Century-old genetics mystery of Mendel's peas solved
13 comments
·April 25, 2025xhkkffbf
Was he a "citizen scientist"? Could we say he had "tenure" at the Abbey? And weren't many of the universities still effectively branches of the church in the 1800s? Was the Abbey co-equal to any of the other educational institutions? The first lay president at Yale wasn't hired until 1899?
And while we're discussing this, are there also undocumented scientists? What if you just have a green card?
I get that they're trying to be welcoming by coining the phrase "citizen scientist", but it seems to open up other debates.
Calwestjobs
Tesla played with model of electric car in his younger school years. All parts were invented and built by people from Austro-hungarian empire. Long before he was even thinking about going to america. And stationary electric motor is just transformer if you think about it ...
Jozef Murgaš also chaplain, invented and was first person to transmit modulated radio waves (voice), few months before vacuum tube was even invented. Marconi was morsecode, Bell was wired phone.
Clergy was essentially what army is nowadays, they gave you education and thus enabling you to rise in socio economic pyramid.
detaro
It's not a new phrase. But their use also doesn't really fit with the usual meaning of the term nowadays. (and in that "citizen" is not meant to confer anything about status in a country)
kens
I also find "citizen scientist" objectionable. It implies that a "citizen scientist" isn't a real scientist, so a modifier needs to be attached. (You don't see that sort of gatekeeping in programming for instance; you don't call someone a "citizen programmer" if they don't have the right background.) Also, as you point out, not everyone is a citizen. Finally, the expression doesn't even make sense since most scientists are citizens. (I should point out that the article didn't coin "citizen scientist"; it is in common use.)
badlibrarian
Term originates in 1910 and was applied to many including Edison.
Calwestjobs
Czechs at it again ! They even designed their own nuclear reactor after soviet occupants did not want to share soviet design with them ! They build nuclear power plants in 3 communist occupied countries afterwards.
anticodon
What? Is that an LLM generated comment?
Czechoslovakian nuclear power plants were build with the Soviet help by USSR blueprints.
Calwestjobs
ok, i see ! bad wording XD
Soviets did not want czechoslovakia to have nuclear power, soviets wanted to be only one enriching, so czechs designed their own - gas cooled one, which did not needed enriched fuel. Wikipedia says "with help of soviets" but wikipedia forgot to say that soviet "input" was reason said reactor had so many problems.
And after that they were forced to use water cooled ones from soviets. But they built every screw in those 5 power plants. 15-20 reactors.
Also currently working plants were progressively updated and electrical output increased by 30 %.
Czechs were last in europe to have uranium mines, some of mines were used as slave labor camps for dissidents / political prisoners (60 000 i think) under soviet occupation (pre1989). They were mining radioactive ore with bare hands and lived in buildings without heating. ( clergy was big part of political prisoner population, connection with clergy man Mendel )
anticodon
Regarding building of power plants, I've studied the information I could find but very briefly. Including some interviews with Czech people who built those reactors.
> Czechs were last in europe to have uranium mines, some of mines were used as slave labor camps for dissidents / political prisoners (60 000 i think) under soviet occupation (pre1989). They were mining radioactive ore with bare hands and lived in buildings without heating. ( clergy was big part of political prisoner population, connection with clergy man Mendel )
Yeah, that's exactly what is called "propaganda". Just like the movie Tenet starts showing "life" in Russia/USSR where in some "typical Russian city" "typical Russian people" gather pieces of uranium on the streets with their bare hands. Yeah, this is exactly how we live and always lived. /s
Archive link please?