{"id":2493,"date":"2009-08-18T10:04:13","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T17:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2009\/08\/18\/galileo-vs-newton\/"},"modified":"2009-08-18T10:04:13","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T17:04:13","slug":"galileo-vs-newton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/18\/galileo-vs-newton\/","title":{"rendered":"Galileo vs. Newton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I didn&#8217;t get a chance to hear <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wnyc.org\/radiolab\/2008\/07\/29\/tell-me-a-story\/\">last year&#8217;s Caltech commencement speech by Robert Krulwich<\/a>, and apparently I missed something good.  This I gather from <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/08\/worldcon_talk_how_to_effective.php\">Chad Orzel&#8217;s Worldcon speech<\/a>, which includes a great comparison due to Krulwich.  I can&#8217;t really do any better than blatantly stealing three slides from Chad&#8217;s talk (although the <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/08\/worldcon_talk_how_to_effective.php\">whole thing<\/a> is worth checking out).<\/p>\n<p>The point of the comparison is to contrast two competing modes of scientific communication, as embodied by our two heroes.  Here would be Sir Isaac:<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/2009\/08\/chad11.jpg' alt='chad11.jpg' \/><\/p>\n<p>Previously, back in Italy, Galileo had tried a different tack:<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/2009\/08\/chad2.jpg' alt='chad2.jpg' \/><\/p>\n<p>With, of course, notably different results:<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/2009\/08\/chad3.jpg' alt='chad3.jpg' \/><\/p>\n<p>Admittedly, this stretches the historical narrative a bit in the service of making a point.  The divergence between Newton&#8217;s and Galileo&#8217;s career&#8217;s can&#8217;t be credited solely to their differences in publication styles.  Galileo was a troublemaker by nature, while Newton was a good company man.  (Although perhaps there is some correlation there with writing styles?)<\/p>\n<p>But the punchline remains valid:  Newtonian publication remains better for your career.  And, implicitly, this hierarchy creates problems for the public understanding\/acceptance of science.  I would add that there&#8217;s certainly nothing wrong, all by itself, with scientific publications that are highly technical and inaccessible to a wider audience; those are always going to be a big part of the way science gets done.  It&#8217;s not a moral failing to write jargon-filled manuscripts that are aimed at other scientists rather than at the general reader; in many cases, that&#8217;s simply the appropriate style for the work at hand.  The failing is when that is the only kind of writing that is respected and rewarded.  Encouraging a diverse portfolio of scientists and scientific publication would both increase the vibrancy of the field and lower the barriers between science and the rest of society.<\/p>\n<p>Also, I would like a pony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn&#8217;t get a chance to hear last year&#8217;s Caltech commencement speech by Robert Krulwich, and apparently I missed something good. This I gather from Chad Orzel&#8217;s Worldcon speech, which includes a great comparison due to Krulwich. I can&#8217;t really do any better than blatantly stealing three slides from Chad&#8217;s talk (although the whole thing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-science-and-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}