Fun Photo Friday! Also, Links.

A long while ago, Bill and I had some friends in town and went to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Today, I was digging through some old photos I had forgotten about, and came across this gem from that trip.

OOPS!

I had to laugh. Partially because of the game in the learning setting, partially because of what game it is, and partially because I suspect I have a TON of photos like this; computers showing more or something different than they’re supposed to be displaying.

Perhaps it allowed folks an even greater learning experience than normal.

Okay! Also! Two related links to share with you. Read one or both (they’re fairly similar!), and then weigh in on the one that is appropriate for you. Dr. Janet D. Stemwedel runs a couple of ethics & science blogs and is asking Do scientists have special obligations to society that non-scientists don’t have? As addressed to scientists and the same, for the non-scientists.

I haven’t figured out my answer yet. My gut says there’s something in there about not being condescending assholes to non-scientists, but that really ought to be a given for all people to not be to all other people really. So I’m noodling on it. I hope you all will noodle on it and respond as well. For the record, I have not yet read the comments on either post because I want to know what I come up with before other inputs.

2 thoughts on “Fun Photo Friday! Also, Links.

  1. Well, a mine could set off an avalanche. Just saying.

    I’m not only unsure of what my answer is to Dr. Stemwedel’s question, I’m also unsure in which category my opinion belongs. I work in a lab and do sciencey things, but I’m not a researcher, which is usually what people mean by “scientist.” So… who am I?

    • I was SO close to making that same comment about mines and avalanches…

      As for Dr. Stemwedel’s posts, I wondered about you too. I believe you qualify as a scientist, as I understand your med tech degree is both scientific and beyond the bachelor’s level. But I don’t actually know, as I’ve occasionally gotten the impression that your med tech degree WAS your bachelor’s, which would land you in her non-scientist category. I suggest you ask her on Twitter if you need clarification.

      I do find the categories interesting, in themselves and in conjunction with our perceptions of ourselves. By her definition, I am unequivocally a scientist, as I have a scientific degree beyond the bachelor’s level. But I was massively resistant to Ellen calling me a scientist in her post about dining and learning at my home (you can ask her, and Angelique, about that; we settled on “scientifically-minded”), and I generally don’t think of myself as a scientist at this time, because I am not working in research or any other scientific field/situation. That said, I’ll never forget the department chair at my M.Sc. institution saying that once we had all graduated from that (terminal) M.Sc. program, we’d be biologists. Period. That’s when & how we’d earn that title. Soooo…. I’m a biologist but not a scientist? I’m both? I’m neither?

      I don’t know, and it plays massively into some thoughts and feelings I wrote about for an art collaboration I did with a friend of mine. When it’s online, I’ll link to it. Probably sometime in the next two weeks, I’ll write a bit about that project, but I have to clear it with her first.

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