Zombie Nouns
here’s another one (TED), picking up on the scientific scribblings thing I wrote month ago. Have fun
Scientific scribblings. “So sorry, that this sound somewhat silly.”
I am a scientist. Admittedely, I’m starting this one up with a slight notion of self-obsession, some almost superficial narcissism, but it is what I am. And as a scientist, I sometimes do all this crazy, weird, and interesting scientific stuff, the world needs to hear about. And that is just the point. The world needs to hear about this stuff. So the main object for scientists should not be committing experiments and brooding over data in small – shelter-like – offices, shared with other similar minded sufferers. Instead it should be about communicating science. I know of a guy who was doing just that; observing nature, doing experiments somewhere in the northern norwegian wilderness. But, although he was doing some fine research, he never turned out to be a scientist, soleley as he didn’t communicate and shared what he was doing. No external input, no allowance of criticism and no chance to aid others in their day to day struggle, trying to solve those greater misteries we encounter every time we open our eyes.
With that being the first stroke in the picture I’m trying to draw, while you are watching, lets clean our brushes and start bringing in some background colouring.
Science is about communication. And if communication is our canvas, then our words and writings are the colours we use to express what we see so clearly in our minds. And whoops, there we are already, right at the core of the biggest problem I see in scientific writing. Way too often, people are colourblind, or restrict themselves to drawing in black and white. And as I may add, they even avoid mixing those two, in order to at least add some fourtynine shades of grey, given a standard variation of around 1, witth a single-directional effect, and a 10% confidence level.
And among all those monochromatic drawings, you’d imagine some colourfull images would stand out, well I guess they would, but first you would have to find them, pick them up and remove all the covering cloth, that we are so used to use ,willingly wrapping up our work, whishing someone would only publish it that way.
Why would we do that? you may ask. Well, because publishing only happens after reviewing, accepting and a whole lot of back and forth-ing (I’m not even sure that word exists, but I’m sure you get my point). And among all those people who observe and judge our pictures, it is almost certain that there is at least one who’s blind to bright, beautiful colouration. And as we are so frightened of rejection, despite the fact that we should have grown custome to it ages ago, we give in. And we take what we created, we put it on a black and white copying machine, and push the button…voila, something acceptable to that crowd of grey authorities we try to impress.
But we lose everyone else. We lose our primal intention: To astonish people, to have them see, have them wonder, and maybe even inspire them.
A final note from the author: This text will (NOT) be reviewed, revised, and/or edited in accordance and intention to match the commonly accepted litterary means of what is generaly understood as “Scientific writing”
Microbegeek 