I bet that even if you don’t follow sports, or pop music, or the movies, you can name a dozen ‘famous’ people currently active in those arenas.
After all, it’s really hard to avoid them: they’re mentioned on the news, they appear on magazine covers and in newspapers, you hear their names on the bus or at the supermarket.
Sure those people entertain us, or are good at what they do, but what about the scientists whose quiet work behind the scenes reaches into every aspect of our daily lives?
That’s what Kirsten Sanford rightly asks in Famous Scientists Wanted:
Scientists do amazing work that affects every aspect of peoples’ lives. Why aren’t they compensated for the valuable contributions they make to society? Why isn’t science sold to the public? Where are the PR agents for science? Science needs PR, so that more kids will see science as a future career instead of looking up to the likes of the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana.
Why don’t kids look up to scientists? There really are no famous scientists to look up to.
When I say famous, I mean easily identifiable to the general public; famous as in rockstar famous or even reality TV famous…
She makes an excellent point. As I dredge through my brain trying to conjure the names of real living scientists there are precious few to be found, and with some I’m not sure if they’re still alive even.
And you know what? I listen to science-related podcasts all the time. I keep an eye on science-related RSS feeds, I have the odd sciencey book lying around half-read.1
Yet I can tell you the names of various members of the All Blacks rugby team, and I don’t even like rugby. I go out of my way to avoid it!
Mind you, I may be able to tell you the names of various ‘mad’ scientists from the movies …
Go read the rest of what Sanford has to say, and watch the nice little Intel ad video she includes.
1 Most of the books I have lying around are only half-read. I have a bad record these days with dead-tree books. At one stage in my life I’d easily read a printed book a day. Now I read one every 3 months or so. I so wish they were all on my iPod, or on the Kindle and that the Kindle were available here in New Zealand …
KnowIT by RSS
Very thought provoking, Miraz.
While I’d struggle to name more than a couple of living scientists (Francis Collins, the geneticist, Tim Berners-Lee – does he count?), I do have the utmost admiration for scientists, engineers and explorers and regularly reference them in conversation.
Among my favourites are:
Tim Berners-Lee – the WWW
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
Francis Collins – humane genome mapping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins_(geneticist)
Joseph Bazalgette – British Victorian civil engineer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bazalgette
Richard Pearse – Kiwi aviator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse
Frank Worsley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Worsley
Cheers
Buzz – who can’t name the All Blacks
Thanks for those suggestions Buzz, and for including the links.
I must start mentioning scientists more on this blog as I come across interesting podcasts etc.
Might I suggest one?
I always enjoy Laurie Taylor’s Thinking Allowed podcast from BBC Radio 4. 130+ episodes of exploration of all things sociology-related, from the politics of potatoes to the reemergence of the class system.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy05
Brilliant question!
And I am equally embarassed with NOT ONE famous (alive and working) scientist’s name coming to mind …
That’s not surprising, because the way science is done has moved away from the single heroic figure or mathematical genius, to be very dependent on funding grants, committees, and departments, ie: teamwork. Also because our culture of fame & celebrity is not based on what someone achieves, but how they are able to leverage media coverage, for better or for worse.
But there are prominent scientists in the public eye. Brian Greene has been on the Letterman Show, Brian Cox the “rock star physicist” has done a lot of TV and media appearances talking about the LHC, and Danica McKellar (who is perhaps better known for being on a ‘90s TV show) is an outspoken advocate encouraging girls to seek careers in science and maths.
Good point there Maetl about the teamwork.
Still, it’d be nice if we could reel off a dozen names of living scientists and what they do in the way we can with movie stars and other ‘celebrities’.
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