Linguistics; gender and language, part 2; "gendered" brain research
The research reports that have been coming out in recent years about the alleged neuroanatomical differences between male human brains and female human brains (and the accompanying discussions of why those alleged differences exist), make me nervous. The articles and "medical moments" that have been coming out in the mass media based loosely on
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And you get fields like sociobiology, where there are a few very interesting results, sometimes on short samples, rarely duplicated a lot, and the actual scientists in the field all realize that the existing evidence is still quite speculative. But then along comes a popularizer like Robert Wright who basically says
"Most of these people would say the results are still premature, but they're just being nitpicky scientists who won't be happy until the whole world has duplicated their experiments. These things are basically true." And the popular media picks it up without even that caveat, and you get people suggesting that questioning claims based on the latest speculative sb experiment puts you in the bin with creationists - "It's an empirical FACT".
If only we actually had *science* education in the schools, rather than regurgitation of known results.
My rant here is done. :)
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Of course, my father never mentioned lawn fertilizer. He was talking about prices of unit-train sized lots. A "unit train" is a freight train with 100 identical hopper cars. The price of lawn fertilizer at gardening stores consists almost entirely of middleman costs and transportation costs, and the wholesale price of the chemicals has almost nothing to do with it.
This sort of silliness happened only rarely when he was interviewed by industry publications, such as Chemical Week. But it did happen occasionally.
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Attacking the other end of the problem, my school (a technical/engineering institute) has just started a science journalism major. The goal is to produce science reporters who know what they're talking about and value communicating it clearly.
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At least half of the time when I'm interviewed as a linguist I find it necessary to say something like this to the journalist: "I'll be glad to answer that question, but it's important for you to know that the answer doesn't represent my own work. It comes from the work of [name of scientist and/or scholar who should be credited]." Followed by my spelling that scientist's name if it's not obvious, and identifying him or her in any other way that's appropriate. And every single time, the interview or article comes out without the statement crediting that person.
I understand that journalists try to trim all the fat out of what they write, and that their space is limited. What they aren't aware of, however (and no reason why they should be, if nobody has ever told them), is that after the piece appears I will get a batch of e-mail accusing me of trying to take credit for somebody else's work. I can (and do) answer every single one, explaining that I didn't do that intentionally, that the journalist was given the correct information but chose to leave it out, and so on. But that doesn't fix matters, and for every person who actually bothers to write me and complain there are sure to be several who just read the piece, notice that I'm shown taking credit for somebody else's, and form their opinion of me accordingly. This happens to enough linguists (and I assume in other fields as well) to make many of us reluctant to talk to a journalist. There must be a better way to handle it.
Congratulations to your school for setting up this program; that's good news.
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