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CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".

IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 14years old!
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It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.

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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

31. paddyirish
    Member

    One of the things that irks me about the establishment is this view of science as something inaccessible and difficult.

    Is it just me but something that really bugs me on University Challenge is that Paxman expects folk to know the obscurest things about classics and the arts but seems astonished and in awe when someone gets the simplest science question correct?

    If one of our pre-eminent political interviewers is
    so much in the dark and fails to ask probing questions.

    other questions I would love to see in any "scientific" interview

    - Which organisations have funded your work? ("Aah Shell- they must be delighted that you have found that fossil fuels don't contribute to climate change")

    - Supposing the unthinkable happens and you are wrong in your predictions/recommendations, what is the worst that could happen?

    Climate change believer - we make economic savings
    Climate change denier - ???

    Posted 9 years ago #

32. Greenroofer
    Member

    @paddyirish on the economic case for cycling to work, compared with bus pass...

    Initial outlay £16/month on C2W for three years
    ...then need to replace the bits on the bike that were rubbish
    ...then joined an online forum that opened my eyes to the need for another (folding bike)
    ...then continued C2W at £21/month for another three years to pay off this n+1
    ...then bought bits to replace the bits on bike 1 that had worn out in three years
    ...then bought bike-specific clothing to replace the bike-specific clothing that had worn out
    ...then bought bits to replace bits on bike 2 that had worn out in 1 year
    ...then bought an Islabike for offspring because of an online forum that opened my eyes to those
    ...then bought subscription to a magazine about bicycles
    ...then started buying PoP T-shirts for all the family

    It's a very slippery slope this, and at present the econmic arguements aren't all that robust for me.

    Posted 9 years ago #

33. Stickman
    Member

    "Climate change believer - we make economic savings"

    Not necessarily.

    (...and I realise that I'm coming over like a "denier" here; I'm not.)

    Posted 9 years ago #

34. cb
    Member

    "Is it just me but something that really bugs me on University Challenge is that Paxman expects folk to know the obscurest things about classics and the arts but seems astonished and in awe when someone gets the simplest science question correct?"

    Yes! That annoys me too.
    He likes to show off his knowledge but he doesn't seem to clock that it means he is showing off his ignorance too.

    Posted 9 years ago #

35. Stickman
    Member

    "science as something inaccessible and difficult"

    Science is difficult. It doesn't have to be inaccessible.

    Posted 9 years ago #

36. dougal
    Member

    Denialism is an industry that reuses the same tactics over and over regardless of topic - tobacco, alcohol, road safety, climate change, telecoms, whatever. The money ploughed into dissembling, obfuscating and getting the public "on message" is staggering and I'm surprised anyone should be in doubt about its mere existence.

    Posted 9 years ago #

37. paddyirish
    Member

    @greenroofer, and what would be the cost if you didn't cycle to work and had to fund an alternative and had to get mini and micro to school.

    Posted 9 years ago #

38. paddyirish
    Member

    A stickman "Science is difficult. It doesn't have to be inaccessible."

    Agree...

    Was in the hell that is Livingston Outlet Centre at the weekend, but did run into a good science festival exhibition.

    Minipaddy sat on a turbo bike and cycled 360 m to light up lights on a board. The same amount of energy would have got her walking 60m and wouldn't have even started the car. (Micropaddy sat on the bike and rang the bell non-stop for 2 minutes)

    In terms of bananas, cycling 2.4km to school would have needed 1/10 of a banana to balance the calorific output, walking would have taken 3/4 of a banana and car would have taken 38 bananas.

    It is simplistic, but she'll remember those numbers.

    Posted 9 years ago #

39. chdot
    Admin

    "Science is difficult"

    That depends what you mean by "difficult".

    Once up a time 'scientists' could 'know' 'everything' (even if they were unwilling to 'believe' every newfangled theory).

    Now there is so much more to know about/understand.

    English Literature was probably 'easy' if you mostly had to know/understand Shakespeare.

    Not trying to suggest there are 'science brains' and 'arts brains' but there are people who find the theory of dynamo lights 'difficult' and people who don't 'understand' novels...

    Posted 9 years ago #

40. fimm
    Member

    Only one British Prime Minister has had a science degree. I think this is an interesting and somewhat depressing statistic.

    Posted 9 years ago #

41. paddyirish
    Member

    @fimm

    and she didn't do much to forward the advancement of Science.

    Great story recently about her relationship with Dorothy Hodgkin

    Posted 9 years ago #

42. mgj
    Member

    Thatcher's main contribution was as part of the team that invented soft scoop ice cream (adding air to the existing product to increase profits).

    And for those who want some alternative literature that looks at how difficult it is to package climate change into a realistic threat that can have action taken on it, can I recommend "The Kraken Wakes" by John Wyndham. Features rising sea levels (albeit caused by forces from the deep melting the ice caps).

    Posted 9 years ago #

43. SRD
    Moderator

    thanks for the link @paddyirish I'd missed that.

    My parents were friends with some of Hodgkins' relatives (also physicists, as is my Dad), but I've always known more about her husband, who was my supervisor's supervisor. And an influential figure in his own right.

    I didn't know of her connection with Thatcher.

    Posted 9 years ago #

44. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Only one British Prime Minister has had a science degree

    I dont think any US president ever has had one either, although Clinton has a BSc in "foreign service", I'm not sure that counts and he went on to do PPE. Jimmy Carter learned nuclear engineering in the navy at college level but never got any formal qualification for it. Came in handy when Three Mile Island melted down on his shift.

    Posted 9 years ago #

45. fimm
    Member

    I'm not a fan of Thatcher's politics, but it happens that I read Chemistry at Somerville College Oxford, as she did. One of my tutors also did crystallography and herself was tutored by Dorothy Hodgkin. I don't talk much about Oxford, but I do find that connection to such a remarkable woman very cool.

    I have a biography of Hodgkin at home. I hadn't picked up that her husband was a significant person in his own right, though!

    Posted 9 years ago #

46. paddyirish
    Member

    @fimm small world - I did Chemistry at St Hugh's. Jo Peach was the only Lecturer I remember from Somerville, though I tended to minimise all contact I had with the DP - Organic Chemistry and I did not get on...

    Posted 9 years ago #

47. paddyirish
    Member

    @srd, @fimm

    A Hodgkin family member's take on this article and the play

    Maybe the BBC article didn't want the truth to get in the way of a good story.

    Posted 9 years ago #

48. fimm
    Member

    @paddyirish interesting article, thank you.
    "Maybe the BBC article didn't want the truth to get in the way of a good story." The author of the article does acknowlege that the play is fiction, before going on to make (reasonable) objections to the way the characters were portrayed.

    Jo Peach was one of the Somerville tutors when I was there. The other (the crystallographer) was Margaret Adams. I don't recall her lecturing, though.

    (Mega thread drift...)

    Posted 9 years ago #

49. SRD
    Moderator

    so glad you posted that. reassures me that my reaction to the BBC piece (i never met him, but was similarly baffled by the 'Tom'), was not out of whack.

    Posted 9 years ago #

50. fimm
    Member

    Decided to google Dorothy Hodgkin's husband who turns out to be "an English Marxist historian of Africa" hence SRD knowing more about him than his wife!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lionel_Hodgkin

    Posted 9 years ago #

51. SRD
    Moderator

    His festschrift, cited in that article, was co-edited by my predecessor at Edinburgh, Chris Allen (also one of his students).

    The other co-editor, RW Johnson, may be familiar to the more erudite amongst you for his writings in the LRB. *

    Odd that the article doesn't mention that they were Quakers, which I think was very central to many aspects of their life and work.

    *occurs to me that that might suggest I consider myself amongst said erudite folk, whereas in reality I avoid his writing like the plague...

    Posted 9 years ago #

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