Transcript S C “Even the moon’s frightened of me!” Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College
SC
Strawberry Festival
“Even the moon’s frightened of me!”
Science and Scientists in the Movies
Amy Bug
Swarthmore College
Dept. of Physics and
Astronomy
Swarthmore College
SC
Strawberry Festival
“Even the moon’s frightened of me!”
Science and Scientists in the Movies
Amy Bug
Swarthmore College
Dept. of Physics and
Astronomy
Swarthmore College
SC
Strawberry Festival
“Even the moon’s frightened of me!”
Science and Scientists in the Movies
Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief.
...I shall collect my funeral pile and
consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains
may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed
wretch
who would create such another as I have been. I shall
die.
I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me,
or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched….
-Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1818
Amy Bug
Swarthmore College
Dept. of Physics and
Astronomy
Swarthmore College
SC
Strawberry Festival
“Even the moon’s frightened of me!”
Science and Scientists in the Movies
Amy Bug
Swarthmore College
Dept. of Physics and
Astronomy
Images of scientists
 Formally or informally transmitted
 Textbook or popular medium
 Fictional or authentic
What does scientific work entail?
What personal traits matter?
E.g. Why should race or gender matter?
It does matter … why?
Deficit theories: structural obstacles like discrimination
Difference theories: sociological or biological differences
From a 1st grade mathbook …
Images of scientists:
persistently unrealistic ...
“Draw a scientist”: M. Meade, 1957 . In
1980’s studies in secondary schools, only
1% of boys, 14% of girls, 16% of student
teachers drew a woman. 99% of children
drew a white person. (Schiebinger, 1999)
“There aren’t a lot of role models
in our culture for women in science. Even
when I think of a scientist, what comes to
mind right away is a geeky old guy in a
lab coat. -CWRU woman student, sophomore,
Astronomy major (2004)
Longitudinal study of men and women
taking physics: M. Ong, 1996-2004 .
Three themes have emerged:
•Looking the part of an accomplished physicist
•Gathering a supportive community
•Managing their simultaneous invisibility and hypervisibility
Film and literary depictions ...
As portrayed by Haynes in From Faust to Strangelove, the
six stereotypes of fictional scientists are
•alchemist
•stupid virtuoso (or absent-minded professor)
•unfeeling loner
•hero
•helpless victim of science
•idealist
As portrayed by LaFollete in Making Science our Own, the four
stereotypes of scientists who were written about in popular
magazines in the first part of the 20th century are
•magician
•expert
•creator/destroyer
•hero
Film clips to consider ...
alchemist+ loner+creator/destroyer
expert+ hero
victim+alchemist/magician
Contact (1997)
expert+idealist+?,
expert+idealist+absent-minded prof.
loner+ alchemist/magician+ creator/destroyer
idealist+hero+?
The old and the new ...
“The Fly”, 1958 and 1986 (and 2004 …?)
Is the culture of science a factor?
The “culture of no culture”?
(Traweek)
Ruled by the Mertonian norms?
“Combat physics?”
(Merton, Ziman)
(IUPAP 2001 participant)
Interviewer: What kind of people are physicists?
Edwin Teller: … just like other people; (though they) need a little bit more
imagination and a little bit better brains, for their job.
-In the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kipphart and Speirs (1968)
Each Friday, there is a ‘jam session’ where all groups get together to
present their research. It mainly consisted of my research advisor telling
the people in the other group that they weren’t making sense.
-Harvard math student of a summer REU (1992)
Swarthmore College
SC
Fin
Strawberry Festival