Evolving boffins?

[Dr Mike]

I was chatting with some American scientists (molecular biologists) the other day and one of them said 'oh, you can tell so-and-so is a famous scientist because he's an ageing grey-haired man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a paunch'. And I realised it's true, there's a certain look from certain West-Coast-of-America types that means - I'm in the inner sanctum, I work at Stanford/UCSF/Berkeley, I'm this close to a Nobel and I can dress in novelty shirts and be eccentric because everyone knows I'm a big cheese.

Very coincidentally, that same week another girl (British this time) was making fun of her friend saying, he looks like a mad scientist with that beard and those sandals.

So while none of us would argue that the white-coated Gary Larson stereotype does not still reign supreme in popular culture (tv, films, adverts etc.), perhaps amongst scientists, who are up to speed on the reality of the situation, some newer stereotypes are evolving. Perhaps we are at that rare moment in mythology when the stereotype is still truth, yet to be set in the stone of Popular Culture?

[Daughter of Darwin]

I have noticed this too. I suuppose stereotypes are most used by those outside the group, nonscientists in this case & there is something so compelling and emblematic about the white lab coated Dr Frankenstein figure that the image is 'sticky' (in the Malcolm Gladwell 'Tipping Point' sense) and it has 'stuck' for half a century. The REAL commonalities in modern scientific dress sense are not emblematic enough to 'stick', to have supplanted the old version: you know what I mean, jeans and tee shirts, beards and sandals...it's just too banal to put in an advert. Whereas the white coat wild hair Einstein look is loads more interesting. Until we come up with something more interesting it will probably reign supreme.

LabLit should run a competition on ideas for a NEW boffin look to replace the old! And it has to be more interesting than the reality or it will never catch fire.

[Dbl Helicks]

I think people should think of young scientists as people who stay up late & drink too much coffee and listen to loud music in the lab and are a bit EDGY. it would be a much cooler image. Then people might want to BE them.

[Editor]

Anyone else watching 'close encounters' on tv this evening? I was struck by the glorious specimens in the lab keeping watch on the strange transmissions from space: beards, spectacles and bad ties everywhere (and not a female in sight). They weren't white-coated and wild a la Enstein/Frankenstein, but they were certainly well into socially awkward/untidy/odd territory.

[Dbl Helicks]

I was just thinking how good 'crime scene investigation' is about showing scientists. They are always varied, lots of men and women - though perhaps a bit unnaturally good looking the dialogue and behaviour often rings true. my favourite bit is when they show real live banter in the lab - because how true is it that when your slaving away in the lab you are often as not chatting about last nights hot date or whatever!

[michele]

An interesting little riff on scientists as rock stars, or not:

http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/7/18/6/1

See also footnote 4 link to FameLab...was there any buzz on this in your UK media?

[Daughter of Darwin]

Yes, fame lab made all the usual science-y broadsheets. Fabulous idea...i'm entering next year for sure! However. The winning thesis was on the acoustics of the electric guitar, but I think it would have been a far more challenging win to have communicated something not so intrinsically layperson-friendly. In a way the topic was too easy. Let's see someone getting the punters frothed up about something complicated and abstract like the cell cycle!

[Dr Mike]

Hey, thanks for that link, Michele. The editorial is very good. Good also to see 'The Scientist' thinking about scientist's images. Such an obvious problem that hardly anyone talks about.

[Daughter of Darwin]

I agree nice article, but isn't he rather preaching to the converted? Most people reading that magazine are scientists. I think there is a widespread awareness amongst scientists that scientific stereotypes exist and it's even something scientists joke about at parties. Just look at Gary Larson cartoons. I understand that GL himself had scientific training, and his cartoons showing geeky scientists are enshrined in labs all over the world. We love them! So it's all a big joke inside the scientific community, and we all know about it. (Maybe we even all know that there is a glimmer of truth to some of the stereotypes so we don't feel comfortable championing ourselves as 'normal' people. Who has time to anyway when one is in a lab at 3 AM?) Meanwhile, Out There in the Real World, people actually think the stereotypes are real and no-one is telling them otherwise. There needs to be some sort of campaign, but it will involve the two camps actually communicating. Boffin-Bashing Summit, anyone?

[Dr Mike]

You bring up Gary Larson again, and I agree with what you're saying, and yes I think the cartoons are extremely amusing. But part of me, deep down, resents the portrayal and what it is probably doing to non-scientists' perceptions of our craft. Is it worth it? Of course it's a free world and he has every right to express himself and the cartoons are brilliant...but. How many people just assume this is the way it really is in a lab? People know it's a caricature (of course no one thinks all female scientists are fat and wear horn-rimmed specs) but do they realise just how far off his portrayals really are? Is it harming more than helping our image?

God I can't believe I'm trashing GL!! (Sorry, mate.)

[Hanneke D]

I can't believe your trashing him either

But know what you mean. Every time I see one of those fat white-coated women I think, erm, that's not me at all. But you have to hand it to GL that at least there ARE women, and lots of then, in his labs. Most cartoons of labs never have them.

[Randall]

news flash: lots of labs don't have women in them. I'm speaking of Physics and Chemistry, escpecially the former. No sense in painting and unrealistic picture.

[Beatrice]

I missed this post earlier. With respect, not sure Randall's last comment is really helpful. There surely are fields where women are thin on the ground but these are just a fraction of the total number of fields where there are loads of scientists. So I do not think showing females scientists is 'unrealistic' by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe just a bit of wishful thinking?

[Jason]

Well, at least scientists have a stereotype. I used to work as a pharmacist - in popular imagination not as important as doctors, nurses etc., not even enough to have a stereotype! They must have every other hospital profession on tv health dramas such as casualty (radiographers, porters, etc.) but where do they get their drugs from? We were even missed off that recent NHS advert with the epileptic patient. Sorry to go on about it. I became a scientist for the glamour.

[Daughter of Darwin]

Oh, this is too sad! A stereotype-less profession. I hadn't thought of that. Actually when I think of pharmacists I think of a white-coated gentle non-judgemental person asking you sternly if you've every used Ibuprofen before and making you feel inexplicably guilty in the same way that immigration officers do - you haven't done anythiing wrong but suddenly get paranoid that you have!

Pharmacist as parental figure...