“Science: It’s a Girl Thing!” That’s what is claimed in a goofy public service announcement, made by the European Commission, which aims to convince young women that science careers are in fact “cool.” Naturally, for a few days the Twittersphere has been atwitter over the very pink ad, which instead shows that girls can simultaneously do science and appear in an ’80s music video … ?

Today on Boingboing, Maggie Koerth-Baker has posted a great response to the ad, in the form of an interview with Dr. Margo Seltzer, a computer scientist at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In the interview, Seltzer says that she does think the public image of “scientists” as male affects young girls’ desire to join the ranks.

“As a society we’ve done a really, really bad job of marketing what it means to be in software,” Seltzer says. “If you ask somebody, ‘What does a computer programmer look like?’ I think almost everyone in the world will give you the same description — it’s a nerdy guy with no social skills.”

Not. True. If you’re looking for images of female software designers, or female scientists more generally, browse these TEDTalks from 70+ physicists, biologists, science writers, psychologists, engineers, doctors, technologists, oceanographers, roboticists, even an astronaut. Just click around the text block below …

Diane Kelly … Melissa Garren … Tali Sharot … Christina Warinner … Regina Dugan … Noel Bairey Merz … Lucianne Walkowicz … Lucianne Walkowicz again … Quyen Nguyen … Sheila Nirenberg … The three teenagers who won the Google Science Fair last year … Michelle Borkin … Cheryl Hayashi … Cynthia Kenyon … Jen Pahlka … Erica Frenkel … Lisa Harouni … Anna Mracek Dietrich … Angela Belcher … Susan Lim … Cynthia Breazeal … Nalini Nadkarni again … Jane McGonigal … Cat Lainé … Janine Benyus again … Catherine Mohr … Carolyn Porco again … Pattie Maes … Susan Savage-Rumbaugh … Elizabeth Murchison … Dyan deNapoli … Jessica Green … Nina Tandon … Edith Widder … Edith Widder again … Annmarie Thomas … Isabel Behncke … Janna Levin … Patricia Kuhl … Hawa Abdi and Deqo Mohamed … Ariel Garten … Heather Knight … Deborah Rhodes … Barbara Block … Jessa Gamble … Laurie Santos … Aditi Shankardass … Dee Boersma … Juliana Machado Ferreira … Temple Grandin … Andrea Ghez … Rachel Pike … Rachel Armstrong … Rebecca Saxe … Nina Jablonski … Mary Roach … Carolyn Porco … Mae Jemison … Margaret Wertheim … Bonnie Bassler … Nalini Nadkani … Jill Tarter … Sylvia Earle … Penelope Boston … Jane Goodall … Jane Goodall again … Patricia Burchat … Louise Leakey … Helen Fisher … Helen Fisher again … Jill Bolte Taylor … Deborah Gordon … Tierney Thys … Janine Benyus … Eva Vertes … Sheila Patek