Comments

  1. Becca Stareyes says

    Most of my interviews as an astronomer have been pretty mundane but also more for human interest than breaking news. We can see solar eclipses coming after all.

  2. Gordon Davisson says

    Oncologist interviewed about new experimental treatment: generally good, but don’t hold your breath until it’s through trials.
    Oncologist interviewed about incident at chemical plant: very very bad.

  3. Reginald Selkirk says

    Are economists considered scientists? They don’t as a rule abandon failed hypotheses.

  4. Siobhan says

    @6 Pierce R. Butler

    Good thing climatologists & meteorologists never get asked about current events.

    that’s numberwang

  5. wereatheist says

    I hope that before my cancer will be mentioned in the local news, I’ve been told the horrible prognosis already.

  6. brucegee1962 says

    Are nutritionists so low because they don’t affect us much, or because everyone assumes now that they’ll reverse themselves every decade or so? I swear, they give all the rest of the sciences a bad rep.

  7. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I swear, they give all the rest of the sciences a bad rep.

    Yeah, I hear you on that. To me it seems strange that both a low carbohydrate diet (prediabetes), and a low saturated fat diet (Mediterranean for cardiac health), seem remarkably the same except for “Crisco” vs. Virgin Olive Oil. I was losing weight on a higher saturated fat diet (more Aktin’s, high protein), than the lower fat diet with virgin olive oil….I’ll figure it out. I don’t simply want to blame it on the change in meds, which shouldn’t make a difference in weight change *snicker*.

  8. Ichthyic says

    Put psychologists and sociologists on the left margin.

    yeah, because understanding the threat authoritarianism poses to society isn’t at all relevant.

    nope, nosirree.

    this used to be a place where science was actually discussed.

    now, I see it becoming less and less so, and more and more bullshit.

    guess what? psychology is science. sociology is science.

    get the fuck used to it.

  9. Holms says

    I’ve no idea why astronomy is so high, the only things you’re likely to hear in such an interview are:
    a) Earth is going to have a near miss event soon; and by ‘near’ miss we mean perhaps three times further than the moon.
    b) Something arcane and incredibly remote to everyone’s lives is happening. No one will notice.
    c) A major solar flare! This means polar regions will have intense aurorae, and your tv / radio / phone transmissions will have some extra crackle. Oh and there is the possibility that within the next century, there will be another Carrington Event level flare, which will actually be bad depending on the state of the nation’s electrical grid.

  10. says

    Ichthyic@#17:
    It’s about how seriously we should take what reporters say about those fields. Now go tell me all about how credible the reporting on the social sciences are – and don’t mistake credulity for credibility.

    Yeah, they’re sciences. So are cargo cultists. The social scientists used to be worse but now are definitely better – better than cargo cultists, I mean.

  11. unclefrogy says

    well, if they are featuring a whole lot of differing economists that would indicate that something is going on that no one expected and it looks bad and or someone is planing some new shit that will likely fuck everything up worse than it is “normally”.
    but I am so low in the order of things there is likely not much I can do about it any way! so I may not get too worried :-(

    uncle frogy