Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

Maxwell and The Nerds
consensus-building, and uninterested in challenging conventional
wisdom. But in my experience women scientists have just as finely
honed sceptical senses as their male counterparts; that's just part
of being a scientist. This criticism, if that's what it is, is presented
to the world in the usual ragged disguise: if you discourage women
from being sceptical and don't train them in scepticism, then sure
enough you may find that many women aren't sceptical. Open the
doors and let them in, and they're as sceptical as anybody else.
One of the stereotyped occupations is science. Scientists are
nerds, socially inept, working on incomprehensible subjects that
no normal person would find in any way interesting - even if he
were willing to invest the time required, which, again, no sensible
person would. 'Get a life,' you might want to tell them.
I asked for a fleshed-out contemporary characterization of
science-nerds from an expert on eleven-year-olds of my acquaintance.
I should stress that she is merely reporting, not necessarily
endorsing, the conventional prejudices:
Nerds wear their belts just under their rib cages. Their short-sleeve
shirts are equipped with pocket protectors in which is displayed a
formidable array of multicoloured pens and pencils. A programmable
calculator is carried in a special belt holster. They all wear thick
glasses with broken nose-pieces that have been repaired with Band-
Aids. They are bereft of social skills, and oblivious or indifferent to
the lack. When they laugh, what comes out is a snort. They jabber at
each other in an incomprehensible language. They'll jump at the
opportunity to work for extra credit in all classes except gym. They
look down on normal people, who in turn laugh at them. Most nerds
have names like Norman. (The Norman Conquest involved a horde
of high-belted, pocket-protected, calculator-carrying nerds with broken
glasses invading England.) There are more boy nerds than girl
nerds, but there are plenty of both. Nerds don't date. If you're a nerd
you can't be cool. Also vice versa.
This of course is a stereotype. There are scientists who dress
elegantly, who are devastatingly cool, who many people long to date,
who do not carry concealed calculators to social events. Some you'd
never guess were scientists if you invited them to your home.
But other scientists do match the stereotype, more or less.
They're pretty socially inept. There may be, proportionately,
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