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From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2008-01-20:
"An alien anthropologist, armed with only our bestseller lists, might conclude that detectives rule the earth. This alien could easily inspect novels for months and never work out that humans do scientific research...If fiction is a mirror held up to our culture, scientists are its vampires. They lurk in the shadows, casting no reflection." -- Jennifer Rohn, from a PODium editorial in the Nature Podcast for January 17, 2008, bemoaning the fact that our popular culture has very few good fictional representations of scientists doing believable science.
[ http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/archivetranscripts.html]
(Submitted to the mailing list by John S. Karabaic)
[This is a kind of busy date, not to be summed up
in the theme of a single quotation. To my fellow Americans,
happy Father's Day. To folks celebrating on the Orthodox
Christian calendar, blessed Pentecost. To
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dmk,
happy birthday. To scientists, happy anniversary of Benjamin
Franklin's kite experiment ... and Edward Muggeridge's proof
that all four of a horses hooves leave the ground at once during
a gallop. And to anyone who has benefited from living in a
country ruled by some form of constitutional law, happy
anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta.]
(no subject)
There are very few fictional representations of bricklayers doing believable bricklaying as well. Or trombone playing, ditch digging or morris dancing. Science, in this respect as in many others, is not nearly as special as it thinks it is.
(no subject)
!
I would not have expected you, of all people, to think badly of science. When I see a phrase like "science... is not nearly as special as it thinks it is" it usually is part of the introduction to a defense of 'Intelligent Design' or something like that; I really hope it won't be here.
Also, a book about evil bricklaying, trombone playing dehumanizing people, or morris dancing run amuck would be an interesting novelty, but science is very frequently depicted in all those situations, thus giving the absence of accurate depictions of science a slightly different implication than the absence of accurate depictions of the others, possibly excepting ditch digging, as physical labor is often depicted as necessarily demeaning.
(no subject)
An alien anthropologist who has our bestseller lists will already know we did scientific research, if only because it will almost certainly have retrieved them from some form of technology, which springs from and is powered by scientific advances. It will almost certainly be far more interested in our culture; not the questions we asked, but the answers we gave.
But, as I said, I have nothing against the idea of fiction about scientists. If there are scientists who want their activities to be celebrated in fiction, they have the remedy at their fingertips.
(no subject)
*is relieved* My eyebrows have only recently reattached.
I get a little antsy when some of its exponents give the impression that they think it's the only truly important thing about us.
*nod* I wouldn't ever agree with, and have disagreed with, people who state that. I think, though, that concern over the depiction of science in literature goes beyond scientists' self-esteem, not least because of the number of debates over scientific issues I've seen where one side unconsciously or deliberately evoked fictional science when discussing real science. (Such as the term 'Frankenfood.') I do agree that the most likely solution is for scientists to also become authors.
(no subject)
Thank you!
(no subject)
Not that it can't be done (it _has_ been done); just that it requires exceptionally good writing. Witness how many "scientists" in science fiction stories are nothing of the kind, but rather are wizards in lab coats.