Gimme money!!!

OK - I believe I mentioned that I bought 4 tickets to the National Geographic Live series of speakers at the Pantages theatre in Minneapolis over the next 4 months. I call them my "nerd lectures." Last night was Spencer Wells (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/emerging/spencerWells.html) . Large in part I found him to be somewhat interesting, however I felt like about 40% of the presentation was a sales pitch for these "kits" that the public can get involved in the research. For $100, you can swipe your own DNA & they will provide you with a report about your own genetic lineage based on a predetermined set of markers. I honestly learned everything he talked about for the most part in my genetics classes in undergrad, the only portion that was interesting to me was about 10 minutes of talk about climate cycling and how that affected human population migration, as well as vague references to agricultural migration - which fascinates me for obvious reasons.

But I am straying from my point.

About 40 minutes into the presentation, I nearly got up & left. I didn't take my time & purchase a ticket to be subject to a sales pitch. Why don't you convince me FIRST that what you're doing is really valuable and that you're making strides before you ask me to buy something from you. I found it to be thoroughly annoying. I am sure you are very smart and what you're doing is very important Mr. Harvard Ph.D, however you really should reconsider your approach. Generally it is considered proper to convince everyone of how awesome what you're doing is and then ask them for money to support it. Not vice versa. Consider the human element here.

If you're considering the purchase of a ticket to this speech, consider if you're willing to survive the sales pitch to get to the meat of the issue. For all that Dr. Wells is articulate and obviously well informed, this presentation was spun. If you've had freshman genetics, consider just reading about it online & skip the show. I've got tickets to the other 3 shows on the tour, so I'm concerned that this is going to be a massive waste of my time.