As a follow up to the post “PhD project or PhD projects?“, here is a simple and effective post by Seth Godin:
The best creative solutions don’t come from finding good answers to the questions that are presented.
They come from inventing new questions.
I have posted an update to the e-Office page to include scientific manuscripts PDF management.
As expected, December 21st 2012 has passed. Earth and humans are still there, no end of the world in sight, no apocalyptic scenario (though we had a nice winter storm 😉 )
It is quite impressive that almost 1 Canadian out of 10 believe in these dooms day announcements. See this link: One in Seven (14%) Global Citizens Believe End of the World is Coming in Their Lifetime | Ipsos.
Even sadder, is when a society that thrived on science and technological advances (which is impossible if the fundamental discoveries were not performed), a society that has split the atom and uses its power for energy, medicine… and yes military applications, believes at a level of almost 50% of the population, that Earth age is orders of magnitude younger than science tell us and that the bible provides an accurate account of the creation (In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins.).
When this happen, we as scientists have failed to communicate efficiently with the public. We, scientists, need to get involved and educate on a larger scale.
Last year, I spent one day meeting over 500 students from a high school talking about radiation, radioactivity and its use in medicine. I intend to repeat the experience this year. If I alone, during that single day, was able to reach hundreds of peoples, together we can reach out to millions, covering hundreds of topics.
Wouldn’t it be nice if one day per year would be dedicated officially to science and technology education conferences by experts for the general crowd, coming back every year at a similar date? Every school would have to get this day planned in their calendar year. In return, every University would make their advance graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, researchers and professors available on that day (no classes!)… Wouldn’t it be an exceptional day!
In the mean time, for 2013, I challenge you to give one day: let’s call it the one day initiative (it needs a good name!) to meet, talk with and educate your fellow citizens about science and technology. This can be meeting elementary or high school students, make a public conference, participate in a scientific debate, …
If you like this concept, please do disseminate the link to this blog post and use the name one day initiative as often as you can. Maybe by the sheer numbers we can create something new.
Two of my PhD students have successfully defended their thesis in the past three weeks. For both of them, they have accomplished what constituted the biggest project (in term of scope and time) of their life yet.
However, is it really one project or a collection of multiple projects forming a whole, called a PhD thesis?
This was passed down to me by a good friend (who is also reader of this blog). Have a look and you’ll understand the title of this post 😉
Ruminating... 