Interesting, yes, but in the time-honoured fashion, the headline overplays it.
Pay scientists for exploding myths? Why? For scientists, this is sport!
The best way is to proceed is surely to improve science education at
school so that loopy beliefs are greeted with appropriate scepticism.
cheers, Hugh Aldersey-Williams
>Today's edition of 'The Times' includes an interesting news article on
>page 9, reporting the comments of Jocelyn Bell Burnell ahead of her
>Faraday lecture this evening at the Royal Society:
>
>Pay us for exploding scientific myths, says leading physicist
>
>Mark Henderson, Science Editor
>
>Scientists need greater incentives from funding bodies and universities
>to communicate their work to the public, one of Britain's leading
>physicists will say tonight.
>
>Efforts to engage lay people with research should be recognised and
>rewarded so that the careers of scientists are enhanced by their
>communication activities and not hindered, according to Dame Jocelyn
>Bell Burnell.
>
>In the Royal Society's Faraday Lecture, the astronomer will explain how
>pseudoscientific scare stories about the end of the world in 2012 have
>gained widespread credence and popularity despite being preposterous
>from a scientific perspective.
>
>Speaking before the lecture, which is given by the winner of the Faraday
>medal for science communication, she told The Times that scientists
>needed to take responsibility for communicating their work so that such
>misperceptions occur less often. "I find it very depressing that so many
>people have so little trust in basic science that they can't see through
>a fraction of these theories that have been proposed," she said.
>
>"Certain funders like the research councils are starting to recognise
>the importance of communicating science, but it needs to be better
>recognised, better rewarded. I think the trends are there already, but
>they need to be confirmed and accelerated."
>
>When Dame Jocelyn was a postgraduate student in 1967, she became the
>first astronomer to identify a pulsar - a kind of star that emits
>regular pulses of radiation as it rotates. Her supervisor, Antony
>Hewish, shared the 1974 Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery with
>Martin Ryle, though Dame Jocelyn was not recognised.
>
>Tonight's lecture will be followed by the Royal Society Rolex Awards
>Scientists Meet the Media Party, for which The Times and New Scientist
>magazine are media partners.
>
>
>
>Bob Ward
>
>Policy and Communications Director
>Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
>London School of Economics and Political Science
>Houghton Street
>London WC2A 2AE
>
>http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham
>
>Tel. +44 (0) 20 7106 1236
>Mob. +44 (0) 7811 320346
>
>
>Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic
>communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer
>
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--
Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Spratt's Green House
Aylsham, Norfolk NR11 6TX
+44 (0) 1263 735670
http://www.hughalderseywilliams.com
PERIODIC TALES
Out now from Viking Penguin
'a fascinating and beautiful literary anthology ... to meander
through the periodic table with him ... is like going round a zoo
with Gerald Durrell. If only chemistry had been like this at school.'
Matt Ridley
'enjoyable and polished' Observer
'great fun to read' Financial Times
'Aldersey-Williams is full of good stories and knows how to tell them
well' Sunday Telegraph
Periodic Tales is my cultural guide to the chemical elements. From
the arsenic in Flaubert to the zinc bars of Paris, and from the steel
in The Angel of the North to the neon lights of Lolita, it's the
story of how we all know the elements without ever going into a
chemistry lab.
Read how I made iodine from seaweed and phosphorus from urine!
Learn where you can buy plutonium across the counter!
Discover why aluminium was once more valuable than gold!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Periodic-Tales-Curious-Lives-Elements/dp/0670918113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295365206&sr=1-1
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