I’m pretty much a broken record on the fact that scientists need to do a better job getting the word out that we’re human beings. As long as the world thinks that we believe we’re totally objective automatons who never make mistakes, it will be hard to rebuild trust. Every time a scientist makes a mistake, revises a theory, engages in motivated reasoning, or acts with bias, the door is open to say that we can’t be trusted.
One thing that would help would be to have more on TV, movies, and theater showing real scientists having real lives. The new play “Love + Science” is a start. It’s a story of two gay medical students in the AIDS who come of age and also do some great virology. My review was in Science this week and is here for more details about the play.
What’s important about the play - and what we need a lot more of - is that the human lives the characters are engaged in are intertwined with their discoveries. One stays in science and doesn’t do a residency, the other becomes a practicing physician. Their reasons for doing each and how they are different are quire apparent.
The play fast-forwards to COVID at the end, and we see the toll that the years took on them in different ways.
Biotech VP David Glass has done a masterful job with the story, and bringing real life into it, the star Matt Walker is also juggling his research by day as a PhD student at Columbia.
If you can get to New York in the next week, check this out. If not, I’d be surprised if it doesn’t come to a college theater near you soon.
I agree that we need more stories about scientists, but I offer we need more stories about real scientists. What we do, how we work and how we relate needs to be seen and better understood. I really wish the journalistic world would look at this rather than solely focusing on big-name, and high intensity "talking heads". First, while people like Peter Hotez, Fauci, and Jha are incredibly knowledgeable and bring a lot to the party, they immediately become lightning rods for their views. Second, hearing from scientists down the ranks who would, generally, promote the results of real-life work would increase the number and diversity of opinions in support of "following the science". Some of us labored in relative obscurity, save within our own organizations, during the early years of the COVID Pandemic. I don't need or want widespread attention... I fear the polarization and potential for public threats colleagues have endured (and some less public but very real threats I've endured) and their impact on my family... but I'm willing to contribute to the notion that there's strength in numbers when we try to spread solid, very real information to the public.
Ada Lovelace Day is largely about telling women's stories, and I think the more short biographies we can get out there, the better. But I don't think that is enough on its own. We also need to do better in the book/TV/film world as well because, let's face it, that's an incredibly powerful way to reach vast numbers of people and help them rethink their assumptions about scientists and how science works.
I'm working on Fieldwork, a short comedy film about ecologists working in the field, which is supported by the University of York and the University of Edinburgh. I'm interviewing ecologists to get a feel for what their work is really like and then will begin the process of drafting a script. My collaborators and I are so tired of the stereotypes about scientists and science, so this is our little way of fighting back.
I'm documenting progress on my other Substack at: https://wordcounting.substack.com/s/fieldwork