On 15 Nov 06, at 12:03, Lesley Paterson wrote:
> To add to Francis' comments - I was a 9 year old wanna-be marine
> biologist once.... Horace Dobbs (man who studied solitary dolphins and
> must have been over 50 at the time); Terry Nutkins and Johnny Morris
> (born 1916) were who I looked up to. Didn't even think about their age
> AT ALL - it was who they were and what they did that I was interested
> in.
Indeed. Passion cuts through age, gender, class and cultural
barriers. My old PhD supervisor, Phil Williams, had it in
bucketloads. It's individuals that matter, not socio-economic
classifications.
And to add to what Jenny Gridstock wrote, age limits discriminate
also against career switchers, whatever their gender. Not every
scientist begins professional life in their early to mid-20s. In an
age of open and flexible labour markets, in which people are expected
to use their initiative and retrain if necessary, this needs to be
taken into account not only by employers, but by all those involved
in the selection of people for particular roles.
Francis
--
Dr Francis Sedgemore
telephone: +44 (0)7840 191336
website: www.skysong.eu
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