Stereotypes about scientists

I said on Saturday that I was planning to write a full post about scientific stereotypes.   Here it is.   Lots of people have written lots of good ground here, and I'm not going to try to recover everything.  Here are just a couple of links http://www.labmanager.com/  http://www.sciencebase.com.
I could go into a whole lot of questions about the gender politics of the stereotypes, but that's not where I'm trying to go.
I'm pretty sure everyone has heard a lot of the stories about people in many techincal fields.   We're incapable of communicating, we loose interest as soon as anything has to actually deal with people, we can't manage to bathe/attract significant others or friends, etc.  I'm sure there are people to whom that applies.  You can see current examples on the TV show Big Bang Theory, among others.  And there are people who have different opinions about these stereotypes.  I have had guys in a bar in grad school say "Ooh, science majors are hot"  That wasn't the only reason this particular guy didn't end up as boyfriend, but it was reacting to stereotypes instead of learning the reality-not a good relationship foundation.
I recently got the comment that I'm an "atypical PhD-you are actually functional and can talk to people."   I do try for that, and I like(at least some) people. I definitely want to get to decide if I like them, not the other way around.  I worry that I'm not as socially polished as I'd like to be, but I'm pretty sure that's more a function of me having high standards for myself.   Science majors that I just went to school with include a salsa dancing singer with an amazing voice, a model-got pad, mothers of mulitple children, a sailor, a marathoner, and now I'm starting to feel like I don't do much.  All of them very functional people.
There are also many people trying to work on these stereotypes.   The University of Minnesota has a program UMN Gemini program site, that is designed to be a couple of lectures every month to help.   But why do we need to do that in 2011?   Why do I care?   Well, I do feel that there is a big anti science bias in my country, and that stereotypes like this play into it.  Okay, maybe we will do a little bit of stereotype politics.   How many politicians are willing and proud to go on tv and talk about not trusting science?   too many.  How many make cracks about eggheads?   Too many.   and so we get people who mistakenly believe that there is legitimate scientific controversy about global warming, evolution, the safety of vaccines.  because they don't want to be eggheads, and learn about science for themselves.   Now, this is one of many reasons that people have for many different beliefs.  It can't explain everything.  And doesn't happen in a vacuum.  But it's related.

It has been a long time, I know

I have been moving, and starting a new job.   So, that's what's taking most of my time, though I will try and get more up here soon.  
This job is a move out of doing chemistry, and doing research, into looking at other people's results, and verifying that all the QC is within range and that the change of custody has been done properly.  All sorts of things.
I'm kind of enjoying that.    I actually thinking about writing a longer post about some of that-there was an interesting conversation yesterday about stereotypes about scientists.  I've got a lot to say, but I'm taking my time about that because I am trying to keep this blog separate from my work.  I will not be posting on here what the job is, or telling any kind of details-since I know people can put two and two together.