
Drawings of Scientists by kids - apu
http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/
======
tiffani
I like how for some of them the "before" was a male and "after" was a female--
especially with the girls. There's always an uproar about how there's a
distinct lack of women in science and tech, so it's good that this trip helped
them alter their ideas about what and _who_ a scientist could be.

We still live in an age, though, where kids can go for a while through school
with only hearing about Madame Curie and a few others (Magaret Meade, Jane
Goodall, Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, etc.) as women scientists. Not taking
anything away from them, but efforts to change that are always nice (both for
boys and girls). I can remember being in quiz bowl at that age and knowing
that anytime the moderator asked a question mentioning a female scientist, the
ladies above were the likely answers.

~~~
barrkel
An interesting observation I read about a week or two ago when this first
popped up was that not a single boy changed the sex of their prototypical
scientist - every one was male - but some of the girls who drew males first
did.

~~~
sliverstorm
Of course not. Boys envision themselves as scientists in the future (at least
I did), and so they project some of their traits onto the prototype. It
wouldn't make sense if I, at 12, said 'I want to be a scientist.' and then all
the scientists I drew were women.

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jcl
Some of the drawings make me wonder if the kids were coached towards a
specific message...

<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/david.html>

~~~
timinman
It's kind of ironic because what kids are taught is that science is objective.
Instead of learning that about science, these kids were fed dogma - which is
way to common in 'science' these days.

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pavelludiq
I liked the before drawings better, it appears that the kids image of a
scientist was replaced by an image if a regular person, that somehow made the
drawings more boring. Just check the contrast(this is the best artwork IMO):

<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/nick.html>

It appears to me that the second one was done with a lot less enthusiasm.

edit: The feet are drawn sloppier in the second one, also theres less detail
in the face, no background, i think the kid just didn't know how to portrait a
scientist anymore, so he did a generic person drawing, and since these are
boring, he did a sloppy job at it. My 2c.

~~~
potatolicious
This isn't about _liking_ the drawings - this makes the important distinction
to kids that being a scientist doesn't mean complete exclusion from society.
If you read the "pre" pictures from a lot of the kids, their perception of
scientists was that of the aloof, disconnected, and obsessive. A visit to the
lab changed that - and that can only be a good thing.

No matter what, kids (nay, all humans) desire to fit in. You cannot
successfully ask them to go down a career path if you're going to be a
surefire misfit/loser the entire way.

The fact that they now perceive scientists as normal people with no-so-normal
jobs (to quote from one of the kids) is great, and perceptions like this will
serve the scientific community a lot better than that of the obsessive maniac.

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blahedo
Interesting that the "before" virtually always are chemists _in the lab_ ,
wearing a white lab coat and playing with some liquid, usually in a conic
beaker. Aside from the "normal person" angle, it's interesting that the
prototypical scientist is never a physicist or a field biologist, much less
something as exotic as a computer scientist.

~~~
philwelch
Computer science largely falls under the old dictum, "if it has the word
'science' in the name it isn't one".

~~~
Rhapso
Yes and no. While computer science research tend to overlap with other domains
of study, there are many avenues of study that fall souly within it,
Encryption, algorithms, discovery and application of probabilistic and logical
laws. Just because you mostly hear about computer scientists running off and
being programmers, dose not mean there is not serious research going on.

~~~
calcnerd256
Be careful not to confuse science with pure mathematics.

~~~
william-newman
The math in computer science may not be much like the usual idea of science,
but neither is it what people ordinarily mean when they say "pure
mathematics." It's much more nearly "applied mathematics," like statistics or
signal processing or control theory: more likely to be interested in, e.g.,
the development of wavelets than in a proof of the Poincare conjecture.

Maybe it would've been more logical if the applied math end of the CS field
had ended up with an applied-math-y name comparable to "statistics", e.g.
"algorithmics" or "algorithmic analysis," and much of the rest of the CS field
had ended up "software engineering" or "computer engineering" or
"computational engineering" or "information system engineering" by analogy
with "electrical engineering." But naming of technical fields is not
necessarily systematically logical, sometimes because of old idiosyncratic
reasons to avoid ambiguity with other pursuits: "astronomy" vs. "astrology,"
anyone?

~~~
calcnerd256
Software engineering may be (currently) part of CS, but theoretical CS is more
than just applied statistics. The halting problem, one of the most famous
undecidable problems, is pure math and is CS. Lambda calculus is CS and is
pure math.

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bch
Nick and Pat were sitting next to ea. other during the "after" session and
collaborating :)

<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/pat.html>

<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/nick.html>

~~~
sesqu
I have a feeling that's a guy they met. Maybe a guide or speaker. Other common
features were a man with a striped shirt, and possibly a woman who talked
about her extramuros life.

All of these have the same beard:
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/pat.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/nick.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/jesse.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/michael.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/david.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/kevin.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/matt.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/amanda.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/betsy.html>

And these the shirt: <http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/amanda.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/betsy.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/jeffrey.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/kyle.html>
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/james.html>

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WilliamLP
Wait, so now I can't wear functional coats and glasses anymore while making
discoveries? I have to care about _fashion_ now? Well damn it.

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thefool
I'd defintely be more motivated to do science as a kid imagining that it was
all about blowing things up.

Also, this misses the fact that society just doesn't give too much funding for
people doing the type of science that goes on at fermilab. The people that
those kids saw were generally those that made it.

There are tons of people that study to be scientists and then end up not
making the cut and having to spend the time afterwards working a science job
like any other, often without much of the initial passion and curiosity.

Thats not to say that it might be better to (as a society) push people to
learn about how the world works, than about something like buisness. At least
science gives you some training in thinking.

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code_duck
Wow, this is great. I love the quote "Scientists live in their own world and
the rest of society puts them there."

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Scott_MacGregor
I call hoax on these drawings.

Look at them and notice how every drawing focuses heavily on the buttons on
the shirts and coats. Plus the body sizes are very similar from drawing to
drawing. This seems outside the level of probability for a sample of drawings
this small. I highly suspect that all of the drawings were drawn by one adult
trying to make it look like students drew them.

~~~
Robin_Message
People who haven't learnt to draw (and I'd include all the children in this
except possibly Nick and Matt) tend to draw symbols instead of accurate
representations. So, what's the symbol for a scientist? A lab coat. What's the
symbol for a lab coat? A white coat shape, with buttons down the front.

The children are about ten years old, right? So, despite their lack of skill
in seeing, they have the dexterity to draw what they want to draw, and so
you'd expect them to draw similar body sizes, in approximately the right
proportion (except for the eyes which we tend to perceive as 1/3 of the way
from the top, when in fact they are the midpoint.)

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cilantro
"The stereotype gives the impression of a geek with glasses or someone who is
bald. Actually, they are just people who ask and answer questions."

Nice!

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joejohnson
This looks very staged. I can't help feeling the children we're given strong
guidance in what to write/say in their after pictures.

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jufemaiz
Fantastic to see some of the mystic being taken out.

Next up: engineers! (No, we don't all fix cars or build bridges… ;))

~~~
sliverstorm
stereotypically, engineers design cars- they don't fix them. Someone who fixes
cars is called a mechanic.

Of course, modern bouts of sprucing up job title names (my favorite is
'sanitation engineer') means that mechanics can throw stones at me and demand
I take that back. I liked the real names better. It's easier to tell people I
worked as a bag boy than a 'courtesy clerk'.

~~~
jufemaiz
Unfortunately it depends where you live. In Australia they're the ones who fix
cars.

Does the US have a requirement that engineers are engineers (qualified
engineers that is) ala claiming one is an attorney?

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joejohnson
These kids are pretty terrible artists. Seventh grade is old too, these kids
are like 12-13?

~~~
mcantor
Gee, thanks, Maddox[1]. ;-)

[1] - (WARNING: Not safe for work.)
<http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule>

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jayair
"... Things that may change the world someday. Maybe not today, maybe not
tomorrow."

Well said.

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benbeltran
I love how the after is regularly "normal people with exciting jobs". I hope
these kids become scientists :D

~~~
pbhjpbhj
That actually disappoint me - that the quest for scientific understanding is
being demoted to being just a job and not a vocation. To me a scientist will
never really be someone who just does science for their job (no true
[scottish] scientist would do that!!) - indeed a scientist needn't work as a
scientist IMO.

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olliesaunders
I wanted to be a scientist. :-(

~~~
peterwwillis
What's stopping you?

~~~
olliesaunders
I couldn't get a degree.

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unwantedLetters
This REALLY makes me wonder which I'd want to be:
<http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/dans.html>

I love the effort, mystery and imagination that went into the first one. Would
I want to be a guy that inspires that, or would I want to be the guy that
inspires the normal "scientist" in the next drawing?

The first one brings about a sense of awe for these brilliant people that come
up with fantastic answers to really difficult questions, while the second one
reminds us that even the scientists are humans, and have a social life and
enjoy themselves.

Both have their pros and cons.

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tkahn6
Andy depicts some pretty badass scientists.

~~~
philwelch
Link: <http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/andy.html>

