Wednesday, January 28, 2015

#28 / 3MT



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In one of his recent postings, Professor Rick Reis talked about the "Three Minute Thesis," developed in Australia. 3MT, as it is called, is a kind of instant bakeoff for scientists. The idea is for scientists to develop and then to present, in a competitive setting, a three-minute talk that provides "a reasonably rigorous academic justification for their work, aimed at nonspecialists." The scientists are supposed to do that in a way that will convey the excitement involved in pursuing the specific scientific inquiry in which they are engaged.

I am not much of a scientist, but I get that three-minute thing.

If you care about something, you should be able to convey the essence of whatever that is in three minutes or less. As a practicing politician, I definitely learned that lesson.

Three minutes.

No more.

It's not that easy!


Image Credit:
http://www.et.byu.edu/college-news/college-crowns-three-minute-thesis-champions

2 comments:

  1. This makes no sense at all.

    Scientists are not politicians. It takes me more than three minutes to read the title of my dissertation!

    Serially, folks, the dumbing down of science has reached a crisis. 3MT is a silly, nonsensical idea.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ^ Agreed. I watched a few of these. They were really bad.

    ReplyDelete

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