Remember that actual physicists can fall into the same trap, and believe themselves to be very smart too. Plenty suffer an irresistible urge to fix every other field that’s doing it wrong.
As an alternative to the various xkcds on the subject, have an smbc instead.
Yes, quite. As a scientist (biochemistry), I sometimes have to catch myself on this too.
A tension that I see within the sciences and beyond is not sufficiently factoring in how good communication is essential to good research. Some of my peers disagree with me vehemently here, arguing that good research is good research regardless of one’s ability (or willingness) to dress up said research with pretty words, but I argue that the whole point of publishing papers or going to conferences is because science relies on communicating our research. I see a weird amount of hostility directed towards scientists who branch out into science communication. I speculate that an analogue of the “physicist instinct” is at the core of this — a disregard of the skill involved in interdisciplinary research, and an unwillingness to recognise how situated one’s own knowledge is.
Remember that actual physicists can fall into the same trap, and believe themselves to be very smart too. Plenty suffer an irresistible urge to fix every other field that’s doing it wrong.
As an alternative to the various xkcds on the subject, have an smbc instead.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21
Yes, quite. As a scientist (biochemistry), I sometimes have to catch myself on this too.
A tension that I see within the sciences and beyond is not sufficiently factoring in how good communication is essential to good research. Some of my peers disagree with me vehemently here, arguing that good research is good research regardless of one’s ability (or willingness) to dress up said research with pretty words, but I argue that the whole point of publishing papers or going to conferences is because science relies on communicating our research. I see a weird amount of hostility directed towards scientists who branch out into science communication. I speculate that an analogue of the “physicist instinct” is at the core of this — a disregard of the skill involved in interdisciplinary research, and an unwillingness to recognise how situated one’s own knowledge is.