Humanist meeting.
That's why I like going.
Posted by: Richard Harris | February 21, 2008 2:02 PM
Yeah, but which one are YOU, PZ?
Posted by: Ric | February 21, 2008 2:04 PM
I haven't made it to TAM (JREF) yet, but some of the stories I've heard would probably make Paris Hilton blush. That's not a scientific seminar, exactly, but there's lots of scientists there.
Posted by: Bunk | February 21, 2008 2:13 PM
Well, I guess Watson was trying to work on our image problem then. But everyone kept banging on him. What we needed was the "Leave Watson alllooooneee" video a while back. Then maybe he would have pulled a Mel and started a Q&A session with "I've got a question, Sugar t*ts...". Then again, who's to say he hasn't done that already?
Maybe it's the damn librul media and their slanted coverage...they just wont promote the "post-docs gone wild" videos.
/Now I feel kinda bad picking on an old guy who drove the genome project concept.
/ducks and leaves hurriedly...
Posted by: Anonymoustache | February 21, 2008 2:21 PM
...thanks, I think I'll pass on that one - I'll prefer scien(ce|tists) to stay boring! :P
Posted by: Muffin | February 21, 2008 2:24 PM
Michael Ashburner anyone?
Posted by: AlanWCan | February 21, 2008 2:29 PM
"But you know what the problem is? It's a collection of pedants and old people!"
Uh huh. And as described in the linked post, they're also all MALE.
I try not to get my back up about these things and appreciated the humour in Jonathan's post, but it doesn't help to forget to be inclusive of all the women also in science who, of course, fit into all of these categories too.
Posted by: trying not to be peeved | February 21, 2008 2:44 PM
Yeah PZ, give us some interesting nugget about yourself, like how you do your best work in the strip joints of Morris.
Posted by: Genuinely Doug | February 21, 2008 2:53 PM
It doesn't matter what kind of meeting it is. Something about the tone of a meeting or seminar has a hypnotic effect over me and I get sleepy. Turn down the lights even a little and I'm out.
Posted by: mirror | February 21, 2008 3:18 PM
I'm with mirror. It doesn't matter what it's about, if I'm interested, or anything. I'll still fall asleep.
In college, if I made it through one entire day without falling asleep in a single class, my friends were amazed. It happened maybe 2-3 times a semester, at most.
Posted by: Eric | February 21, 2008 3:35 PM
Ever heard M.L. from Berkeley speaking about the evolution of GRNs during ventral midline formation in insects..or about heart development in tunicates?
That guy's stage performance is better than Britney's ever was.
Posted by: lannejhang | February 21, 2008 4:01 PM
We need to bring back the knock-down fights of the cladist/phenetics/evolutionary school days. Systematists with chairs would be pretty exciting. ;)
Posted by: Diego | February 21, 2008 4:52 PM
Logo Comparison: Is Apple An Atheist Cult?
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | February 21, 2008 4:54 PM
Those are great- apart from the assumption that all audience members are male.
Also, it it's rambunctiousness you crave in a science seminar, I find that us geologists are a bit of a noisy lot (it may help that most of our meetings/seminars/discussions involve copious amounts of beer).
Posted by: Skarnoid | February 21, 2008 4:54 PM
Who needs Britney in there flashing her vadge when we've got PZ and his glorious right nipple.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | February 21, 2008 4:55 PM
Well, you can always invite me and I'll pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Posted by: Bullwinkle | February 21, 2008 5:05 PM
PZ: Maybe it would help if you jumped up and down on Genie Scott's couch and screamed how much you love your wife? (Genie will need to video this and then put it on YouTube). Or you could decry the use of antidepressants at the next Tangled Bank? Or show up at a science conference wearing a short skirt with no panties?
Think any of that would help?
Posted by: Dan | February 21, 2008 5:08 PM
If it's action you want, the place to go is the American Psychological Association when they have a seminar on waterboarding's efficacy as psychological therapy.
You never saw such a brou-ha-ha of boisterous braniacs in your life, as they slash at each other with razor-sharp goatees. The carnage, as one Midshipman said about the the HMS Reindeer after it was attacked by the American brig Wasp in 1814, "was dreadful".
Posted by: Mooser | February 21, 2008 5:28 PM
PZ:
Well, as grad students (both male and female), we did vote one speaker the "Most Effective Use of Skintight Jeans by a Physics Colloquium Speaker" award. But she was kind of atypical.
Posted by: Epikt | February 21, 2008 8:04 PM
I do think RPM missed one class of attendee--The Main Event. This person uses a 45-minute seminar as a warm-up for his own (possibly relevant, possibly not) endless monologue masquerading as a question.
I saw a priceless example of this years ago. When the guilty party, after droning on and on, finally finished his interminable monologue, he turned to another attendee (a future Nobel winner, as it turned out) and asked, "Isn't that right?" The answer was a measured "No." The speaker's 2-by-4-to-the-solar-plexus expression will stay with me to the end of my days.
Posted by: Epikt | February 21, 2008 8:14 PM
Intelligent people tend not to do unintelligent things. If that makes scientists less likely to be in a tabloid, is that necessarily a bad thing?
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | February 21, 2008 8:29 PM
We may not have people showing their crotches, but I'm watching "Journey of Man" and Spencer Wells is TEH HAWT!
Posted by: MAJeff | February 21, 2008 9:08 PM
I thought that post was really funny, but I wonder if deep down there is an under-the-surface antipathy to people asking questions in general? I find seminars are less and less well attended and questions are viewed as annoyances that prolong the time before going back to the miniprep or getting a cookie. Hmmm. Cookie.
Posted by: Pinko Punko | February 22, 2008 3:47 AM
The equally amusing bestiary of speakers completes the zoo.
Now I get curious - why is Britney's anatomy of special interest to biologists? As opposed to, say Dolly Parton and her absence of children yet exhibiting monumental evidences of belonging to the mammals.
Maybe I'm mistaken though, could it be the dynamics of flashing that is peculiar? In that case Britney as a fairly good dancer would be more of an interest. But I still don't get it, she isn't that good.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | February 22, 2008 9:38 AM
Oh, my. He does have a certain je ne sais quoi - but I don't know what it is.
Monumental? You're referring to Mt. Lustmore?
Posted by: Kseniya | February 22, 2008 10:34 AM
PZ, here is a terrific website rebutting your concern about scientists being a dry and sedate bunch.
Great outright nuttiness.
Best laughs about science and scientists on the web.
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 22, 2008 12:37 PM
Bonehead posta include the website.
http://scienceblogs.com/evolgen/2008/02/these_are_the_people_at_your_d.php
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 22, 2008 12:39 PM
Gerald, look at the first line of the post and let the cursor hover over the link... I'm just saying.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | February 22, 2008 3:30 PM
Gerald, look at the first line of the post and let the cursor hover over the link... I'm just saying.
It's the Elders out to get him, I tell you!
Posted by: MAJeff | February 22, 2008 7:16 PM
David, since PZ directed us to the Evolven site before some of the sharpest and funniest comments were posted.
I checked the times of the postings.
I was suggesting a return to where PZ originally sent us - without mentioning it.
Whatever, PZ did us all a service here because I think RPM's site is terrific, and I had never been there.
For what it is worth, I haven't laughed so much from net postings ever.
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 23, 2008 7:53 AM