I have a hard time talking to non-scientists about science: I assume they know more or less than they actually do – I never seem to get it just right.  I think assuming they know less is a better strategy.  If I assume they know more, they normally don’t even bother to ask about what they didn’t understand and don’t get anything out of the conversation.

However, if I assume they know less than they actually do, I’m sometimes accused of being condescending.  I don’t (usually) think the people I’m trying to talk to are stupid or incapable of understanding whatever concept I’m trying to explain – I just don’t know what kind of background they have.  I try to guess what they  know and then explain the concept to them the way I would like the concept explained to me if I had that background (example).

I’d like to brush it off as people just being insecure about their own knowledge/intelligence, but if I can’t communicate my work to people other than scientists, I’m failing in a big way.  I’m not really sure what I’m doing wrong, but I’d really like to figure it out.  Any ideas, readers?

I have several posts waiting to be written (or half written) and had grand plans of finishing at least one today.  Unfortunately, I’m sick again today.  For the last several weeks I’ve been nauseated for several hours almost every day for no apparent reason.  It isn’t bad enough to make me miserable, but it keeps me from staring at my computer screen for too long.  So instead of telling you about my trip to Sedona today, I’m going to go sit on the porch and drink ginger tea.

I turned my last term paper in yesterday morning.  Finishing the last assignment/exam of a semester always feels so good!  I spent the rest of day repotting plants and retrieving my summer clothes from the depths of the hall closet.  Today, I’ve got to get some work done, but I’m planning on making a grapefruit cake and spending several hours on my porch admiring my plants in their new pots and reading a book that has nothing to do with work.

I’ll post pictures of my plants all dressed up in pretty pots soon!

I’d apologize for the lack of blogging, but I’m pretty sure most of my readers have either experienced the end of a semester or heard me whine enough to understand exactly why I’ve disappeared the last few weeks.  I don’t actually have any finals this semester, but I do have large papers and projects to turn in.  Ultimately, these end up being a lot more work than a big test, but I prefer them.  Most exams just require you to vomit up some large percentage of the information presented in class that semester, but a term paper or project forces me to think about what I’ve learned in different contexts, apply it, and synthesize it.  Much more useful and interesting than regurgitating Ohm’s law in all its permutations for plant physiology (Dr. Isis is right about everything in physiology boiling down to Ohm’s law) or listing the advantages of a hierarchical Bayesian modeling approach.

I turn in my modeling project at 7:30 AM tomorrow and my plant physiology mock grant proposal on Thursday morning.  Then I’m going to reward myself by replacing the cheap, falling apart plastic plants some of plants live in and sit on my balcony in the sunshine playing in the dirt for a few hours.

And then you might hear from me again.