NOT GUILTY!
Posted on 08/04/2009 5:02:37 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA
Just don't call him professor pom-pom.
A physics professor who says he'll do "anything" to get people interested in science is teaming up with the Philadelphia 76ers cheerleaders to offer online lessons on magnetics, mass and matter — all through the magic of miniskirts.
James Trefil's 20-year campaign for science literacy has led him to link up with some unlikely allies at ScienceCheerleader.com, where he and a scantily clad crew of dancing Darwins offer 18 video lessons on core ideas in science.
Trefil, who's left behind his classroom for the summer to help on the Brain Makeover videos, said it made sense for him to use "a little sex appeal" in his effort to reach and teach nonscientists.
"Why not cheerleaders?" asked Trefil, the Robinson Professor of Science at George Mason University. "My own philosophy is, any way you can get the scientific message across, that's a good thing."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
In before the “This thread is worthless without pictures” comment.
Oh no! My global is warming!
NOT GUILTY!
As a woman and a EE, I can’t begin to say how angry this makes me. Why don’t they put a sign on the door to the hard sciences building saying, “Women not encouraged to attend.”
I can’t understand why you are angry.
Companies are required to hire a certain number of women, or they face discrimination lawsuits.
Fewer women to fill those positions mean companies have to bid even more for the few female EE’s that are available, potentially making your own EE worth more than it used to be.
OK, tell you what. I’ll take your anger seriously... if... you can tell me with a straight face that you never used the fact that you were in the scant minority in the EE program to have umpteen guys at your every beck and call in school.
C’mon, fess up. I’m a retired EE and I remember the days (the “Good ol’ days!”) at my alam mata where the male:female ratio was 8:1. Such were the demographics at an engineering school.
The year after I graduated, it went up to 10:1.
As I said, “good ol’ days.”
The gals in the EE program never wanted for a date. They often wished they had a flyswatter or a stick to get some time to study, but they never lacked for male attention. Our guys clearly didn’t think that it wasn’t cool to have girls in the engineering program. Far from it. And the women were taken seriously.
The only problem with the women at engineering school, as we guys saw it, was that there weren’t enough of them.
OK, so you have a zillion people who arent interested in science absent a cheerleading squad. How does this dude intend to keep them interested once the cheerleaders are gone?
The simple fact is that some people like science and some don’t (actually most dont). Social engineering will be about as successful here as it has been everywhere else.
I don’t want affirmative action. I don’t want to be treated like I got the job because I am a woman.
Ya know, there are 10 kinds of people,
those who understand binary
and those who don’t.
Affirmative action "goals" are a fact of life. You can pretend they don't make a difference if you want.
He doesn't (or at least, shouldn't, if he's honest in his expectations). But most of them are going to come away with at least a little more understanding of how science works in their daily lives, and there may be a few who actually get interested enough to learn more.
This is a good and critical point. It is a near complete scientific ignorance that allows the left to dominate in environmental debates. A better informed population wouldn't fall for gimmicks that violate the Laws of Thermodynamics for example.
It won’t be her EE degree that will be “more valuable” - it’ll be her lack of penis.
That’s an accomplishment to be proud of in our country, don’t you think?
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