a blog by lucas, human person

in science, we get taught the importance of professional writing, of academic writing. well, its not just in science, but higher education in general. you need to write professionally to be taken seriously. that means complex sentence structures, heavy vernacular, void of personality and fun… objective, factual, concise. boring. when we speak, it means scripts and a very specific ted-talk style pacing and cadence. it often feels inhuman. who talks like that? who tells a story like that? who speaks to their friends like that? I know science isn’t a fiction book, but oftentimes, It is a story. and human beings like to hear stories. so, why are we not telling stories?

anyway, I digress.

in this world, you learn that you aren’t to speak unprofessionally; you must communicate at that level. it feels like a sort of signal of belonging, of class, of “otherness”. it alienates us from those who, I sadly believe, we would prefer to be seen of as above. I don’t think that is an accident. it feels cultural, evolutionary. it isn’t eternal. it comes from somewhere. after ww2, a college education was a ticket to the middle class. higher education has historically been reserved for those with enough financial backing to support an additional 2-8 years of education. education doesn’t pay you. it costs money. so higher education is an investment. you have to have the money to make an investment. thats why the rich dominate Wall Street, tech, and our political spaces. you can gamble and bet with nothing actually in your pocket. but no one will take your investment unless you can put up the money. Go back further than that, even, scientists have always been the sons and daughters of aristocrats. we “honor” that with how we speak today.

and so I think people in science both 1) innocently enjoy the sense of value and respect that they receive in their career space (everyone respects a doctor) and so benevolently support the existence of space between scientists and non-scientists (aka most of the human population) and 2) pursue careers in these spaces to justify their own sense of superiority, to satisfy their ego. I think these people like to knowingly create space between them and those they feel better than.

and I think the second group of people have shaped how non-scientists (again, probably 98% of people) interact with science and with scientists. thanks guys. formally, you suck a**.

literally where am I going with this?

I don’t think that there is anything wrong with communicating science, and quite frankly politics, history, all of our important disciplines and human engagements, like a human being. like a human person communicates with another human person. like a human person speaks to a group of human people. how we behave right now is something different, something very unappealing to engage with, something really stale and boring and starting to be viewed quite negatively. rightfully so, by those who do.

the only answer I have is to change how we communicate.

I think the only problem with unprofessional writing is if you mislead people to believe that you are writing and speaking as a professional.

You’re literally reading a blog. you know what this is. idk how you could hav gotten to this page and not realized you were reading a blog. 

this is my place to change how I communicate.

This is my writing. Not as an academic. But as a person. As Lucas. My status in science has not changed the fact that I am also a person that lives and exists. I also observe. In fact, being a scientist largely means that I observe frequently, closely, and with a lot of scrutiny. And I think that is also why I am a scientist. I am just so damn curious about everything. I wanna know everything. Stuff is really interesting, after all. 

And yeah, I hope to conduct rigorous science and communicate it effectively, academically, professionally (whatever those things really mean), but also personally. i think that we keep science out of the hands of most people, we keep it a bit out of reach, emphasize how complicated it is. but It rarely is that complicated. it can be explained in a way that everyone understands. Methods get complicated. but understanding science? that is Actually a really easy task, and one that is not hard to teach. I think we scientists just gate keep science because it makes us feel special, somehow needed and worthy of celebration. I don’t think thats very cool.

Science is simple.

want to do some science? here’s what to do.

Through it all, you learn

science is basically just the process of learning.

Which is what life is all about. Learning. Learn as much as you can. experience everything. always be curious. ask questions. be nosy. explore.

but, don’t be a dummy.

Be wary of everything. trust nothing without scrutiny. and learn what to look for. it’s not that hard to figure out who is being honest and dishonest, even in the world of science, which is important for me to admit and to make clear. there are grifters in science. in fact, there have always been grifters in science. they love science. its just modern magic baby. but grifters are easy to spot. who really wants you to do a specific thing that would benefit them a tremendous amount? who paid for the research? are they reporting conclusions that make sense with the data they collected? did they collect it in appropriate ways? I’m gonna try my best to teach you how to actually analyze science. not in the conspiracy theory, “do your own research” way. in a real way. because you shouldn’t trust grifters. but you should trust real scientists. they really honestly care about you so, so much. let them help you.

anyway. you’re here to learn about me, the human person.

I am a scientist. and I like to write and share my ideas and communicate research. and so I, here, am going to do my best to do just that. and some of the other things I probably mentioned doing above. there’s gonna be a lot here. it’s not all going to make sense. roll with it, I beg you.

but I don’t want to write and communicate like a “professional”, like a scientist, like bemoaned above, because thats full of field-specific language, its difficult to access, and its quite dull. If you’re really into science, it’s fun to read research articles. But i am not going to lie and pretend its the same experience as reading donna tartt’s the secret history. it shouldn’t be. its science. but still, we can communicate in a personal way too, about the same science. thats the point of this blog.

I will write as a human being, living in the same world as you, the same one that I and many others study. I am exposed to the same forces as you. I investigate, in my work, a very specific thing, a (within the backdrop of our current global challenges) small detail of life. but I live in the same bigger picture as the rest of the world.

so, here’s the blog. a blog by me, by Lucas. not the scientist, not the academic, but the person. the human person. fellow citizen, dude about town.

a blog by Lucas, human person.

not a great name, but good enough. tells the story, right?

this is about science. this is also about the world. its probably mostly just going to be about things that I am thinking about. (good luck) probably often, health and politics, but also things that I just generally find interesting. I hope you also find them interesting. if not, there is plenty of other stuff on the internet. go check some of that stuff out.

a blog by Lucas, human person: a collection of writings about things I want to share or to learn about, written by a human person, for human people. (by now I assume at least one person believes that I am an alien)

do I need a reason?

if not, at this point, what more can I say?