Science and engineering got popular and when young women do it, it's just hot. Now you might wonder why I want to discuss this as I'm very supportive of the +STEM Women on G+ so let me explain,
A post by my good friend +Gideon Rosenblatt triggered my response. He just shared the typical 'made for social media' post which is basically summarized in the attached photo. Now I know Gideon as a smart guy so I ventured that although it was good news that women were found in labs, it were not really 'inventions' in the classic sense.
Boy, did I meet some resistance. Apparently it's cynical if you just state that although remarkable, it are just fun lab experiments, not Nobel prize material.
The problem is that the scientific nor the engineering community paid attention while the popular press went wild on good looking young woman with inventions. The claims were Intel and Google were pulling at these girls to use their inventions real soon now….
The reality of course is very different. There is no flashlight which 'harvest energy from your hand'. There is just a small led light powered by Peltier elements. It generated 57 milliwatts, not an awful lot and nobody with a science background took notice.
I didn't check on the bananas, but I did remember the 'world's fastest mobile phone charger'. The last was the most serious of this series and Eesha Khare won a well deserved second prize in an Intel sponsored science fair.
Basically she packaged a newly material (developed by her mentor and his study group earlier in time) in a small form factor and made some measurements to the 'device'. It behaved as expected: as a super capacitor and it had the same qualities as all others. Thanks to the newly developed material it was more efficient and it could power a led (yes, again a Led, no phone).
Now the problem is that you are no longer allowed to even ask some questions if wild claims are made. I am now asked to prove these are not proper inventions, which of course is impossible.
(If you think otherwise dear reader, please provide proof that my invention of a new $100 spaceship has some faults. Right, you can't as you don't have the details. So how to challenge me, huh 😉
Without any publication in either a science or engineering publication it stays in the realm of wonder science by wonder women. You could ponder on some questions though:
If Eesha Khare invented the end to all our woes in charging phones and Google and Intel want her now, why don't we hear about the first prize winner? Yes, in case you missed it earlier, she won the second prize.
Now the first prize winner was indeed a bit boring. That inventor only created a feasible design for an autonomously controlled car that could detect traffic lanes and curbs, along with the real-time position of the car which is nothing new as we all know Google already does that. Oh and it would just cost $4000 if you use his invention. Maybe that should have been news, but nope, Not even Google was mentioned, he never got any press attention.
But maybe the other second prize winner? Ah well, that 17-year old simulated thousands of clusters of galaxies, and in doing so has provided scientists with valuable new data, allowing them to better understand the mysteries of astrophysics: dark matter, dark energy and the balance of heating and cooling in the universe's most massive objects.
Not really worth a news item is it? Finally understanding dark matter and the mysteries of the galaxy or just solving transportation problems on a shoe box budget compared to Google.
I guess you realize by now why you never heard of the 2013 winners: they were boys and unfortunately there are no pictures so I can't even tell you if they were not good looking enough.
Please let's return to mother ship earth. Yes, it's great that high school students love experimenting. Even better that they are promoted and get access to serious labs and mentors. Good work by Google and Intel. And yes it's important that it are girls as well as boys, but please let' stay real.
These are bright kids who spend serious time on great stuff but please let's go back to reality checks if wild claims are made. Modern science is created by (often large) teams, not by high school girls or boys.
If we want more women in STEM we should have at least have the decency to take them seriously and challenge social media hoaxes by the scientific rigour they deserve.
and of all people, the three girls mentioned below will be most glad if you do, as they deserve high respect for their efforts, not for their luck in pop science
#EveryDayScience
Ah well, too late to put it in the post, but about the bananas I will quote
With figures such as Marie Curie and Thomas Edison to inspire her work, Elif Bilgin spent two years refining her techniques to transform banana peels into plastic.
Most people who attended even a few science classes will now hear some alarm bells….
You can still vote for either the bananas or the harvesting flash light on https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/ Note that from the 15 candidates three girls age 15, 15 and 16 offer 'A Treatment for Liver Inflammation' but they do wear glasses…
wow….you go girls :):):)
+Max Huijgen , there are several separate (and important) issues that you raise, and gender bias towards good looking, talented girls is the least of them in my opinion. First, media hype is anathema whether the recipient is a grey haired venerable Herr Professor (plenty of those) or a high school girl (fewer of these). The trend for sound bite sized captions pasted over a catchy picture is also unfortunate: they are superficial and sensational, and I'm willing to bet that the person who makes them does not venture beyond the media headlines. Fighting media hype is one reason why my scientist colleagues and I are here on G+. Explaining the science in some depth to raise true appreciation is another. As for the gender issue, there are plenty of young males whose high school science fair projects have been hyped beyond reason: Jack Andraka and his prostate cancer test is one (plenty of hype and untested/unpublished ideas there). Unfortunately, these young women will likely feel the wrong end of sexism sooner rather than later (gender bias tends to increase with power/status), so let them enjoy a brief time of adulation.
I tend to be a bit more indulgent towards budding science enthusiasts because at least they have put in the effort, they communicate their ideas at a level above their peers, and they are a ray of hope for the future. Sure, most have a professional lab behind them and their projects are not quite ready for prime time, but if the hype was tamped down somewhat we could all give them a round of applause and tell them to keep at it.
Already said my piece on this.
+Rajini Rao the main problem here is not about sexism but about the lack of basic understanding of science in reporting.
Now normally this gets countered by people reading the actual research papers (or at least the popularized versions) but high school 'science' is of course not covered at all by these publications.
Just the way it should be, but that lack of coverage by any slightly serious magazine or even a news paper with a part time science editor makes high school efforts the realm of the kind of press (and bewilderment by laymen) which used to accompany the inventors of a century ago.
In other words: like astrology and other pseudo science it's the last resort of people who just want to believe in magic. It would be good if science editors would cover these Google, Intel, etc sponsored events to put things into perspective.
We can use kids who put in the effort and have the stamina to actually setup science projects. Let's reward them with decent coverage instead of them becoming the realm of 'weird inventors'
The downside of social 'newsreporting'…
+Max Huijgen , agree about the science reporting. As a serious science researcher, I can't say that news coverage of research we do in universities is any better. And we are at least partly to blame for that. People need to lose their appetite for sensational headlines too. But still, the high school students are the least to blame in all this.
Who blames the students +Rajini Rao?
You can't expect a 16 year old to give an interview that she uhm, actually didn't save the world.
But as you can see in +Gideon Rosenblatt and all other shares of this hyped thing due to the lack of serious attention questions like 'proof this is not a great invention' can't be countered. Unlike sensationalist headlines for university research where ten minutes of googling does provide that answer.
+Rajini Rao I might be mistaken but I don't think +Max Huijgen was trying to take anything away from the girls. I read it more as a commentary on how their accomplishments were reported and how inaccurately they were portrayed. That being said I still think it's worthy to highlight them vs. not at all which would have been the case several years ago. Yes first place might have a bigger impact technologically but the social impact for women might be even greater especially in the long run. Just my 2 cents.
Well, they are separate issues in my opinion. Giving kudos to young people who try their hand at the scientific method (whether with banana peels in their kitchen or quantum dots in a high tech lab) is fine. So I'm glad for the shares and enthusiasm. The hype and marketing comes from another source altogether, and is too bad. Each of those projects has some merit, and the point is not so much the invention but the effort in such competitions. Anyway, I agree that the projects could be explained with more realism.
+Rajini Rao yup I don't disagree with your view on it. Just think the media machine does need to do a better job of understanding and not over hyping the underlying tech.
Well for once we completely disagree +Rajini Rao It hurts science but also the progress of women in STEM if we start portraying them this way.
Watch and shudder:http://teamcoco.com/video/young-scientist-award-winner-eesha-khare-pt-1-06-13-13
+Max Huijgen: "Pop science"
—Isn't that an oxymoron? The populace isn't interested in science. They are just seduced by fireworks displays.
+Max Huijgen: "I am now asked to proof these are not proper inventions"
"If you think otherwise dear reader, please proof that my invention of a new $100 spaceship has some faults."
— "Proof" isn't a verb, the verb is "prove".
+Max Huijgen: "Finally understanding dark matter and the mysteries of the galaxy"
— Do you know of any hard evidence of the existence of dark matter? Granted, a computer simulation of thousands of clusters of galaxies isn't proof of anything.
+Max Huijgen: "I am now asked to proof these are not proper inventions, which of course is impossible."
Should have been 'provide proof' but thanks for the correction +Zephyr López Cervilla