You Positively MUST Read This Post

What I get paid to do is be a Research Scientist Associate (II - The Sequel?) at the Bureau of Economic Geology, which is part of The University of Texas, where I got my master's a couple of years ago. One of the big requirements for research types is you have to publish papers of your research, and I have found myself none too good at this. I wonder: if I publish something on the 'Dlog and it gets more than one comment, can I count that as peer-reviewed?

But this type of writing is kind of up my alley: to the point, correct spellings, etc. (Please don't laugh; I do have feelings. And I can see you.) But I have been going over some of my supervisor's revisions to a version of my master's thesis I hope to publish, and a common response to everything I've ever submitted for revision jumps out at me: motivation. Why should I care about (fault timing, sealed microfractures, or anything I've ever written about)? my reviewer asks.

My reviewer paints science readers as a bunch of major-league philistines. Isn't anything ever just interesting anymore? So you've cured cancer, the science reader thinks, how is this going to make me money? My motivation sections invariably include the search for porosity in rocks (in the hopes that these pores might be filled with hydrocarbons, which motivation renders my study completely useless in fifty years, when no one will give a damn about the little holes), and the ways in which this study will broaden our general scientific knowledge (noble, yes, but it should go without saying. And as well: if listed as a motivation, this reason risks an infinite regression of well why do I care about thats?).

Were I a movie maker, would I include such incentives in the previews as this movie will doubtlessly be brought up in conversation by sexy women at parties this spring or watching this slasher will increase the viewer's general understanding of how to get scared shitless or attending this film will help Regal Cinema's bottom line this quarter?

No. I would say what the movie is about, and if you're cool enough to find that interesting, it starts Friday.