Quote Originally Posted by companioncube#3 View Post
@Thorne,

re: SCIENCE IS INTERESTING & IF YOU DON'T AGREE, YOU CAN FUCK OFF...

It's tongue-and-cheek, of course. When I am acting as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses (one of my part-time jobs while I finish my degree), a significant slice of my efforts is directed at framing the message properly. I try to tell science as a story, giving historical context for the results I'm presenting and prospects for the future, possible applications in other areas which might matter to students' lives. I make (bad) jokes. As I said, I fall squarely in Tyson's camp when it comes to communicating science. Tyson, incidentally, is one of my favourite contemporary popular science writers. I was happy to see you refer to Asimov. His work is another kind of celebration of science for the fiction-loving layperson.
Yes, I understand that it's tongue in cheek. I suppose my own sense of humor is too straight (unlikely) or far to warped (that's more likely) to get a laugh from it. To each his own.

As for Tyson, I've just recently bought a copy of his book, "Death by Black Hole" but haven't had a chance to read it yet. I've seen him many times on TV science programs and was impressed enough to remember who he is, so I thought I'd give it a try.

And Asimov's works which I mentioned were not his fiction, but his science essays. Ranging from astronomy through zoology, and everything in between, I always found his works both entertaining (with one exception, which dealt with the inner workings of proteins and amino acids) and educational. That's not to say I haven't also enjoyed his fiction: I have.