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One point stood out to me: he thinks one "trouble with STEM" is that young hopeful scientists get herded into the math/engineering side of things -- if you dig

by majos 7y ago

One point stood out to me: he thinks one "trouble with STEM" is that young hopeful scientists get herded into the math/engineering side of things -- if you dig biology, then you must know chemistry, hence physics, hence math! -- and he, as a naturalist, wants to push back on this tendency. I think this is a good point. Yes, a good biologist should probably have some quantitative chops, or at least know what p-hacking is, but pre-college it's plausible to me that a hopeful biologist is best served studying the parts of biology they like effortlessly. Once you have something you feel in your heart is cool, it becomes much easier to overcome challenges to better study that cool thing. In contrast, if you immediately jump into all the other stuff necessary for a good understanding of that cool thing, you might never develop enough attachment in the first place to power you through the hard, not-so-fun parts. I have definitely seen this in my own research career. Learning supposedly useful tricks for their own sake in a class has been much harder than picking up tools to solve problems I already have and care about. And using those tools in a context I liked made me appreciate them more.

dnautics 7y ago
Oh man, in my experience the problem was exactly the opposite. I would talk to biologists who would propose an utterly insane mechanism or demand a molecule with impossible properties for their analytical purposes (hey chemist can you make a thing that does exactly this under these constraints for me). Or once there was a physicist doing biophysics that spent weeks obsessing over an interesting discovery he's made using AFM, that ordered structures appeared when he had prepped it slowly, disordered structures when he prepped it quickly. I told him he'd forgotten to get rid of the bulk salt from the sample. It was constantly a problem that interdisciplinary research was encouraged but interdisciplinary knowledge was not (because that is hard)
- majos 7y ago
  That's certainly a problem, too. I'm suggesting that it's useful to really kindle an interest before starting in on the harder parts of studying it, not that the harder parts should be put off indefinitely. In particular, learning the hard parts early may make a person dislike them more than they should, e.g. biologist's might see p-values as some annoying hurdle to clear rather than a useful tool for finding real conclusions.
- lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  But that happens in every discipline by every level of experience. I would put good money down that you yourself spent hours wondering why the hell you got different results until you were in the shower and realised "Oh the salts!!" Yes he made a newbie mistake - but then again 4 developers at my work yesterday with something like 80 years experience spent hours not noticing a duplicated line I only hope you pointed out his mistake gently. If not maybe offer a beginners course :-)
justin66 7y ago
> pre-college it's plausible to me that a hopeful biologist is best served studying the parts of biology they like effortlessly Yes, but it's probably accurate to say that any hopeful xist is best served by studying the parts of x they like effortlessly. Sadly not how high school education typically works.
Bartweiss 7y ago
I'm still more partial to the math/physics side of STEM than to biology, but it took me until late in college to realize that I was much less partial to it than I'd always assumed. I could probably have been quite happy working in bioinformatics or neuroscience, for many of the same reasons I enjoy physics and programming. But my early exposure to biology in both highschool and college was "sequential" in a wholly meaningless way that pushed me towards the aspects I liked least. Anatomy and cell microbiology are not actually prerequisites for learning about population ecology, nor is macrobiology a real prerequisite to basic neuroscience. It feels like physics/mathematics/engineering education is substantially better at allowing students to engage with the topics they like most, then develop supporting knowledge as they need it to progress further. That drives engagement in the field as a whole, but it also makes the secondary learning easier and more useful. The linear "map of the cat" approach to teaching biology is often a bigger cause of 'hard sciences' snobbery than the actual differences between fields.
PaulHoule 7y ago
I think he oughta check his neurotypical privilege.
ssivark 7y ago
This kind of infinite regress of A being the pre-requisite of B can be pretty off-putting. It's essentially analogous to mandated "yak shaving", but in a more structured form. Pretty quickly once loses sight of the original inspiration and it's associated joys. As someone who enjoys multi-disciplinary learning and holistic understanding, what works for me is a kind of spiralling spaced repetition. I keep alternating my attention over a bunch of topics, each time going a little deeper and making more connections. In the later stages, this manifests as a comprehensive and integrative understanding, but it is very difficult to measure partial progress or feel confident in the earlier stages. It is also challenging to communicate with people who have learned the topic in a linear manner and prefer to think that way, especially if they aren't patient or open-minded. Getting bogged down with gatekeeping "requirements" (as if to cross off prerequisites on a checklist... What does it even mean to check off a topic?) is an easy way to get bogged down. Experience gives me a measure of confidence to push on with my flitting between topics with the faith that enough pieces will eventually come together. I also like some things Edward Kmett says in his talk "Stop treading water".

by majos 7y ago

dnautics 7y ago

Oh man, in my experience the problem was exactly the opposite. I would talk to biologists who would propose an utterly insane mechanism or demand a molecule with impossible properties for their analytical purposes (hey chemist can you make a thing that does exactly this under these constraints for me). Or once there was a physicist doing biophysics that spent weeks obsessing over an interesting discovery he's made using AFM, that ordered structures appeared when he had prepped it slowly, disordered structures when he prepped it quickly. I told him he'd forgotten to get rid of the bulk salt from the sample. It was constantly a problem that interdisciplinary research was encouraged but interdisciplinary knowledge was not (because that is hard)

majos 7y ago
That's certainly a problem, too. I'm suggesting that it's useful to really kindle an interest before starting in on the harder parts of studying it, not that the harder parts should be put off indefinitely. In particular, learning the hard parts early may make a person dislike them more than they should, e.g. biologist's might see p-values as some annoying hurdle to clear rather than a useful tool for finding real conclusions.
lifeisstillgood 7y ago
But that happens in every discipline by every level of experience. I would put good money down that you yourself spent hours wondering why the hell you got different results until you were in the shower and realised "Oh the salts!!" Yes he made a newbie mistake - but then again 4 developers at my work yesterday with something like 80 years experience spent hours not noticing a duplicated line I only hope you pointed out his mistake gently. If not maybe offer a beginners course :-)

justin66 7y ago

> pre-college it's plausible to me that a hopeful biologist is best served studying the parts of biology they like effortlessly Yes, but it's probably accurate to say that any hopeful xist is best served by studying the parts of x they like effortlessly. Sadly not how high school education typically works.

Bartweiss 7y ago

I'm still more partial to the math/physics side of STEM than to biology, but it took me until late in college to realize that I was much less partial to it than I'd always assumed. I could probably have been quite happy working in bioinformatics or neuroscience, for many of the same reasons I enjoy physics and programming. But my early exposure to biology in both highschool and college was "sequential" in a wholly meaningless way that pushed me towards the aspects I liked least. Anatomy and cell microbiology are not actually prerequisites for learning about population ecology, nor is macrobiology a real prerequisite to basic neuroscience. It feels like physics/mathematics/engineering education is substantially better at allowing students to engage with the topics they like most, then develop supporting knowledge as they need it to progress further. That drives engagement in the field as a whole, but it also makes the secondary learning easier and more useful. The linear "map of the cat" approach to teaching biology is often a bigger cause of 'hard sciences' snobbery than the actual differences between fields.

PaulHoule 7y ago

I think he oughta check his neurotypical privilege.

ssivark 7y ago

This kind of infinite regress of A being the pre-requisite of B can be pretty off-putting. It's essentially analogous to mandated "yak shaving", but in a more structured form. Pretty quickly once loses sight of the original inspiration and it's associated joys. As someone who enjoys multi-disciplinary learning and holistic understanding, what works for me is a kind of spiralling spaced repetition. I keep alternating my attention over a bunch of topics, each time going a little deeper and making more connections. In the later stages, this manifests as a comprehensive and integrative understanding, but it is very difficult to measure partial progress or feel confident in the earlier stages. It is also challenging to communicate with people who have learned the topic in a linear manner and prefer to think that way, especially if they aren't patient or open-minded. Getting bogged down with gatekeeping "requirements" (as if to cross off prerequisites on a checklist... What does it even mean to check off a topic?) is an easy way to get bogged down. Experience gives me a measure of confidence to push on with my flitting between topics with the faith that enough pieces will eventually come together. I also like some things Edward Kmett says in his talk "Stop treading water".