flyingtoaster writes "For the second year in a row, Popular Science published their annual countdown of the worst jobs in science. This year's list includes Anal-Wart Researcher, Iraqi Archaeologist and Landfill Monitor. And you think your job's bad?" We also linked to last year's list.
Sure, you aren't killing puppies for science, but you do spend all day listening to people demanding that you fix their problems like it's your fault. You're usually rated by call time, so actually helping people looks bad on you review.
The cradle of civilization and agriculture. The first place humans built cities. The birthplace of writing. And--oh, yeah--currently the best place in the world to get yourself kidnapped or killed. For archaeologists, there's no plum like Iraq. Saddam actually let them do their job, and he even protected his country's heritage in museums. But now no archaeologist can work in Iraq until security improves. Meanwhile more than 8,500 treasures have been stolen, and those are just from museums, where artifacts are cataloged.
What truly troubles archaeologists is imagining what's being taken from their dig sites in the field. Archaeologist Francis Deblauwe, who is trying to keep tabs on the looting, knows of more than 30 important digs, including ancient Babylon, that have been despoiled, but he notes that his list is "very preliminary and grossly incomplete." When the researchers do get to go back in, they'll be able to determine which sites have been looted. But they'll never know what's been taken.
Sheesh! And I wonder how many such 'casualities' of war we ignore. Really sad.
War is not just people, it's a whole lot more. And as an amateur archaeologist, I really do feel bad. And these things are irreplaceable.
Things are a litte more complex than that little blurb in the article suggests. Saddam's interest in archaeology tended to be self-serving, such has when Saddam rebuilt Babylon [about.com]:
In 1982, Saddam's workers began reconstructing Babylon's most imposing building, the 600-room palace of King Nebuchadnezzar II. Archaeologists were horrified. Many said that to rebuild on top of ancient artifacts does not preserve history, but disfigures it. The original bricks, which rise two or three feet from the ground, bear ancient inscriptions praising Nebuchadnezzar. Above these, Saddam Hussein's workers laid more than 60-million sand-colored bricks inscribed with the words, "In the era of Saddam Hussein, protector of Iraq, who rebuilt civilization and rebuilt Babylon." The new bricks began to crack after only ten years.
The problems in Iraq aren't new. Many of the problems in Iraq date back to at least Saddams invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War [umd.edu].
Prior to the Persian Gulf War, archaeologists working in Iraq were forced to close down excavations when Iraq's August invasion of Kuwait made the situation to dangerous to continue....
And following the war, looting of archaeological sites increased dramatically as Iraq's impoverished citizens used sometimes desperate means to make money in light of the economic sanctions placed on Iraq by the western world.
...In early February 1991, for example, Saddam parked MiG fighter jets at a Babylonian ziggurat at Ur to deter coalition forces from disabling them during the Gulf War. By Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian empire, he built air bases and weapons factories. According to archaeological scholars from the University of Chicago, an 80-foot mound containing many ruins of ancient Nineveh also housed an oil storage tank. During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam used the site for anti-aircraft batteries because it was the most elevated spot in the area....
In contrast, at the height of the bombing campaign the Pentagon produced aerial photographs of the Al-Basrah mosque. They showed clearly that the Iraqis had destroyed the mosque for propaganda purposes. While coalition forces had bombed a target some 100 yards away, leaving the mosque unscathed, Iraqi engineers sliced off the dome in the hope of duping journalists that the U.S. had been responsible for the destruction.
The desecrations of burial grounds in Iraq aren't anything new. They happened to burial grounds [bbc.co.uk]after the first Gulf War too.
The looting of the museums was also overstated [globalsecurity.org] as well.
FWIW: In Afghanistan, the Taliban was destroying priceless cultural artifiacts [bbc.co.uk] as being anti-Islamic. The US intervention in Afghanistan stopped that, and the new government is committed to preserving such artifacts.
I was shocked to see "public school science teacher" on their list. They used a poor example, and yes, that would be a bad job. But there are many good science teachers, and most schools are better than the one they picked out. The article also implies that public-school science teachers are all poor teachers, which is not true. I was shocked to see that (I'm a high school student), and I'm sure many other slashdotters are too.
I think you had it wrong - they aren't implying that public school science teachers are poor teachers! It says they have one of the worst jobs, which I believe is true. Not only do they have to teach a subject which requires intelligent thought to a disinterested student body, their profession is constantly under attack by religious radicals.
Hell, my own mother threatened to take me out if they taught me evolution. It didn't happen, but I shudder to think of other students who did have that happen to them.
Also, science is one of the most poorly funded departments across the nation. Hell, team sports such as Football and Soocer, even electives such as music get more funding in some areas.
So yes, they've got one of the worst jobs in science: teaching it to the next generation.
'Religious radicals' is a fair call, except I'd be tempted to add a few more carefully chosen phrases, like 'not very bright', 'deluded', 'ill-informed', and 'poorly educated'. I'm sure you get my drift. I don't believe you've opened your eyes and looked at the real evidence at all, otherwise you'd be convinced that the theories of evolution offer a considerably more likely explanation than do the fairy-tales of a bunch of wandering sheep-herders. It's very sad that more than half the population of the US is in the same boat.
I'm just thankful we don't have too many of these people in Australia, although the number is growing, largely because, I suspect, science education is poorly funded here too.
"You do realize that over half of Americans reject the standard theories (important word: theories, not laws)[emphasis added] for the origin of life and the universe that are presented in secular science education, don't you?"
Yes, it troubles me greatly, as does your post and far, far too many just like it. The word "theory" in science doesn't mean "half-assed guess" like it does in normal parlance. It means an idea that has been rigorously tested and is supported by a mountain of evidence. Theory of relativity. Theory of gravity. Germ theory. Theory of evolution. All supported by mountains of evidence, all have stood the test of time and are all highly unlikely to go away anytime soon. Sure any one or more of them could be wrong. Some may be able to adapt to new evidence, some might (heavy, very heavy emphasis on might) be relegated to the scrapheap of disproven scientific ideas...like phlogiston or creationism. The latter one is the most troubling. Two hundred years ago the dominant scientific idea in the west was a special creation taking place 6000 years ago. Christian geologists went out looking for this, but instead found evidence incompatible with a young earth, thus refuting young-earth creationism (note: not creation, a supernatural event and thus outside the realm of science. A god or gods could create using any means s/he/it/they deem appropriate and are thus undetectable to naturalistic science). Modern day creation-science and its bastard child "intelligent design" are just attempts to turn back scientific progress over 200 years. So yes, it does bother me a great deal to see that certain well-established scientific theories are thrown out because of the religous ideology of certain groups. Whats worse is that these religious radicals aren't objecting to the science, they're objecting to the implications of established science towards certain literalistic interpretations of the Bible, not science at all. There is one scientifically valid idea about the origin of species currently, and like it or not it is evolution.
Hello, I'm a Kansan. You might remember us from such right wing propaganda as "God Hates Fags" or a more recent but ephemeral debate over teaching evolution in our schools. I don't have a dog named Toto, and by my local estimation, pancakes are rather bumpy.
So I'm used to dealing with invective, and even the religious right. A few might be my neighbors. But I reject your hypothesis. "Slightly over 40 percent of Americans" is an extreme interpretation of a stastic of relgious beliefs. My own mother admits she feels the Old Testament to be closer to myth than reality, and generally believes that evolution holds more scientific merit than the newly uprising creationist theory. Some Catholics don't adhere to the abolition of birth control, and I hear some even support abortions. Simply because 40 percent marked down Catholic or Protestant or whatever that number includes doesn't mean they hold belief in common with every other member of the congregation. In fact, I'd say thats downright impossible. Personally, I think that Lamarck had better science than creationism or whatever you call it today; a text cannot be adequate substitute for experimental investigation and observation. And I'm not willing to sign off on ignoring evolutionary theory because its spiritually convinient.
Its debateable whether one can call creationism a theory, and I'm willing to let it into our textbooks, but to exclude evolution is both ridiculus and ignores what is the most plausible theory put forth yet. I think mutual inclusion is perhaps a decent middle grounds to acommodate our individual beliefs.
So when I hear people complain about teaching evolution in the classroom, I say to them: fine, butif you don't want it in the classroom, don't expect your children to attend college. In the suburb where I live, that works reasonably well. In other parts of Kansas, that statement would likely be met with laughter, and likely acceptance of the terms.
Its debateable whether one can call creationism a theory,
No, it's not debatable whether one can call creationism a theory because it's not. Let's start with the deifinition of a theory:
A well tested (as opposed to a hypothesis which is less well tested) explanation for observed events. A theory must allow one to make predictions which can be tested by experiment. When the results of those experiments are as predicted, it lends support to the theory as a good explanation. If the results are not as predicted, they may lead to the eventual modification of the theory, or even its replacement.
Since creationism/intelligent design relies on a supreme being to start the whole thing rolling, a being which can neither be proven nor disproven, the arguments for these concepts fall flat. Without being able to verify or deny any part of ones thoughts (I refuse to call them theories) you cannot have a theory. End of story.
One can argue until they're blue in the face about how their evidence shows they're thoughts are just as plausible as someone elses but unless/until they can offer proof of a supreme being their ideas are relegated to the same pile as Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.
Next thing you know people will want to believe that the Grand Canyon is only a few thousand years old and was made by the flood during Noahs time. Oh wait, that's already [tagnet.org] being done [peer.org].
Well at least the fact that humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time is still a safe subject. Er, maybe [creationists.org] not [answersingenesis.org].
It doesn't matter if you are the best teacher ever to walk the earth, most public schools will have wonder why you waste your time there within months of your first day. No matter how much money the science department gets it can't make a student give a damn. Not only do you have depressing students, but then you have to deal with the school administration when you the parents of the pothead that got a 30 on his chem final call and raise hell.
The opposite is true too. If you have a bunch of interested students you can put together a great class with very few supplies.
Science teacher absolutely deserves to be on the list as long as a large part of our society still sees no value in education.
My dad taught science in public high schools for 25 years before quiting. In the last school he worked at, the football team got new uniforms every year, but he was forced to by lab equipment out of his own pocket. He gave a damn about the students, but unfortently he did not have the the support of the administration.
If america is going to maintain a competive edge in the world, we have to get kids excited abotu science. There are lots of great universities out there, but what happens when kids come out of high school hating science beacuse they had bad teachers?
Well they have a Congressional Science Fellow listed on there if you RTFA (or RTF Magazine). In both jobs most of your efforts will go to waste, but I'm sure if you were the President's Advisor, I'm sure you'd at least be paid better.
Anyone find it funny the most common job on there is Nursing? The nursing role has changed from working with patients to Medical Assistants. They hire 10-15 MA's to 1 Nurse in most clinics. And then to top it off, they dont pay the Nurses for the years in school, and hard work, and they get no respect for managing the MA's ontop of normal nurses duties.
What a shame.
In our Internet-based summons for readers to top (bottom?) last year's "Worst Jobs" list, nurses nominated themselves in droves: "Still a no-respect profession. Doctors treat you like slaves." "The pay is substandard for all the training." "Just look at the current shortage." Indeed, the government estimates that we're short 110,000 nurses, and that by 2008 we'll need half a million more.
Numerous studies echo the dissatisfaction of our nurse readers. Nurses are fleeing the profession because of stress, long hours, low pay and lack of advancement opportunities. The cost? A recent University of Pennsylvania study found that surgical patients at hospitals with the worst nurse-staffing levels (ergo the most overworked nurses) have a 31 percent greater chance of dying. If this trend doesn't improve, we might soon find "patient" topping our list.
Interesting... nurses have only in the last 10 years felt so neglected. This at a time when their salary/hourly wage is at an all time high. Most nurses are earning upwards of $36-53K [salary.com] (national average of LPN-RN with many in the $60's especially RN's with a couple year's experience or specialized). Many nurses can sit for their boards straight after only 2 years of training, not bad pay for 2 years. Their career path is not limited to being LPN/RN's. If they're not satisfied with providing direct patient care, they can go further into becoming midwives (with pay in the $45-70K range), Nurse Practioners (pay in the $70-100K range) or obtaining their PhD's in nursing and going the teaching route (pay's not great, but more respect from peers). So, in summary, they don't have excessive training requirements; however, they enjoy good pay by most people's definition, job security, no limitation to geography, broad career paths (up and lateral).
If there's disrespect among mid and upper-level providers (MD's and other staff) toward nurses perhaps it's because of a lack of understanding of each other's tasks / responsibilities / liabilities / time demands. While it's true that nurses have a very tough job for 8-12 hours/day, other providers also have difficult jobs.
As to nurses "fleeing" the profession, I'm surprised as there are numerous articles describing the flock of women and men TO the nursing profession and the 2-year wait to be accepted into many nursing schools.
The "other" nursing specialties do require more training and that's part of their career path (like everyone else). Primary Care Nurse Practioners make on national average
$69K [salary.com]. I dated a NP for 7 years (she was a "floor RN" for four of those years), she now makes $85K and a friend of hers is a NP for a hospital specialty department and makes $100K. The friend has no call and the former gf gets paid extra for each weekend she works ($1500 for Fri to Sun--double that if it's a holiday). The median salary for a CRNA is $118K [salary.com].
Unlike many 9-5 jobs (or 7-3), many jobs in the medical profession are not 40-hour weeks. Many are much more (especially if you count call nights/weekends). When I was a resident, an 80-hour week was considered short (this was of course before resident hour limitations initiated in New York).
How about just grad student? No matter what your research is, you're overworked, underpaid, and then thrust into a saturated job market, where you may never find a tenure track position. And if you do, you'll still be paid a far sight less than any random dick with an MBA.
Last year, they had "Post Doc," which is probably worse--you are paid almost as little and have already made the choice not to sell out to some consulting firm who would pay you large sums of money for those three letters you can place after your name.
And compared to people in biology, we get paid a lot; I know someone who gets $12,000 a year.
Ummmm. . . I'm in biology, and I get $24,500 starting out - more this semester because I'm also teaching. This is about the most any school pays, actually, but the top biology programs are all pretty comparable. For a single 20-something, it's good money, even if I took a large pay cut to go back to school. Students on external fellowships make even more: the NSF now pays upwards of $30,000 a year, and more if you teach.
Frankly, I couldn't be happier with my position, despite the attempts of our local grad student union to convince us that we're oppressed. However, after I graduate I can either go consult (shitloads of $$, but no science or fame), work for a biotech or big pharma (good $$, okay science, probably no fame), or become a perma-postdoc (no $$, awesome science, probably no fame). I could get all three as a faculty member at a good university, but there are vastly fewer jobs available than candidates, and you have to be some combination of brilliant, extremeley focused, well-connected, and just plain lucky. I'm well-connected, but only reasonably intelligent, and I can't focus worth shit, so unless I get really lucky I'm not getting one of those jobs. Sort of depressing, but at least I like the work I'm doing.
. . . the female Dracunculus medinensis migrates from the gut to a point just under the skin of, say, a leg, where she then commences growth to a length of as great as three feet, and where, ultimately, she lays her eggs.
When the thousands of babies make their joyous arrival, they blister the skin and pop through, leaving Mom behind. The traditional way to get rid of her is to wrap her head around a stick and twist very slowly--one turn of the stick per day--for weeks or months, depending on how long she is. (This treatment is so old that it inspired the ancient snake-and-pole aesculapius symbol of medicine.)
I found this neat company that made a system that controlled the thickness of sheet metal was it was being manufacturered. Kinda interesting, I thought... I could apply DSP algorithms and statistics to the problem. Low pass filter, etc...
The factory tour went something like this: ---- The core technology of the company was a non-contact system that used radiation to penetrate the steel and measure its thickness. Are you cool with radiation and wearing the exposure badge? Sure, not planning on any kids for a while...
Now, this steel is pretty hot, so you've got to be careful not to touch it, ok? Sure.
It's also relatively thin and the edges aren't the smoothest -- so, it's sharp. But it's steel, so it's still heavy. You wouldn't want to get any fingers you're particularily attached to near it. Uh, ok.
And, it's moving out the mill at a fairly fast speed. Radioactive, Semi-molten, sharp and fast. Still ok? uh, yeah, sure.
Finally, for some ungodly reason, it is dripping with acid. We don't know why; that's just part of the manufacturing. That's partly why we go with a non-contact measurement.
Lastly, even though your resume is excellent, we're going to put you on the support team for at least a year. It's low pay, but there's lots of overtime and travel benefits. You'll go to all sorts of exotic mill towns. ----
And that, my friends, is why I took the rocket-scientist job instead.
What about a science advisor to the Bush Administrator? That's got to be the worst job in science unless you also hold a degree in fair-weather theology.
I grew up in Oak Ridge. If you think that a building dripping with radiation is bad, check out the Secret City scenic railway [southernap...way.museum]. Doesn't seem unusual, until you discover where the station [techscribes.com] is. For some real giggles, here's an excerpt from the bottom of the page:
Note: Due to additional security procedures following the events of September 11, 2001, the Secret City Scenic Excursion Train is currently boarding at the back gate of the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), formerly known as the K-25 facility. This situation will continue until we are advised otherwise by security officials at ETTP.
Yes, folks, due to heightened security, we're having Joe Public board the train right next to the abandoned nuclear facility. You know, the one with radioactive barrels filled with Uranium scattered willy-nilly out in front.
Scary as all that sounds, I've actually been on the train ride. It's very pleasant, the rail cars are antiques, and the tour guide's history of Oak Ridge during WWII was interesting. (Checks rad badge again. No problems.)
It's a shame to see the old girl go down, really. She's done a lot [childrenof...roject.org] in her time in "Happy Valley". K-25 was at one time the world's largest building [childrenof...roject.org]. (For a sense of scale, have a look at the two-story townhouses at the bottom of the pic. If you look carefully, you'll see that the two buildings in the center are actually just one building.)
They should have said "weather desk staffer" at a TV station.... the one who takes the calls after the "great weekend" doesn't materialize.
Agree that the on-camera job is actually a pretty good one, and it's in the entertainment industry, not science.
I'm not sure I understand why that is one of the worst jobs in science. Reading the article, it seems they were just being belittled and TV weather-forcasting called a "fast-food science."
It's no different from being a high-tech fortune-teller. Your crystal ball is replaced by a supercomputer running weather simulations. Your predictions are only as good as the output results. Read up on the "Great Storm of 1987" [stvincent.ac.uk] and Michael Fish, who reassured a concerned view that there was no danger of a severe storm c
Where is? (Score:5, Funny)
Those sound like bad jobs to me ;-)
Re:Where is? (Score:3)
Re:Where is? (Score:5, Funny)
It said the worst jobs in science. Nothing scientific about this place...
Parent
EA Games Programmer (Score:4, Funny)
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/11/21/1746257.
EA Researcher (Score:5, Funny)
what about... (Score:5, Funny)
Computer scientist is a scientist, no?
Tampon Squeezer (Score:5, Funny)
#4 is Tampon Squeezer
On the other hand, Tampon Tester would rate as one of the best jobs ever.
*sigh*
Sorry if I grossed someone out.
Grossed out (Score:5, Funny)
Your Sig was the worst part.
Parent
Re:Tampon Squeezer (Score:5, Funny)
Nope. Tried it. They taste terrible.
Parent
Re:Tampon Squeezer (Score:4, Funny)
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Career most applicable (Score:3, Funny)
Anal wart (Score:5, Funny)
I love my job.
Go Helpdesk! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go Helpdesk! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
WMD (Score:5, Funny)
The jobs not done until you find at least one.
Re:WMD (Score:3, Funny)
Not as bad as my job... (Score:5, Funny)
Consequences of Bush's Iraq War (Score:3, Insightful)
The cradle of civilization and agriculture. The first place humans built cities. The birthplace of writing. And--oh, yeah--currently the best place in the world to get yourself kidnapped or killed. For archaeologists, there's no plum like Iraq. Saddam actually let them do their job, and he even protected his country's heritage in museums. But now no archaeologist can work in Iraq until security improves. Meanwhile more than 8,500 treasures have been stolen, and those are just from museums, where artifacts are cataloged.
What truly troubles archaeologists is imagining what's being taken from their dig sites in the field. Archaeologist Francis Deblauwe, who is trying to keep tabs on the looting, knows of more than 30 important digs, including ancient Babylon, that have been despoiled, but he notes that his list is "very preliminary and grossly incomplete." When the researchers do get to go back in, they'll be able to determine which sites have been looted. But they'll never know what's been taken.
Sheesh! And I wonder how many such 'casualities' of war we ignore. Really sad.
War is not just people, it's a whole lot more. And as an amateur archaeologist, I really do feel bad. And these things are irreplaceable.
hypocrite (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Consequences of Bush's Iraq War (Score:5, Informative)
Things are a litte more complex than that little blurb in the article suggests. Saddam's interest in archaeology tended to be self-serving, such has when Saddam rebuilt Babylon [about.com]:
The problems in Iraq aren't new. Many of the problems in Iraq date back to at least Saddams invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War [umd.edu].
Saddam's military made a practice of stationing military units by antiquities to protect them from attack [opinionjournal.com]. There are many recorded instances, including these gems:
The desecrations of burial grounds in Iraq aren't anything new. They happened to burial grounds [bbc.co.uk]after the first Gulf War too.
The looting of the museums was also overstated [globalsecurity.org] as well.
FWIW: In Afghanistan, the Taliban was destroying priceless cultural artifiacts [bbc.co.uk] as being anti-Islamic. The US intervention in Afghanistan stopped that, and the new government is committed to preserving such artifacts.
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Science teacher? (Score:3, Insightful)
What? No... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, my own mother threatened to take me out if they taught me evolution. It didn't happen, but I shudder to think of other students who did have that happen to them.
Also, science is one of the most poorly funded departments across the nation. Hell, team sports such as Football and Soocer, even electives such as music get more funding in some areas.
So yes, they've got one of the worst jobs in science: teaching it to the next generation.
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Re:Religious radicals? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Religious radicals? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm just thankful we don't have too many of these people in Australia, although the number is growing, largely because, I suspect, science education is poorly funded here too.
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Re:Religious radicals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it troubles me greatly, as does your post and far, far too many just like it. The word "theory" in science doesn't mean "half-assed guess" like it does in normal parlance. It means an idea that has been rigorously tested and is supported by a mountain of evidence. Theory of relativity. Theory of gravity. Germ theory. Theory of evolution. All supported by mountains of evidence, all have stood the test of time and are all highly unlikely to go away anytime soon. Sure any one or more of them could be wrong. Some may be able to adapt to new evidence, some might (heavy, very heavy emphasis on might) be relegated to the scrapheap of disproven scientific ideas...like phlogiston or creationism. The latter one is the most troubling. Two hundred years ago the dominant scientific idea in the west was a special creation taking place 6000 years ago. Christian geologists went out looking for this, but instead found evidence incompatible with a young earth, thus refuting young-earth creationism (note: not creation, a supernatural event and thus outside the realm of science. A god or gods could create using any means s/he/it/they deem appropriate and are thus undetectable to naturalistic science). Modern day creation-science and its bastard child "intelligent design" are just attempts to turn back scientific progress over 200 years. So yes, it does bother me a great deal to see that certain well-established scientific theories are thrown out because of the religous ideology of certain groups. Whats worse is that these religious radicals aren't objecting to the science, they're objecting to the implications of established science towards certain literalistic interpretations of the Bible, not science at all. There is one scientifically valid idea about the origin of species currently, and like it or not it is evolution.
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Re:Religious radicals? (Score:4, Interesting)
So I'm used to dealing with invective, and even the religious right. A few might be my neighbors. But I reject your hypothesis. "Slightly over 40 percent of Americans" is an extreme interpretation of a stastic of relgious beliefs. My own mother admits she feels the Old Testament to be closer to myth than reality, and generally believes that evolution holds more scientific merit than the newly uprising creationist theory. Some Catholics don't adhere to the abolition of birth control, and I hear some even support abortions. Simply because 40 percent marked down Catholic or Protestant or whatever that number includes doesn't mean they hold belief in common with every other member of the congregation. In fact, I'd say thats downright impossible. Personally, I think that Lamarck had better science than creationism or whatever you call it today; a text cannot be adequate substitute for experimental investigation and observation. And I'm not willing to sign off on ignoring evolutionary theory because its spiritually convinient.
Its debateable whether one can call creationism a theory, and I'm willing to let it into our textbooks, but to exclude evolution is both ridiculus and ignores what is the most plausible theory put forth yet. I think mutual inclusion is perhaps a decent middle grounds to acommodate our individual beliefs.
So when I hear people complain about teaching evolution in the classroom, I say to them: fine, butif you don't want it in the classroom, don't expect your children to attend college. In the suburb where I live, that works reasonably well. In other parts of Kansas, that statement would likely be met with laughter, and likely acceptance of the terms.
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Re:Religious radicals? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's not debatable whether one can call creationism a theory because it's not. Let's start with the deifinition of a theory:
Since creationism/intelligent design relies on a supreme being to start the whole thing rolling, a being which can neither be proven nor disproven, the arguments for these concepts fall flat. Without being able to verify or deny any part of ones thoughts (I refuse to call them theories) you cannot have a theory. End of story.
One can argue until they're blue in the face about how their evidence shows they're thoughts are just as plausible as someone elses but unless/until they can offer proof of a supreme being their ideas are relegated to the same pile as Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.
Next thing you know people will want to believe that the Grand Canyon is only a few thousand years old and was made by the flood during Noahs time. Oh wait, that's already [tagnet.org] being done [peer.org].
Well at least the fact that humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time is still a safe subject. Er, maybe [creationists.org] not [answersingenesis.org].
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Re:Science teacher? (Score:5, Insightful)
The opposite is true too. If you have a bunch of interested students you can put together a great class with very few supplies.
Science teacher absolutely deserves to be on the list as long as a large part of our society still sees no value in education.
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Re:Science teacher? (Score:5, Insightful)
If america is going to maintain a competive edge in the world, we have to get kids excited abotu science. There are lots of great universities out there, but what happens when kids come out of high school hating science beacuse they had bad teachers?
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Bush on "science" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bush on "science" (Score:3, Informative)
Nurse is on the list, thats really really BAD! (Score:5, Informative)
What a shame.
In our Internet-based summons for readers to top (bottom?) last year's "Worst Jobs" list, nurses nominated themselves in droves: "Still a no-respect profession. Doctors treat you like slaves." "The pay is substandard for all the training." "Just look at the current shortage." Indeed, the government estimates that we're short 110,000 nurses, and that by 2008 we'll need half a million more.
Numerous studies echo the dissatisfaction of our nurse readers. Nurses are fleeing the profession because of stress, long hours, low pay and lack of advancement opportunities. The cost? A recent University of Pennsylvania study found that surgical patients at hospitals with the worst nurse-staffing levels (ergo the most overworked nurses) have a 31 percent greater chance of dying. If this trend doesn't improve, we might soon find "patient" topping our list.
Re:Nurse is on the list, thats really really BAD! (Score:4, Interesting)
If there's disrespect among mid and upper-level providers (MD's and other staff) toward nurses perhaps it's because of a lack of understanding of each other's tasks / responsibilities / liabilities / time demands. While it's true that nurses have a very tough job for 8-12 hours/day, other providers also have difficult jobs.
As to nurses "fleeing" the profession, I'm surprised as there are numerous articles describing the flock of women and men TO the nursing profession and the 2-year wait to be accepted into many nursing schools.
Parent
Re:Nurse is on the list, thats really really BAD! (Score:4, Informative)
Then thank you for the job you do.
The "other" nursing specialties do require more training and that's part of their career path (like everyone else). Primary Care Nurse Practioners make on national average $69K [salary.com]. I dated a NP for 7 years (she was a "floor RN" for four of those years), she now makes $85K and a friend of hers is a NP for a hospital specialty department and makes $100K. The friend has no call and the former gf gets paid extra for each weekend she works ($1500 for Fri to Sun--double that if it's a holiday). The median salary for a CRNA is $118K [salary.com].
Unlike many 9-5 jobs (or 7-3), many jobs in the medical profession are not 40-hour weeks. Many are much more (especially if you count call nights/weekends). When I was a resident, an 80-hour week was considered short (this was of course before resident hour limitations initiated in New York).
Parent
Think those are bad? (Score:5, Funny)
Some of those were hard just to list.
ARRRRRRRRRRGH! (Score:4, Funny)
Picture the puke scene from Team America: World Police and you've got a good idea of HALF of what I just went through.
You, sir, should be kicked off slashdot, post-haste.
-paul
Parent
Grad student (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Grad student (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Grad student (Score:3)
Re:Grad student (Score:4, Informative)
Ummmm. . . I'm in biology, and I get $24,500 starting out - more this semester because I'm also teaching. This is about the most any school pays, actually, but the top biology programs are all pretty comparable. For a single 20-something, it's good money, even if I took a large pay cut to go back to school. Students on external fellowships make even more: the NSF now pays upwards of $30,000 a year, and more if you teach.
Frankly, I couldn't be happier with my position, despite the attempts of our local grad student union to convince us that we're oppressed. However, after I graduate I can either go consult (shitloads of $$, but no science or fame), work for a biotech or big pharma (good $$, okay science, probably no fame), or become a perma-postdoc (no $$, awesome science, probably no fame). I could get all three as a faculty member at a good university, but there are vastly fewer jobs available than candidates, and you have to be some combination of brilliant, extremeley focused, well-connected, and just plain lucky. I'm well-connected, but only reasonably intelligent, and I can't focus worth shit, so unless I get really lucky I'm not getting one of those jobs. Sort of depressing, but at least I like the work I'm doing.
Parent
What about.. (Score:3, Funny)
Last year's list (Score:5, Informative)
Last Year's List (Score:5, Funny)
In all seriousness, the first posting of last year's list does have some great comments.
Cleaning the monkey cages... (Score:4, Funny)
Even if you don't get bit, the staff dusts you *just to be sure*.
Talk about temp help....
eeeeeeeew (Score:4, Interesting)
job interview out of college (Score:5, Interesting)
The factory tour went something like this:
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The core technology of the company was a non-contact system that used radiation to penetrate the steel and measure its thickness. Are you cool with radiation and wearing the exposure badge? Sure, not planning on any kids for a while...
Now, this steel is pretty hot, so you've got to be careful not to touch it, ok? Sure.
It's also relatively thin and the edges aren't the smoothest -- so, it's sharp. But it's steel, so it's still heavy. You wouldn't want to get any fingers you're particularily attached to near it. Uh, ok.
And, it's moving out the mill at a fairly fast speed. Radioactive, Semi-molten, sharp and fast. Still ok? uh, yeah, sure.
Finally, for some ungodly reason, it is dripping with acid. We don't know why; that's just part of the manufacturing. That's partly why we go with a non-contact measurement.
Lastly, even though your resume is excellent, we're going to put you on the support team for at least a year. It's low pay, but there's lots of overtime and travel benefits. You'll go to all sorts of exotic mill towns.
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And that, my friends, is why I took the rocket-scientist job instead.
Work for Bush Administration (Score:5, Funny)
K-25 demolition (Score:4, Informative)
Scary as all that sounds, I've actually been on the train ride. It's very pleasant, the rail cars are antiques, and the tour guide's history of Oak Ridge during WWII was interesting. (Checks rad badge again. No problems.)
It's a shame to see the old girl go down, really. She's done a lot [childrenof...roject.org] in her time in "Happy Valley". K-25 was at one time the world's largest building [childrenof...roject.org]. (For a sense of scale, have a look at the two-story townhouses at the bottom of the pic. If you look carefully, you'll see that the two buildings in the center are actually just one building.)
Re:Television Meteorologist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Television Meteorologist (Score:3, Interesting)
It's no different from being a high-tech fortune-teller. Your crystal ball is replaced by a supercomputer running weather simulations. Your predictions are only as good as the output results. Read up on the "Great Storm of 1987" [stvincent.ac.uk] and Michael Fish, who reassured a concerned view that there was no danger of a severe storm c