by Matthew Cobb
The Guardian has just run a competition for brief films on science made by students. The winner was Sally Le Page, a final year biology student at Oxford. She won £9000! Here’s a link to the video, which includes another minute of her chatting about asking her to vote (don’t bother, she won!)
Sally says:
“I wanted to make my film about evolution because life is the most interesting thing in the universe – and we can’t understand life without understanding evolution. Most people know what evolution is, but not how important it is. And that’s what I wanted to get across in my video…. When I was little I spent all my time in the garden playing around with frogs or watching David Attenborough programmes on TV. Increasingly, evolution is being threatened by creationism – and that’s threatening biology. So it’s important that we have an understanding of what it is.”
Here’s another video she made, about the selfish gene and chocolates…
Very good videos, esp. the one-minute one.
YAY: Criticism of group selection
BOO: Blending inheritance of dyes, use of “alstruism” for kin-selected selfish behavior.
Is she going on to graduate work?
Yup, wants to do a PhD in evol biol (at Oxford I think).
Thank you! And I was aware of the pitfalls of the dye example, but I couldn’t find any multicoloured beads!
And yes, I’m starting a PhD at Oxford at the end of this year 🙂
She’s a hottie.
I leave up the above comment only as an example of the kind of sexism that I do not want on this website.
Mr. Kovács, what in the world made you want to say something like this? This woman is a future scientist who produced two good videos on evolution–and all you can comment on is her appearance? Really?
I think an apology is in order, and I won’t have any more comments like this on this website. And if you don’t apologize, you’ll never post here again.
My apologies, no sexism was intended whatsoever. It was just a thoughtless impulse.
Thank you so very much for taking a stance against the kind of thoughtless entitlement that some men seem to feel about publicly reducing the sum of a woman’s contributions to the effect that she has on their penis.
Yes, of course I agree with you; this is a general problem for women in science.
But I hope this thread doesn’t devolve into a discussion of sexism at the expense of this woman’s evolution video. We had one comment, for which the commenter has apologized, but there are still two nice videos.
Not to devolve either, but, thanks from me too.
Oh, the amount of comments I get on my appearance – it just goes over my head now!
But thank you for picking up on it; it can get a little tiring.
And Endre, your apology is fully accepted 🙂
Thanks for commenting on the sexism!
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A quite ingenious presentation. Just goes to show how condensed information can make very valid points. Well deserved winner in my opinion.
That is absolutely great. But how is she not a character on The Big Bang Theory? She’d make a great girlfriend for Raj! 😉
Great videos!
I liked it, snappy, concise and engaging. I sent the link to my daughter: she’s a first year biology student. I think she’ll like it.
Wow, slightly overly-gushing style but expertly-made video. The judges must have spent almost a couple of seconds working out which one was the best video out of those four!
Thanks. Sally is a great speaker, and her passion for biology comes through. I wish her all the best in her academic pursuits, and hope to see more of her in the years to come.
I liked the first video a lot. The second one? – not so much.
Can anyone make an equally snappy video about the most common mechanism of evolution?
I love her! Thank you!
Bees of course, being social, do work a bit differently.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.