Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Ted Williams and the power of will
Its been pointed out (and I recognize) that I have a tendency to feel sorry for myself at times, and stories like this one make me feel like I've just been bitch-slapped by that drill-sergeant marine dude in the Geico commercial. Ah, I love a good dose of humility, humanity and stories of good things happening to people since they seem to be so rare these days.
Science: theory vs. practice.
It's funny, thinking back to when I was a kid I and a few friends were totally into science, i.e. NASA, microscopes, lasers, reading Omni magazine, building complex models, breadboarding and the like. We didn't neccessarily want to figure out how stuff worked, but were content in our fascination that it worked at all. Nothing was sacred. One week it might be radio-controlled cars, the next telescopes. rockets then a Timex-Sinclair 1000.
While none of my old pals nor myself ever became "scientists" in the strictest sense, many of us had become what I can now call practical scientists. Think for a second about the academic scientist. Gets a grant, shows up daily to a lab, classroom or office often worrying about publishing or perishing. No one would question their station as a scientist per se. Admit it, you see a white-guy in a lab coat probably wearing glasses with cold hands and greying temples.
Now think for a second about the practical scientist. That contruction crew working on the new freeway overpass? the electrician? the network administrator at work? Hell, even the plummer? All practical scientists in my book. In fact, I think they are and other professions are getting screwed, tossed into the blue-collared bin of status and pay while their supposed brainier counterparts walk ivory corridors envisioning and theorizing.
Don't get me wrong, I have a total appreciation for academia and empirical/theoretical science. I just wonder who determined that the geometrist is a scientist but the man responsible for actually building arches and buildings with complex angles every day is not. Or that Georg Ohm was a pioneering physicist, but the electrician who utilizes Ohm's Law daily and whose very life might even depend upon its understanding isn't considered a scientist, either.
I just wonder when a social revolution of sorts will change that, kind of the way that punk rock challenged the notion that it somehow took something a lot more than a cheap guitar and three chords to start a band and become millionaires. Perhaps selfishly, I for one welcome a change and and am broadening my view of what a scientist exactly is. Join me?
While none of my old pals nor myself ever became "scientists" in the strictest sense, many of us had become what I can now call practical scientists. Think for a second about the academic scientist. Gets a grant, shows up daily to a lab, classroom or office often worrying about publishing or perishing. No one would question their station as a scientist per se. Admit it, you see a white-guy in a lab coat probably wearing glasses with cold hands and greying temples.
Now think for a second about the practical scientist. That contruction crew working on the new freeway overpass? the electrician? the network administrator at work? Hell, even the plummer? All practical scientists in my book. In fact, I think they are and other professions are getting screwed, tossed into the blue-collared bin of status and pay while their supposed brainier counterparts walk ivory corridors envisioning and theorizing.
Don't get me wrong, I have a total appreciation for academia and empirical/theoretical science. I just wonder who determined that the geometrist is a scientist but the man responsible for actually building arches and buildings with complex angles every day is not. Or that Georg Ohm was a pioneering physicist, but the electrician who utilizes Ohm's Law daily and whose very life might even depend upon its understanding isn't considered a scientist, either.
I just wonder when a social revolution of sorts will change that, kind of the way that punk rock challenged the notion that it somehow took something a lot more than a cheap guitar and three chords to start a band and become millionaires. Perhaps selfishly, I for one welcome a change and and am broadening my view of what a scientist exactly is. Join me?
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