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jgourlay
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I think it's an issue of age and maturity. The young guys are frequently full of themselves, incurious, with a sprinkle of plain lazy (ie, 8:30 to
4:00 and f'you if the project requires some night/weekend work). The operative quotes would be, "that's inorganic, I don't do that." and "it's time
to go, I'll do it monday."
The middle age industrial chemists are invisible, until you come in late one evening and catch them actually talking to some blue collar guy. The two
will be working together to solve a real problem you didn't even know was occurring.
The older industrial chemists can best be summed up as, "You're trying to do WHAT in your garage?!? Holy Crap!!! Listen, if you can grill a steak me
and the wife'll come over Saturday night and show how not to burn the neighborhood down."
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psychokinetic
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Seems to be that a PhD doesn't mean being awesome anymore, it means getting a gold star to show off with. 
“If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found
the object of his search.
I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”
-Tesla
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HydroCarbon
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Pretty much, yeah.
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majortom
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Wow I think I just touched a raw nerve, I diffidently see where you guys are coming from.
I found that the lower people are on the totem pole of chemistry the more useful and amiable they tend to be, also having much more disregard for
safety. years ago I would discuss attempts to build a down's cell with my high school chem teachers, they were always enthusiastic about helping a
teenager run enough electricity to kill themselves through molten sodium hydroxide.  I remember one teacher who had us do a simple double displacement precipitation lab with us, When I asked why we were using K2Cr2O7 and Pb(NO3)2
instead of AgNO3 and NaCl because of toxicity concerns he told me "Because we can!" later he started talking about how the reaction of acetic
anhydride and morphine works in great detail while he was passing out the acetic anhydride and salicylic acid for the old asprin lab.
I was looking through one of the many dictionary sized books that make up just one year of the journal of the American Chemical Society. Flipping
through It you see so many esoteric reactions that have probably been forgotten long ago, the reagents involved are maddeningly obscure, it brings one
to wonder what use they could ever be buried among thousands of other articles in just that one volume. You get sucked into it, that little niche
becomes your world. the study becomes so specialized that you push the boundaries of human knowledge out just a little bit. Then people believe they
are so great and have made so many advances, but in the big scheme of things it is just a drop in the bucket. Even a drop in the bucket does good, but
it doeskin make you the messiah.
I always try to be very modest, back in high school when people saw me carrying around a college organic textbook from the 70's people would always
come up and say I was a genius. That is a load of bull hockey. I read chemistry because I find it interesting. I go through the textbooks just like
how most people read a novel. If I was a genius I would not have to read through some sections two or three times to understand them. Everyone has
something they are really good and are passionate about, for some its ballet, painting, or eloquent speech, but for me it is chemistry. I am not any
better at what I do than any of the others, Chemistry just seems a bit harder intellectually on the surface to most people.
The chemist is working on a radiolabled ligand and is actually a freelancer that a university in town hired. My uncle is a Phd (incidentally he is
also a condescending dick) at this well known university. I generally try to tolerate his controlling nature because as long as I am on his good side
it is a lot easier to get to use the University resources and staff. Plus It helps me get into the preliminary drug trials and psychology studies.
(Gotta pay for my soxhlet thimbles somehow, Everyone jump on the naltrexone express!)
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zed
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O. Chem, has matured through thousands (perhaps even hundreds of thousands), of incremental advances.
The guys were plenty smart, and there have been a lot of them. Each successful chemist.... building upon the discoveries of thousands that went
before.
Reading a chapter two or three times, in an attempt to properly understand it......Is completely Einstein-ian.
That idea that genius, is somehow indicated by instant understanding, is incorrect.
Genius, by definition, doesn't mean quickly understanding the theories that others have set forth as being fact............It means bumbling into your
own theories.
The root Gen-, means....Create. In this regard, there are folks with tested IQs of 200, who are totally devoid of genius. Boring bastards too.
Meanwhile, seemingly clueless hippie-types like Allen Ginsberg, awaken from fevered dreams, in the middle of the night, and dazedly scribble out
haunting works of art that captivate millions.
In another example, an under-qualified, unobtrusive, loser patent clerk, ponders strangely thought out problems, and the conclusions to his
ponderings, eventually turn the world of physics upside down.
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HydroCarbon
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@majortom
What you said above really has much truth. For us people to whom chemistry is a hobby, we tend to appreciate it more and not just view it as a career
path or way to make money. We also tend to want to share it with other people. I would be willing to bet that the majority of these jerk-off phds
and other hotshots in the chemical field really just view chemistry as a career path, and don't really have an intrinsic interest in chemistry.
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entropy51
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Quote: Originally posted by HydroCarbon  | | I would be willing to bet that the majority of these jerk-off phds and other hotshots in the chemical field really just view chemistry as a career
path, and don't really have an intrinsic interest in chemistry. |
There are easier ways to get rich. Few
people make it through to a doctorate without serious interest in the subject.
I am quite amazed by how quickly intelligent people are willing to generalize from one person to a group of tens of thousands.
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DJF90
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I greee with entropy. I know several people taking a masters in chemistry with little interest and the intention of going into banking. Why? Because
the skills are transferable. Personally, if I was that way inclined I'd choose an easier subject, it just seems like an incredible waste of knowledge
if it'l never be used.
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madscientist
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| Quote: Originally posted by entropy51 |
I am quite amazed by how quickly intelligent people are willing to generalize from one person to a group of tens of thousands. |
All Americans generalize!
I weep at the sight of flaming acetic anhydride.
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Magpie
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I could equally say all people generalize about Americans, but that would be generalizing too.
Not in this case, but generalizing can sometimes be very important, like when you have to make quick decisions.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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HydroCarbon
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I suppose that since these people did choose the path of chemistry then they do have some interest in the subject. However, to clarify my
point, the way our professional society is set up [ideally] people choose a field, study the subject, then work applying what they learned. Many
people that choose chemistry do this and only treat chemistry as a profession, not a hobby. These people wouldn't read a chemistry text for fun or
personal enrichment, these people don't do chemistry at home. They treat it strictly as a profession. This is, in my opinion, what separates the
majority of scientists from the people who truly love what they do.
I've met a good number of professional scientists, and I've gone to college for chemistry. The people that truly love chemistry and practice it for
personal enjoyment are far and few, most people in the field keep it as a professional relationship. And while there are certainly no hard lines
defining these types of people, I feel confident in my generalization that most people involved in professional chemistry don't hold the same passion
for the science that most of the people on this board do.
Furthermore, I don't see any problem in making generalizations. I recognize the complexity of society and human personality, but at the same time
generalizing things allows you to see the bigger picture and make rough observations that can then be zoomed in on for further study.
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