No, I'm not joking. It's real, check it out:
50 Sexy Scientists
So, what do you think? Would you be flattered to be on that list?
I find it a little disturbing. Giving the scientist's looks the same merits as his/her work is like comparing pears with oranges. Or, like comparing liters with watts. In fact, I think it promotes a disturbingly negative message, which is: do I need to be beautiful to have my work noticed?
What do you think? Am I over-reacting?
NOTE: Link found via A.V. Flox.
No, I don't think you're over-reacting. I saw this posted yesterday on Yonaten Zunger's stream (and he quoted Ms Flox too ;-) ) and left comments too ... in fact Zunger's analysis was quite thorough I thought.
ReplyDeleteAnyways ... I find it disturbing ... deeply disturbing. Not only that, it is socially distracting as well ... it further acts to permit a public already misled by idealogically driven agendas to actively undermine science and scientists. Of course the quality of work is in no way linked to the way a person looks but is there now the suggestion that it perhaps should be? It's debasing and I don't swallow the crap peddled about that anything that raises the profile of science is a good thing for science. Think about it people!
END RANT...
Grrr!
That's a sexy flower btw ... :-)
I totally agree, Geoff, it's misleading at the very least!
DeleteAnd thank you, I figured a sexy flower would help me distract from the offensive post... :-)
Not just no but hell no. How did they even pick who was going to be in the list? There were grad students in there. How does a grad student get enough exposure to land on a list like this?
ReplyDeleteThough they do get a certain amount of props for featuring some diversity, but that doesn't justify this at all.
See, I'm thinking we have a crappy photographer at the lab. If it were me taking pics, hell, you'd see a lot of LANL faces on that list!!! Heehee, I wonder if I could use it as tag line: hire me as a photographer, and you'll make it to the "sexy scientist list". LOL
DeleteSorry, had to make some humor out of it. It's so ridiculously lame.
I agree that it is lame. Science should be about, well, science and not how a person looks.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely!
DeleteYep ... I agree. It's really weird, stupid, insulting etc.
ReplyDelete