Scientist Stereotypes.

Don't knwo where in the world you are but here in America there are some pretty silly steretypes for scientists,engineers,technologists, and intellectuals.

There's the nerdy or geeky sterotype that a technically literate person would wear bottle glasses, have no sense in fashion, and have a pocket protector. He usually looks and speaks awkwardly. He may have a labcoat and usually has a bunsen burner and test tubes in the lab.

Then there's the inner qualities of them. Supposedly those who are in science, study it and are interested are retarded socially , don't go to clubs or parties, have no girlfriend or sexlife, and don't drink or do drugs. A trekkie or Star Wars fanatic.

I've been around engineers, and techno people.They don't look anything like that. They come uniformly from both sexes, all orientations, every race, all countries, and many religions. Now I haven't been to many laboratories, engineering offices, and tech firms. SO I wouldn't know the true balance of races,gay to straight,or national origin. There's is a thought that mainstream america is cathing onto. Atheists tend to make up an overwhelming majority of scientests, at leat imenent ones and christians are hard to find.

So can any of you whom have worked in the labs, offices, and on expiditions deny or confirm any of these notions?

 

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I can confirm that many scientific and engineering types do fit the stereotype. There is some truth to it. A scientific mind does tend towards autistic traits, which often manifest as physical and social awkwardness.

 

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I am eating cheetos in the aerospace engineering computer lab while procrastinating writting engineering code via comming here to sciforums.com. Minus the coke-bottle glasses and add a bar t-shirt and the stereotype does in fact exist.

Oh, also replace the lab with a computer lab. A researcher spends so much time pouring over data and writing tombs about it. If ONLY it were as cool as doing lab stuff all the time!

 

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