Quote:
Originally Posted by MonctonRad
I've always found there to be a divide between research academics and actual teachers. Some of the best researchers I've known have great difficulty expressing their ideas to a broader audience. They tend to be too focused on the minutia, and, tend to use highly technical language that is difficult for non experts to grasp.
I must admit that I do this myself and sometimes feel chagrined when I have finished dictating a highly detailed and specific MRI report discussing the merits of various pulse sequences, and, generating a comprehensive differential diagnosis including various sundry and arcane rare diagnoses, only to discover that the audience for the report was the patient's referring nurse practitioner. My 15 minute dissertation is essentially of no use to the NP. All they want to know is if the problem is common, or something that requires a referral.
There is a place for science educators out there. Sure, they may occasionally seem to be talking out of their ass (as far as the research academic is concerned), but, in general terms, may be providing useful information to a broader general audience. Sometimes you have to lowbrow the discussion to get across broader concepts. Unfortunately, this occasionally means that you might just be passing on some misinformation too.
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Mike Moffat serves a useful role: he's bringing attention to the issue of intergenerational [un]fairness in Canadian society, even if he's imprecisely quantifying the problem.
All we know is that there are more 24-45 year-olds leaving the City of Toronto to move to another part of the province (which could be in the same metropolitan region and therefore labour market), than there are people of the same age group moving from other parts of Ontario to Toronto. We haven't controlled for their income, or their education, or their employment, or for more ephemeral things like "ambition" or "business acumen". For all we know, the young people who are leaving Toronto may not be the people that would start businesses that would grow the Canadian economy.
I'm not saying this because I'm trying to be a Toronto booster. I'm saying this because I think we should be more analytical when we're presented with statistics as "facts".