I really should apologize for the pun in that title – I blame the Friday afternoon (continuing into the evening) beer.
As if making fun of scientists for being nerds isn’t enough, you can now ridicule them for drug use. Nature conducted a poll of readers which found that twenty percent of respondents reported using prescription drugs to aid in concentration. The original Nature article can be found here and this is a summary news story for those who don’t have a university paying for a Nature subscription. I just found the whole article amusing, especially given that we were discussing it over morning coffee the other day. Ahh, coffee, the “enhancer” that is socially acceptable. One little tidbit that I wanted to share was one of the quotes from a respondent to the survey:
As a professional, it is my duty to use my resources to the greatest benefit of humanity. If ‘enhancers’ can contribute to this humane service, it is my duty to do so.
66 or older from the United States
Of course, this article reminded of the story from a few weeks ago about scientists and beer. There was a study that supposedly found an anti-correlation between the amount of beer consumed and a scientist’s productivity. I was worried for a few minutes, until I realized that I was willing to sacrifice a little bit of success to be able to enjoy beer occasionally.
