Interruptions can completely derail talks, and the points already made about disagreements on taxonomy or pronunciation are well-taken.
A correction of genuine mis-identification (not mere synonymy) would probably be appreciated, but this would depend on the speaker, and might be better made at the end of the talk. When I talk, and get to the part that deals with arthropods, I always invite identifications from the audience, since this is not my field. Perhaps the moderator or speaker should state a clear policy on such interruptions at the outset. When I speak, I generally ask people to hold questions and comments for the end, saying that there is a lot to cover, and that their question is probably addressed later in the talk. But my subject, debunking invasive species pseudoscience, is controversial, and many people let their emotions carry them away. It is a large and complex subject, so interruptions have a serious negative impact on teaching the material. I have had cases where in over 2 hours I was not able to get more than 5 minutes into my talk because of interruptions by persons who wanted to prevent me from presenting the material. One interesting observation is that I've found that women who are knitting during my talk, are almost always disruptive or heckle me at some point. Weird but true... One gains both a thick skin and calm demeanor dealing with such heckling. One young lady came up to me and screamed "I think you are full of S**T!!" six inches from my face (she is now a professor at UC Berkeley). Then of course there are the death-threats I've received on my answering machine... So if you only have to deal with someone "correcting" your pronunciation or taxonomy, just smile and count your blessings! --David David Theodoropoulos/Sheri Calkins _______________________________________________ Alpine-l mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l
