Last night Jay Ingram spoke to our students about carreer opportunities after you graduate from university. Jay was the long-time host of Quirks and Quarks on CBC radio and he is the current host of Daily Planet, a daily science show on Discovery Channel Canada. He has published many books; the most recent is Theatre of the Mind [amazon.ca].Jay graduated from the University of Toronto some years ago with a M.Sc. degree in Microbiology. His talk was held in the same building where he used to take classes as an undergarduate. He told the students that his carreer path has been somewhat unusual but he encourged them to take advantage of any opportunities that come their way. Fortune favors the prepared mind, as Louis Pasteur once said. The best advice he could give was "to not always listen to what well-meaning mentors tell you to do." (He wasn't referring to me, of course.)
One of the most interesting parts of his talk was when he deconstructed yesterday's Daily Planet show in order to explain what one has to do to keep an audience's attention. The idea is to make each segment short and simple and have lots of pictures.
During the question and answer session he expressed his frustration over the lack of scientific literacy among the general public. He pointed out that it's almost a badge of honor among pseudointellectuals to claim they know nothing about science. They should be as embarrassed about their ignorance as the rest of us would be if we had never heard of William Shakspeare. (Personally, I think we should make a point of telling such pseudointellectuals that they are ignorant.)
Ingram's talk was sponsored by the Molecular Genetics & Microbiology Students Union (MGYSU). Schreiber Pereira of MGYSU was the man who did most of the work. That's him in the photograph with Jay Ingram.
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He pointed out that it's almost a badge of honor among pseudointellectuals to claim they know nothing about science. They should be as embarrassed about their ignorance as the rest of us would be if we had never heard of William Shakspeare.
Isaac Asimov made a similar comment in one of his science essays some 40 (I think) years ago. You can profess ignorance of the most basic science and still get invited to the poshest parties; but if you're a nuclear physicist who says, "I don't go for all those fancy novels, I just read comic books", you'll be shunned as mentally inferior.
I remember being at a cocktail party in the Canadian consulate in Geneva. A group of yuppies was standing around discussing opera and French impressionists, or some such thing. I asked them if they coud name the nine planets of the solar system. (This was back in the olden days when there really were nine plants.) None of them could but—and here's the important point—they were all proud of their ignorance.
These were all Canadians with university degrees who were representing our country abroad.
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