6 ms·

"Merkel, who is a doctor of physics, is expected at Wednesday’s event, which is happening in her constituency." A nation lead by a leader that is both a women

by antirez 11y ago

"Merkel, who is a doctor of physics, is expected at Wednesday’s event, which is happening in her constituency." A nation lead by a leader that is both a women and a scientist. I would say this is progress regardless of the experiment outcome.

rb2k_ 11y ago
She's also the daughter of a priest, so we basically have all bases covered :)
- jawilson2 11y ago
  "A woman, a priest, a physicist, and chancellor walk into a bar..."
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Is it really such a big deal there? I don't think people would be very surprised that a woman can be chancellor.
lispm 11y ago
Note that this fusion experiment is also very 'political'. Without reunification and the wish to promote science in the former East Germany, this experiment would a) never have been funded and b) it would have be cancelled because of steep cost increases and delays. The fusion device was built in North/East Germany, whereas the prior research was done in South Germany. Thus it is fitting that Chancellor Merkel attends this event. It's a great experiment and a wonderful achievement, but probably we had different priorities and even different scientific priorities - especially considering the large amount of money invested. There are lots of competing science areas which lack this funding.
cubano 11y ago
I would think being highly competent and good at building political consensus that promoted the good for the people would be the most important things, no matter what gender or profession, no?
- lispm 11y ago
  Political topics in a country of the size of Germany (and even more in countries like the US or Russia which are much larger and have a much larger political reach) are a very complex and complicated domain. I'd say it helps a lot to have the most intelligent political person at the top. Not that I would agree to all of Merkel's political decisions, but she is without doubt the most intelligent politician in Germany of her generation.
- antirez 11y ago
  Woman: is good not because woman is inherently better, but don't we have enough of male-only leaders? However if you ask me women may be superior politically to men in general because of dialectic abilities, human considerations when sending people to war, ability to be brutally pragmatic and so forth. So woman = good for me in different ways. Scientist: I want politicians to do the Right Thing not to build consensus, and I believe a scientist is better in today's world compared to another politician by profession that comes from a different non-specializing background. It could also be an expert linguistic researcher and would be fine as well, but the point is, the new challenges we face are often science related...
  - gdy 11y ago
    "human considerations when sending people to war, ability to be brutally pragmatic" Don't you think these two are contradictory? :-)
    - antirez 11y ago
      Nope... "We need to export freedom and defend our culture" is an abstraction. Pragmatism is another thing.
  - Shivetya 11y ago
    We have had more than enough example of women leaders who are just as hawkish as men and as diabolical too. Heck, just look at the past ten years across the globe for some who belong in the animal farm camp (as in, I can't tell the difference anymore). Perhaps it just soft discrimination that some think women are more understanding and less likely to be as rotten. Its a political thing, a power thing, it is certain not filtered by the sex of the person
elorant 11y ago
I was under the impression that her area of expertise is in chemistry. Or is it that of her husband?
- mtmail 11y ago
  Both. She has a Phd, her husband is a professor in quantum chemistry. That's how they met. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Sauer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Sauer
spatulan 11y ago
Margaret Thatcher was a research chemist.
- billybofh 11y ago
  I remember watching a video of her washing all the goodness out of a bit of dough then baking it into a hard inedible lump of starch. Take from that what you will ;-)
  - delazeur 11y ago
    The bit that remains is more protein that starch. This is a great demonstration that you can produce raw gluten in your kitchen, and it's handy for when people start spouting pseudo-science about chemicals in their food.
    - kobayashi 11y ago
      What, exactly, does it rebut?
      - delazeur 11y ago
        Some people seem the think that the gluten that gets added to store-bought bread is an artificial chemical made in a laboratory. This shows that it is quite natural.
        Grishnakh 11y ago
        Um, I thought gluten was a naturally-occurring part of certain grains, namely wheat and rye and barley (especially wheat, since it's such a huge staple food in the West). It gets added to a lot of stuff (after extracting it from wheat of course), usually to make it stickier, so it's used a lot in baked goods, pastries, etc. The problem with it is that a small but significant portion of the population either allergies or sensitivities to it, so it's best that they avoid eating it. The rest of us don't have that problem. But those that do look for alternatives, leading to the rise of "gluten-free" foods today. Traditionally, making GF alternatives has been difficult because the gluten is what helps stuff stick together, so GF bread for instance ended up being hard and very brittle, not chewy like normal bread. But GF stuff has gotten better; I think Xanthan gum is a popular gluten substitute in such foods to give the same effect. Anyway, I'm usually pretty well-aware of pseudoscience regarding stuff like this, "chemicals" in foods, etc., and I've never heard of anyone thinking gluten is an artificial chemical. The GF faddists (the ones who don't have a genuine allergy or sensitivity) usually just think that GF foods are somehow "healthier", though they have absolutely nothing to base this opinion on. However, it's not all bad: because of all these GF faddists, there's a much, much bigger market for GF foods now than there used to be, so people who are genuinely gluten-intolerant now have far more options than they used to. Just 5 years ago, such a person couldn't eat anything from, say, Domino's Pizza if their buddies were ordering from there, but now they can since Domino's has a GF pizza option. Anyway, there's plenty of foods which are perfectly natural, yet some people can't eat them because they have allergies to them. I believe some people are allergic to shellfish, for instance. And of course, peanuts are a well-known food allergy; they can outright kill people in small doses, even though there's nothing artificial about a peanut. And don't forget the absolute poisons out there like hemlock, ricin, etc. Those are all-natural too. Even apple seeds have small amounts of poison in them.
pluma 11y ago
She also grew up in East Germany (before the fall of the Berlin Wall). That's not too astonishing in today's Germany but would have raised a few eyebrows a mere generation ago.
- EmielMols 11y ago
  Part of the reason she apparently speaks Russian pretty well. And Russia's president, mr. Putin, is fluent in German because he was stationed there when younger. Quite the antagonising characters in politics these days, but at least they speak each other's language. :)
  - alexandrerond 11y ago
    I'm sure that this fact has already prevented fucks up and smoothed relations between EU and Russia. Despite the Putin's dogs incident...

by antirez 11y ago

rb2k_ 11y ago

She's also the daughter of a priest, so we basically have all bases covered :)

jawilson2 11y ago
"A woman, a priest, a physicist, and chancellor walk into a bar..."
StavrosK 11y ago
Is it really such a big deal there? I don't think people would be very surprised that a woman can be chancellor.

lispm 11y ago

Note that this fusion experiment is also very 'political'. Without reunification and the wish to promote science in the former East Germany, this experiment would a) never have been funded and b) it would have be cancelled because of steep cost increases and delays. The fusion device was built in North/East Germany, whereas the prior research was done in South Germany. Thus it is fitting that Chancellor Merkel attends this event. It's a great experiment and a wonderful achievement, but probably we had different priorities and even different scientific priorities - especially considering the large amount of money invested. There are lots of competing science areas which lack this funding.

cubano 11y ago

I would think being highly competent and good at building political consensus that promoted the good for the people would be the most important things, no matter what gender or profession, no?

lispm 11y ago
Political topics in a country of the size of Germany (and even more in countries like the US or Russia which are much larger and have a much larger political reach) are a very complex and complicated domain. I'd say it helps a lot to have the most intelligent political person at the top. Not that I would agree to all of Merkel's political decisions, but she is without doubt the most intelligent politician in Germany of her generation.
antirez 11y ago
Woman: is good not because woman is inherently better, but don't we have enough of male-only leaders? However if you ask me women may be superior politically to men in general because of dialectic abilities, human considerations when sending people to war, ability to be brutally pragmatic and so forth. So woman = good for me in different ways. Scientist: I want politicians to do the Right Thing not to build consensus, and I believe a scientist is better in today's world compared to another politician by profession that comes from a different non-specializing background. It could also be an expert linguistic researcher and would be fine as well, but the point is, the new challenges we face are often science related...
- gdy 11y ago
  "human considerations when sending people to war, ability to be brutally pragmatic" Don't you think these two are contradictory? :-)
  - antirez 11y ago
    Nope... "We need to export freedom and defend our culture" is an abstraction. Pragmatism is another thing.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  We have had more than enough example of women leaders who are just as hawkish as men and as diabolical too. Heck, just look at the past ten years across the globe for some who belong in the animal farm camp (as in, I can't tell the difference anymore). Perhaps it just soft discrimination that some think women are more understanding and less likely to be as rotten. Its a political thing, a power thing, it is certain not filtered by the sex of the person

elorant 11y ago

I was under the impression that her area of expertise is in chemistry. Or is it that of her husband?

mtmail 11y ago
Both. She has a Phd, her husband is a professor in quantum chemistry. That's how they met. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Sauer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Sauer

spatulan 11y ago

Margaret Thatcher was a research chemist.

billybofh 11y ago
I remember watching a video of her washing all the goodness out of a bit of dough then baking it into a hard inedible lump of starch. Take from that what you will ;-)
- delazeur 11y ago
  The bit that remains is more protein that starch. This is a great demonstration that you can produce raw gluten in your kitchen, and it's handy for when people start spouting pseudo-science about chemicals in their food.
  - kobayashi 11y ago
    What, exactly, does it rebut?
    - delazeur 11y ago
      Some people seem the think that the gluten that gets added to store-bought bread is an artificial chemical made in a laboratory. This shows that it is quite natural.
      - Grishnakh 11y ago
        Um, I thought gluten was a naturally-occurring part of certain grains, namely wheat and rye and barley (especially wheat, since it's such a huge staple food in the West). It gets added to a lot of stuff (after extracting it from wheat of course), usually to make it stickier, so it's used a lot in baked goods, pastries, etc. The problem with it is that a small but significant portion of the population either allergies or sensitivities to it, so it's best that they avoid eating it. The rest of us don't have that problem. But those that do look for alternatives, leading to the rise of "gluten-free" foods today. Traditionally, making GF alternatives has been difficult because the gluten is what helps stuff stick together, so GF bread for instance ended up being hard and very brittle, not chewy like normal bread. But GF stuff has gotten better; I think Xanthan gum is a popular gluten substitute in such foods to give the same effect. Anyway, I'm usually pretty well-aware of pseudoscience regarding stuff like this, "chemicals" in foods, etc., and I've never heard of anyone thinking gluten is an artificial chemical. The GF faddists (the ones who don't have a genuine allergy or sensitivity) usually just think that GF foods are somehow "healthier", though they have absolutely nothing to base this opinion on. However, it's not all bad: because of all these GF faddists, there's a much, much bigger market for GF foods now than there used to be, so people who are genuinely gluten-intolerant now have far more options than they used to. Just 5 years ago, such a person couldn't eat anything from, say, Domino's Pizza if their buddies were ordering from there, but now they can since Domino's has a GF pizza option. Anyway, there's plenty of foods which are perfectly natural, yet some people can't eat them because they have allergies to them. I believe some people are allergic to shellfish, for instance. And of course, peanuts are a well-known food allergy; they can outright kill people in small doses, even though there's nothing artificial about a peanut. And don't forget the absolute poisons out there like hemlock, ricin, etc. Those are all-natural too. Even apple seeds have small amounts of poison in them.

pluma 11y ago

She also grew up in East Germany (before the fall of the Berlin Wall). That's not too astonishing in today's Germany but would have raised a few eyebrows a mere generation ago.

EmielMols 11y ago
Part of the reason she apparently speaks Russian pretty well. And Russia's president, mr. Putin, is fluent in German because he was stationed there when younger. Quite the antagonising characters in politics these days, but at least they speak each other's language. :)
- alexandrerond 11y ago
  I'm sure that this fact has already prevented fucks up and smoothed relations between EU and Russia. Despite the Putin's dogs incident...