SOJOURNPOSSE: WHY SCIENTISTS ARE PAID LESS THAN CREATIVES

Science doesn't make great viral videos. Hardly surprising when most people have the attention span of a retarded goldfish. Viral: T-Mobile

"We masturbate over a fucking advert for selling mobile phones, while creative types congratulate themselves on how clever they are and how much cash they've made with it."

The Debate: Why scientists are paid less than creatives
Words by IP Freely & Salina Christmas

Sciences are very creative. To really think up of something new, there must be an understanding of what has been done.

If something is very new conceptually, there may be only a few other people who understand the science and concept behind an invention or a new theory. Then to develop it further or apply it takes an act of inventiveness.

It doesn't make great viral videos. Hardly surprising when most people have the attention span of a retarded goldfish.

But it does mean that electronics can be carried out on a molecular level, or hydrogen can be stored without resorting to high pressures, or the understanding of why half the mass of the universe seems to be missing or why a fungicide works and why it is safe for humans, or how to synthesise a particular drug using a certain route, or reducing the amount of solvent in a reaction on an industrial scale, or finding an alternative to formaldehyde cross-linkers to make photographic film hard so that the lab technician and environment isn't exposed to the nasty stuff (circa 1992 that one), or a million other small (useful) creative problem-solving acts of inventiveness that people carry out every day of their lives that improve the quality of our lives.

Instead, we masturbate over a fucking advert for selling mobile phones, while creative types congratulate themselves on how clever they are and how much cash they've made with it.

Meanwhile, the poor physicist technician in Korea who sweated over how he can put a device that carries out a zillion processes in a femtosecond into a chip the size of an ant's penis that makes the phone work, takes home is £25k salary and has little recognition. "He's just doing his job."

During my PhD, I would go to Paris and see young people roller-blading backwards around cups or traffic cones and doing little tricks and mini-stunts. "Wow!" people would say, "isn't he impressive."

I felt like walking around with the best published research I had pinned to my forehead saying "look at that ligand on that!" or "nice coordination of the Li ion there."

IP Freely illuminates the blogosphere with opinions on patents. Among other things.

Wouldn't it be nice, though, if scientists are able to adopt some of the creatives' approaches and make a case for their science?

Page and Brin, and Yang (Google and Yahoo! founders respectively), did that with their search algorithm projects.

In fact, Page and Brin named their PhD project, which they didn't complete (they turned it into a business instead) after a mathematical concept, a tribute to their field.

Steve Jobs' fancy motion sensor capability on his iPhone is all down to the good old Cartesian x-y coordinate principle; predictive text messaging is linguistics and probability combined - but why spoil the magic and explain the logical to the laymen? PHP stands for 'Personal Home Page'. Really.

That annoying language which is now the staple of online database portals and search was initially a 'hobby'.

When it's no longer a job, or a design (ie something 'purposeful'), and becomes a philosophy, then you'll get a movement.

And then you can get the self belief that you are worth it, and then you put a price tag on.

Salina Christmas thinks Code Is Poetry. It's very possible to have your cake and eat it.