I distinctly remember at this time lamenting to my personal tutor in the linguistics department that I was struggling with feeling like I should have gone in to evolutionary biology. I remember her considering this before asking me if I knew evolutionary linguistics was, in fact, a thing. The study of how humans evolved to communicate using language. I didn’t, but as soon as I was aware I was hooked and ended up doing my master’s degree in language evolution and ultimately a PhD on the topic. In that moment, I found my “thing”, and I can’t imagine my life without it now. In many ways, I think I only made the choices I did because of Robin Ince raising evolutionary topics into my consciousness at a time when it wasn’t too late. In science communication, we often talk about the objective of raising the “science capital” of children to try and get people to feel like science is “for me” at an age where it can still affect their subject and career choices. I feel like Robin Ince pushed me into that space at the very last second when it could have still affected my career. And now, here I am, a lecturer in science communication who researches, among other things, science comedy.

The Importance of Being Interested | Science Communication The Importance of Being Interested | Science Communication

In November, I helped lead a writing retreat that was co-hosted by the UW-Madison Writing Center and the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE) graduate student group. It took place at the UW Arboretum; the twenty-five graduate students in attendance were from a variety of disciplines, but knew each other through CHE. We started by going around the room so everyone could say what project they were working on. After our four-hour writing session, someone said that, though he knew in general terms about the research projects of other CHE grads, it was great to hear specifically and concretely what everyone else was working on that day. Coots!The book also includes talks to many eminent researchers in their field, astronauts who have had a very unique perspective of earth and those who have had their own stories to tell when it comes to scientific curiosity. With that and Robin’s own thoughts and experiences, it made for very informative and great reading. A very worthwhile read! I loved it. But the improvisational part of tutoring—which is to say, the fun part—involves being interested: being curious about the student, their project, their discipline, the guidelines and constraints they’re working with, and what we each might learn or realize in the course of our conversation. For me, the best conferences—and they aren’t rare—are those in which I’m learning something that is of no practical use to me, something unrelated to my own scholarly work or to tutoring pedagogy. Something that’s just interesting. Being interesting and being interested “Bookcase, Ruth Mendez Home, New York, New York, 2000.” Photo by Susan Carr. In documenting the homes of people who had lived in one house for forty years or more, Susan, my aunt, had to cultivate an open-ended curiosity about and interest in whatever she might find in each home she photographed. The Infinite Monkey Cage“. Предаването, което вече има над 100 епизода, обсъжда теми от всякако естество, с гости от най-различни сфери на познанието.

The Importance of Being Interested by Robin Ince - Signed The Importance of Being Interested by Robin Ince - Signed

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institutes of Health. Michelle, I love so much about this post, but especially your observations about “Curiosity Across the Curriculum.” As you point out, “a conversation about student writing, the goals of the lesson, and the conventions of the discipline often turns into a conversation about the instructor’s own writing process.” This has often been my experience with Writing Center Outreach — there are so many moments in which I describe a writing principle or technique and the instructor says “oh, I do that all the time! I never really realized I was doing it, though.” Becoming aware of my own unconscious processes has been such a crucial part of my development so far as a writing instructor, and it’s wonderful to be able to share that experience with other teachers. At the same time, I feel so fortunate to get to learn about the fascinating things they’re doing in their classrooms and labs — on a campus like this where so much discovery is happening every day, there’s a lot to be interested in! Every chapter introduces a "mindf***" concept from the world of science (largely cosmology) and prompts the reader to muse on its implications for the big questions of life through a series of humorous vignettes and dialogues. It encourages you to adopt science not just as a means to an end, but as a religion that can bring depth and inspiration to your life. While there's no explicit atheist agenda, it does assume that the reader - like the writer - is interested in gaining the comforts of faith through science. In and of itself, the attitude is admirable and the reasoning sensible, but I find some passages, in which faith and science are presented as competing forces, to be rather one-dimensional. Hung W, Jonassen DH, Liu R. Problem-based learning. In: Spector JM, Merrill MD, Van Merrienboer J, Driscoll MP, editors. Handbook of research on educational communications and technology. 3. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2008. pp. 485–506. [ Google Scholar] I’m a big fan of Robin Ince, his eclectic way of mixing science with humour to surreal effect is a winning formula for me. Reading this book is just like being at one of his stand-up shows.The book is about science and curiosity, but it's incredibly rambling. Ideas aren't pursued before he spins off. He just gets beneath the surface on a topic, then wham, he's off quoting somebody and heading in a different direction. Robin mentions the "tangential nature of my jabbering" when on-stage, and I imagine it works well with a live audience. On paper , it feels unfleshed out.