Talk:Government scientist

Dispute

The stuff about goverment scientists being "usually university professors or students who are recruited by the government to work on a government-funded and sponsored scientific project or on a government scientific research and development department" that keeps being re-added here is just utter rubbish. It can be seen to be wrong by doing nothing more than reading the remainder of the article, where it is clear that many (possibly most) government scientists are not employed for research, and are neither students nor professors. Indeed many of the non-contractor goverment-employed scientists are not associated with universities at all. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard (talk) 14:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• Are we able to find a middle ground with the phrasing? The alternate lead paragraph, "a scientist who is employed by a country's government", while undeniably (and rather inherently) accurate, is a bit on the short side. Would you be willing to accept a different phrasing which comments on activities of and motivation of employment of government scientists? Usrnme h8er (talk) 14:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • It's not an alternate. It's just what remains after the rubbish is excised. If you can think of something more to write, feel free. But it must be accurate, and accurately reflect the rest of the article to boot. It's downright false to state that these people are professors and students. Many, if not most, of them are ordinary career civil servants. Be careful of generalizations that are only true for one country, or that aren't true once one remembers that scientists are employed by governments for purposes other than pure research, such as health or wildlife monitoring, as well. Again, many, possibly most, government scientists are employed for such purposes. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard (talk) 15:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• To be qualify as a scientist, you got to be a University professor or student because no one is going to employed a person without university education to be a scientist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SocialGhost (talk • contribs) 17:41, 2 January 2009
  • Actually, I would say that to qualify as a scientist you would need to practice science. There is no chicken egg problem here - science and scientists certainly predate established universties. Further (as a quasi-off topic comment), the term "professor" in many countries (like, the UK) is limited to only the most senior academic staff at a department. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard provides a couple of examples of other roles of scientists in government above - have a look and think about phrasing. I think fundamentally, a Government Scientist is a Scientist (maybe PhD, maybe not, maybe university schooled, maybe not) who works for the government in an advisory, analytical or research oriented role (ergo a scientific role). Notice that Scientist defines the word as "A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy." Admittedly this is in the broadest sense - but even in a more restricted sense it is refered to as "individuals who use the scientific method". Usrnme h8er (talk) 16:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)