LabKitty spent most of high school keeping a low profile, taking a page from Red Green on self-defense (Quando omni flunkus moritati). Being singled out with the other smart kids in grades K-6 for the gifted program did nothing if not ensure the wrath of the student body once teenage hormones kicked in. Yes, yes, it all sounds so very cliche: little nerd kid gets picked on. But on the mean streets of Circle Pines, the reality was not quite so Rockwellian. I recall one nerdling who got beat in the face so bad he went to the hospital.
Perhaps this explains that odd nerd archetype: the martial arts fanatic. I have lost count of the number of tech people I have met in my travels who lead a double life outside the lab honing themselves into a remorseless killing machine. There are few things more unnerving than pulling an all-nighter in the clean room all-the-while knowing the guy in the pink bunny suit one vacuum chamber over could at any moment blow a head gasket and demonstrate the five-finger exploding putamen technique. A smaller subset than the spindly asthmatic nerd archetype or the portly diabetic nerd archetype, but still. Joseph Campbell should consider looking into this.
Alas, for all the hours we nerds spend at the dojo, it's an archetype the general public knows not-at-all, their perception of us largely shaped by popular media. One hopes the archetype of scientist-as-lovable-scamp will take root as LabKitty gains popularity. However, at present, we are stuck with a tired buffet of socially-broken weirdos (Big Bang Theory, usw.), socially-broken psychopaths (Archer, usw.), and socially-broken cartoon villains (any PG-13 movie). Mythbusters is about the only TV thing to get it half right, caveats being a decided lack of statistical testing and fighting over lab space.
Moving to cable, we discover The Discovery Channel showing us real nerds in their natural habitat, when they can tear themselves away from aliens and Bigfoot. I shan't name names save to say their selection skews British, which is dirty pool as Americans automatically assign superhuman intelligence to anyone with an English accent. If the GOP had chosen one of the original Spice girls as his running mate, John McCain would have won 2008 in a landslide. Such subterfuge often presents a wee challenge, what with Brits generally rejecting American-style religiosity and all too often having the bad form to do so very publicly. Richard Dawkins has a swell accent, but I doubt TDC will risk adding him to their bullpen. The Roundheads may have long ago dissolved into the English countryside, but over here in the colonies they've still offering up occasional small-arms fire and letter bombs.
Which brings us to our current standard bearers: Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Mr. Nye's friendly countenance has been making the rounds attempting to unalienate the other side of the aisle, including a debate some time ago with Genesis literalist Ken Ham. Much ado about nothing, most sadly concluded after the dust settled, with the forces of light and dark still firmly entrenched and no-man's land not moving much in either direction as a result. Not only were Devo right, they were 30 years prescient.
Bill's partner in bringing good things to public light is Neil deGrasse Tyson, Harvard physicist and Carl Sagan's heir apparent. His set piece is a much needed revamping of Cosmos, the original aging well in content but not so much in SFX, burdened as it was with a nascent digital effects trade easily rejected out-of-hand by the jaded youth of today. I recall the mouth-breathers mocking Sagan's enunciation; I shudder to think what slur they quip of Dr. Tyson, if only in private.
Their efforts to put a human face on science must be exhausting. Yet, I must ask of all this: Cui bono?
A glance at the NIH payline finds it in single digits. The NSF and NASA are in similar dire financial straits. Funding is the lifeblood of research, and calls to reason and the wonders of the universe don't seem to be penetrating the derp shield currently surrounding the taxpaying public. A world without money may work in Star Trek, but I'll start believing it when Tektronix starts handing out free oscilloscopes. No bucks, no Buck Rogers, the Mercury astronauts said. To this we might add: no acetaminophen or anesthetics. Or adhesives. Or agronomy, air bags, alcohol, algebra, alkylation, alternating current, analytic geometry, anastomosis, angioplasty, antiballistic missiles, antibiotics, antimatter, antiserums, antitoxins, or antipasto. And we're not even out of the A's yet.
The modern world owes its existence to scientists. A truth the muggles have conveniently let slip their grasp. This demands rectification. It demands a new nerd archetype. Or, rather, a return to an old one. Science doesn't need friendly guys in bow ties or affable astrophysicists. We need a Luca Brasi.
We had one once: Robert Oppenheimer. A literal bringer of fire. It's hard to imagine Bill Nye quoting the Bhagavad Gita, spooking the horses, scaring the bejeezus out of people. But there was a time our banner man did exactly that. Oppie could just raise an eyebrow and cough, and probably cough some more, and billions of research dollars flew into physics departments across the country. That is, until McCarthy sicced Lewis Strauss on him. A banker. A banker! Newton must be shaking his head up in heaven. Or down in hell, as my right-leaning relatives assure me I'm headed, along with everyone who questions their Bronze-age worldview or knows what a Laplace transform is.
The end result? Not long ago there were calls in Science for a moratorium on physics Ph.Ds because there aren't any jobs for graduates anymore. If that doesn't give you pause, you're not paying attention.
There are endless government monies for war, for welfare, for bank bailouts. But not for research. You could fund a healthy R01 with what the Bush administration spent on its invasion of Iraq every minute. You could fund five million postdoctoral fellowships with what the Obama administration spent on TARP. The DOD gets more tax dollars in one year than NASA has in its entire existence. How bad do things have to get before you get mad?
Funding is our birthright, brothers and sisters. A tacit agreement between Science and the United States Congress. That agreement goes as follows: we work long hours and for not very much money and provide the discoveries and build the knowledge base that industry and government rely upon. In return, Congress provides funding. Not riches. Not opulence. But enough that we can reasonably plan a life having pledged ours to the machine.
Congress isn't honoring the agreement. University research is dying, and nobody cares. Does our plight make the evening news? The Times? Newsweek? No, it does not. We are forsaken. Forlorn. Forgotten. And yet, we do nothing.
America will do the right thing after all other options are exhausted, Churchill quipped. The task before us is to exhaust the other options. It's time for the big shots, the agency heads, the Nobel laureates, to step up. Your accolades, your recognition, your prominence gives you a moral obligation to lead. If that takes time away from the laboratory, so be it. If that interrupts your income from the lecture circuit, so be it. If that threatens your privileged position, so be it. Leadership is not meaningless television spectacle, it's hardball politics.
Scientists built this country, and the union persists only so long as we say it does. Your holy mission is to make that clear to Congress. I'm talking to you Francis Collins. And to you France A. Cordova. And you Charles Bolden. And Francois Englert and Peter Higgs and Michael Levitt and Randy Schekman and Thomas Sudhof and Arieh Warshel. You stand at the head of an army that can bring America to its knees. If a bunch of fat guys in tricorne hats can make Congress waffle on its debt obligations, you should be able to make them fear for their political lives. Here is the message: cross us at your peril.
The day a congressman finds a severed horse head in his bed is the day the payline starts to improve. It's time for you to make that happen.
It's time for the gloves to come off.
Perhaps this explains that odd nerd archetype: the martial arts fanatic. I have lost count of the number of tech people I have met in my travels who lead a double life outside the lab honing themselves into a remorseless killing machine. There are few things more unnerving than pulling an all-nighter in the clean room all-the-while knowing the guy in the pink bunny suit one vacuum chamber over could at any moment blow a head gasket and demonstrate the five-finger exploding putamen technique. A smaller subset than the spindly asthmatic nerd archetype or the portly diabetic nerd archetype, but still. Joseph Campbell should consider looking into this.
Alas, for all the hours we nerds spend at the dojo, it's an archetype the general public knows not-at-all, their perception of us largely shaped by popular media. One hopes the archetype of scientist-as-lovable-scamp will take root as LabKitty gains popularity. However, at present, we are stuck with a tired buffet of socially-broken weirdos (Big Bang Theory, usw.), socially-broken psychopaths (Archer, usw.), and socially-broken cartoon villains (any PG-13 movie). Mythbusters is about the only TV thing to get it half right, caveats being a decided lack of statistical testing and fighting over lab space.
Moving to cable, we discover The Discovery Channel showing us real nerds in their natural habitat, when they can tear themselves away from aliens and Bigfoot. I shan't name names save to say their selection skews British, which is dirty pool as Americans automatically assign superhuman intelligence to anyone with an English accent. If the GOP had chosen one of the original Spice girls as his running mate, John McCain would have won 2008 in a landslide. Such subterfuge often presents a wee challenge, what with Brits generally rejecting American-style religiosity and all too often having the bad form to do so very publicly. Richard Dawkins has a swell accent, but I doubt TDC will risk adding him to their bullpen. The Roundheads may have long ago dissolved into the English countryside, but over here in the colonies they've still offering up occasional small-arms fire and letter bombs.
Which brings us to our current standard bearers: Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Mr. Nye's friendly countenance has been making the rounds attempting to unalienate the other side of the aisle, including a debate some time ago with Genesis literalist Ken Ham. Much ado about nothing, most sadly concluded after the dust settled, with the forces of light and dark still firmly entrenched and no-man's land not moving much in either direction as a result. Not only were Devo right, they were 30 years prescient.
Bill's partner in bringing good things to public light is Neil deGrasse Tyson, Harvard physicist and Carl Sagan's heir apparent. His set piece is a much needed revamping of Cosmos, the original aging well in content but not so much in SFX, burdened as it was with a nascent digital effects trade easily rejected out-of-hand by the jaded youth of today. I recall the mouth-breathers mocking Sagan's enunciation; I shudder to think what slur they quip of Dr. Tyson, if only in private.
Their efforts to put a human face on science must be exhausting. Yet, I must ask of all this: Cui bono?
A glance at the NIH payline finds it in single digits. The NSF and NASA are in similar dire financial straits. Funding is the lifeblood of research, and calls to reason and the wonders of the universe don't seem to be penetrating the derp shield currently surrounding the taxpaying public. A world without money may work in Star Trek, but I'll start believing it when Tektronix starts handing out free oscilloscopes. No bucks, no Buck Rogers, the Mercury astronauts said. To this we might add: no acetaminophen or anesthetics. Or adhesives. Or agronomy, air bags, alcohol, algebra, alkylation, alternating current, analytic geometry, anastomosis, angioplasty, antiballistic missiles, antibiotics, antimatter, antiserums, antitoxins, or antipasto. And we're not even out of the A's yet.
The modern world owes its existence to scientists. A truth the muggles have conveniently let slip their grasp. This demands rectification. It demands a new nerd archetype. Or, rather, a return to an old one. Science doesn't need friendly guys in bow ties or affable astrophysicists. We need a Luca Brasi.
We had one once: Robert Oppenheimer. A literal bringer of fire. It's hard to imagine Bill Nye quoting the Bhagavad Gita, spooking the horses, scaring the bejeezus out of people. But there was a time our banner man did exactly that. Oppie could just raise an eyebrow and cough, and probably cough some more, and billions of research dollars flew into physics departments across the country. That is, until McCarthy sicced Lewis Strauss on him. A banker. A banker! Newton must be shaking his head up in heaven. Or down in hell, as my right-leaning relatives assure me I'm headed, along with everyone who questions their Bronze-age worldview or knows what a Laplace transform is.
The end result? Not long ago there were calls in Science for a moratorium on physics Ph.Ds because there aren't any jobs for graduates anymore. If that doesn't give you pause, you're not paying attention.
There are endless government monies for war, for welfare, for bank bailouts. But not for research. You could fund a healthy R01 with what the Bush administration spent on its invasion of Iraq every minute. You could fund five million postdoctoral fellowships with what the Obama administration spent on TARP. The DOD gets more tax dollars in one year than NASA has in its entire existence. How bad do things have to get before you get mad?
Funding is our birthright, brothers and sisters. A tacit agreement between Science and the United States Congress. That agreement goes as follows: we work long hours and for not very much money and provide the discoveries and build the knowledge base that industry and government rely upon. In return, Congress provides funding. Not riches. Not opulence. But enough that we can reasonably plan a life having pledged ours to the machine.
Congress isn't honoring the agreement. University research is dying, and nobody cares. Does our plight make the evening news? The Times? Newsweek? No, it does not. We are forsaken. Forlorn. Forgotten. And yet, we do nothing.
America will do the right thing after all other options are exhausted, Churchill quipped. The task before us is to exhaust the other options. It's time for the big shots, the agency heads, the Nobel laureates, to step up. Your accolades, your recognition, your prominence gives you a moral obligation to lead. If that takes time away from the laboratory, so be it. If that interrupts your income from the lecture circuit, so be it. If that threatens your privileged position, so be it. Leadership is not meaningless television spectacle, it's hardball politics.
Scientists built this country, and the union persists only so long as we say it does. Your holy mission is to make that clear to Congress. I'm talking to you Francis Collins. And to you France A. Cordova. And you Charles Bolden. And Francois Englert and Peter Higgs and Michael Levitt and Randy Schekman and Thomas Sudhof and Arieh Warshel. You stand at the head of an army that can bring America to its knees. If a bunch of fat guys in tricorne hats can make Congress waffle on its debt obligations, you should be able to make them fear for their political lives. Here is the message: cross us at your peril.
The day a congressman finds a severed horse head in his bed is the day the payline starts to improve. It's time for you to make that happen.
It's time for the gloves to come off.
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