Very cute song. But, I do find it a little poignant and even mildly disturbing that the primary motivating criteria for her raison d’être have to do with the whole journal thing and being like the established heternormativeoccidopatriarchic white guys. Instead of just discovery of things not previously known about bugs.
Hat tip: Bug Girl
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Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
I think it’s mildly disturbing that when a young scientist shows a spark of ambition for getting published and having a successful career it is implied that she lacks curiosity, or if a female scientist shows admiration for non-female sciencists, she is labeled as trying to fit in with the white guys.
You may have a point with the latter, we simply can’t know that. But for the former, I beg to differ. It is not as though I’ve never seen a graduate student before, and don’t have a sense of what sorts of goals and ambitions and plans lead to later happiness vs. frustration and pain. My comment is about the video, but is arises from decades of noticing things.
I do need to correct you though: I did not say that she lacked curiosity. (Never a good idea to read my mind!) I’m sure she has lots of curiosity. But she is busily forming her proximate goals and approaches and the video is a clue that she’s on the conveyor belt.
The most important thing is probably that there is at present a huge demand for economic entomologists, and that this demand is being increasingly met with recruitment and expansion of programs, and a certain (not at all insignificant) number of students on that expanding conveyor belt are not going to make it past the demographic cutoff for no lack of their own ability, curiosity, or drive.
What are the spiders doing in there? To support your insightful demographic comment; when I became a Geology major at the University of Texas, there were 2000 freshmen geology majors. The oil patch went bust, and some 6 years later there were 2 freshmen geology majors at UT. Something to be said for getting in the short line.
For those who are interested, I have a whole blog specifically collecting songs about science… thanks for this one! http://songs-about-science.blogspot.com/