oh no, subordinate clauses. Like, look, is it a worthwhile goal to make academic communication more accessible outside of its own subfield? Hell yes. Is this a noteworthy or unique example of work that does not do that? Meh, not really.
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Replying to @hearing_girl @graceelavery
Great point. As a scientist, I wouldn't be comfortable recommending Stephen Hawkins' books to any non-scientist. The mark of an intellectual is to be able to explain their ideas in a straightforward way.
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Popularizing a topic for a lay audience is a completely different skillset from actually doing work in the field Some gifted people are able to do both, but there are many who specialize in one and don't bother much with the other There's nothing wrong with that
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Particularly when it comes to "sexy" topics like cosmology, it's very common for scientists in the field to complain that popularizers, even popularizers who do know what they're talking about, find it necessary to speak in simplified metaphors that spawn misconceptions
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Most wouldn't go so far as to say it shouldn't be done at all, but people who have "a little knowledge" can be very dangerous, and the idea that simplified lay explainers on quantum physics or immunology or whatever are the same as studying the topic are part of the problem
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I like Stephen Hawking's books, but they are not in fact as easy to understand as some people think they are, as evidenced by the fact that a lot of his fans *don't* understand what he was saying and say blatantly wrong things based on it
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More importantly, they do not accurately reflect his work as a scientist They are a project he undertook in their own right They do not at all prepare you to read an actual journal article from the field and understand the daily work of a physicist
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The average fan of A Brief History of Time would find the average article from an actual astrophysics journal incomprehensible And that's not a reflection on the journal article's authors being stupid or not really knowing what they're talking about
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In any case, this is completely misplaced as a dunk on Butler Butler's writing in Gender Trouble is not the result of her being unable to express herself clearly in simple language, as evidenced by the fact her New Statesman interview was completely different in style and tone
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It is a very, very odd kind of criticism to say that someone's very clearly and simply laid out opinions in an interview in the popular press must be worthless because, thirty years ago, they wrote a book you find uses too many big words
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Even if I accepted all your assumptions as true, it's been thirty fucking years Maybe she became a better writer in that time What does that have to do with criticizing her now
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