Originally posted by seanD
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As a scientist, I like it when scientists doing public outreach, and I like it when people who aren't scientists or who used to be scientists make it a full-time career of doing science popularizing. I support that. It's great.
In the case where someone is in a full-time career of doing science-popularizing, they indeed aren't scientists, in the same way a person working as a fire-fighter isn't a police officer. Rogue foolishly implied that amounted to "sneer[ing] contemptuously". It isn't. it's just stating a fact, and accurately labeling what it is they are doing in their job. It's not making any kind of negative value judgement about what they do: I think what they do is excellent and worthwhile and needs doing more.
It also occasionally annoys me when people who do next to no science call themselves scientists to try and boost their marketing. Sam Harris is the commonest example of this. He doesn't do science popularizing, he just writes books about his own views, and he very rarely if ever does any science, so he's neither a scientist nor a science popularizer. I would say I do sneer contemptuously at him, and if asked I would indeed say he's not a real scientist.
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