In article , Don Pearce
wrote:
On Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:54:47 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:


Radio is better, but not perfect. The Material World for example. Every
moderately serious piece is more or less obliged to finished with an
extremely weak joke from Quentin Cooper.

As someone who is used to teaching undergrads I'm happy enough with the
idea of including occasional jokes, etc, as a way to keep an audience. :-)

And I was pleasantly surprised by the 'monkey cage' programme. I thought
I'd find it annoying, but actually enjoyed it overall.

I just wished someone had pointed out to the Minister that being able after
the event to decide that some 'social and economic impact' had stemmed from
some scientific research did not mean you could reliably predict this in
advance as a way to 'choose winners' to optimise the benefits of those
kinds. All too often the work with the largest long-term benefits showed no
sign that would be so *before* the work was done. So attempts to force
scientists to say in advance what 'impact' their results would have is a
recipy for work that has minimal new value. The point of 'research' in
science is that you *don't* already know what the outcome will be. If you
do, you don't need to do the research!

Slainte,

Jim

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