Honoring those who serve

It came to my attention today that firefighters were to be honored at an upcoming holiday celebration in town. Now, I simply don't know of anyone who can deny that firefighters are true heroes (unlike hypersteroidal baseball players or over-paid running backs who can't keep their noses out of cocaine). However, it occurred to me that even before they were firefighters they were students. They had teachers at some point in their lives. Some of those teachers were scientists. Where would firefighting be without teachers and scientists? Firefighters drive to work in chariots of engineering wonder. Where would they be without teachers, scientists and engineers?

Let's look at scientists (this is, after all, a science blog). Now, I don't mean to slight teachers, because even though we're all born scientists far too many have had the flame of science snuffed out prematurely by a few boring, uninterested, frightened, unqualified and ill-prepared teachers. Those of us that became the scientists we are today, however, had several teachers along the way that kept the sparks fanned and pushed or guided us. I think many of us will agree that those teachers simply are not paid enough and are often under appreciated (especially by some of the very ones they're trying to teach). The thing is, good teachers like good firefighters are heroes, and they're successes and failures are often in front of us daily. After all, politicians are always ready to use teachers, either positively or negatively, as the point of departure for their self-serving discussions.

So, back to scientists. I know for a fact that scientists are both underpaid and under appreciated and far too often are made out to be villains by the rest of the populace. Politicians typically don't pay us much mind except when they want to ridicule us for have our hands out for government support for what they call "pork." Or, when they vehemently disagree with us for our dire predictions, because we all know that along with becoming a politician, that most have at least a college degree in some physical science. Or not.

Recently, there have been the political global climate change deniers who point out that climate scientists are some of the worst feeders from the public trough. That these scientists are only investigating global warming so they can squeeze more money from the government and other public coffers. Some say these same scientists only release the most dire predictions and the worst possible news to keep them in their jobs by scaring the snot out of the public and their elected officials.

Let me see, here. Does any thinking human really believe that there are scientists who live like high-profile sports stars, or like conniving politicians, or like dishonest and lying financial managers, or like rock stars? I'd like to see a list of the 100 most wealthy scientist on earth. Who would be on such a list? Surely, if the right-wing nuts are to be believed, most, if not all, the NASA scientists would be on that list. Hey, maybe the immoral stem cell researchers will be on the list. Most definitely the scientists who are studying global climate change will all be on such a list.

Now it is true that some pitiful few scientists do achieve rock star-like status. The vast majority do not. The vast majority do their jobs, just like firefighters and teachers, for the love of it and they receive relatively insignificant wages. The next time your sitting around in your committees trying to think of some deserving group of people to honor please consider scientists.