does this mean all scientists have giant blue penises?

Yes, including the women.

It comes with the doctorate, I think.

It turns blue when you get your PhD? Boy, am I glad I stopped at Bachelor’s!

One of the more accepted definitions of science fiction is that you are allowed ONE major change in what we know to be true… (say, FTL drives) and then you try to build everything else up logically from there. Current storytelling fashion seems to have drifted from that, and people are getting a distorted view about what’s possible, and what the universe is really like.

And yes, all scientists are doctors. Doctors of Science, to be specific.

Well, I don’t know about elsewhere but that’s not so in the UK.

I have a PhD so I am Doctor of Philosophy (remember that before the word “science” existed, the investigation of the natural world was called Natural Philosophy).

There does exist the DSc, Doctor of Science, but it is only ever awarded as a high honour for a significant amount of achievement in science. It is not a degree for which you can specifically study. At my doctoral graduation, there were perhaps 10 or 12 PhDs awarded, but just one DSc, and it was a hugely big deal.

. . . Science has been happening for quite a while, since long before the movies. . .

This is irrelevant, because the amount of government funding going into science before the cold war was insignificant (not counting the Manhatten Project, which was really a science / engineering collaboration with the goal of making the biggest ever bomb).

IIUC, all of the science that was done before the 20th century was privately funded.

The image of scientists matters enough for a prototype space shuttle to be named Enterprise… And prior to that, there is a MAD magazine feature fancifully showing how after being frightened by Sputnik a message was to be presented in all U.S. popular media (can they do that?) that science is cool.

The senior MST3K scientist is widowed, possibly in a laboratory accident, or else marooned in space and his wife cashed in the insurance years ago. He has a beautiful daughter for the bold young hero to charm and for the audience to look at with various motivations, but if her mother was around to advise her then the bold young hero would get a lot more of the cold shoulder, so she isn’t and he doesn’t. So it’s just whether the monster gets her or he does.

Manveet, I think you are being narrow there: movies and tv have a lot of path to do to treat with respect almost everyone, not just scientist. In that way I think we are matched with everyone else.

On a sidenote, I’m a mathematician and sometimes I wonder how much of my desire to become this came from Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park). Heavens, he was definetively a cool scientist: dressed in black, staring through the sun-glasses and using chaos theory talkings as a women seduction weapon!

Thinking twice with the knife still in my hand, I come to think that, anyway, I miss Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth mentioned in that article. So if you see a small angry spaniard with a knife in hand screaming “what about Futuramaaa”, you should better hide.

All of whom are examined in some detail in the yellow book that Phil was giving away last week.

- Jack

They’re on the school board.

Phil, you usually are pretty quick on having people sign petitions for various things. This is a fun little one.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/

Most movies and television series still portray scientists as either awkward beta losers (e.g. The Big Bang Theory), or as mad scientists bent on destroying the world.

We still need more role models that make being a scientist cool. Unfortunately Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan are no longer with us.

Most movies and television series still portray scientists as either awkward beta losers (e.g. The Big Bang Theory), or as mad scientists bent on destroying the world.

We still need more role models that make being a scientist cool. Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan

Me thinks you live in a fantasy world in which there is no end to enemies massed at the gate. Apparently the Bush era lives on.

Not as good as the book though. And it isn’t every lab that has an atomic bomb sitting in the basement for sterilization.

rather than someone who works with a team of fellow scientists, methodically investigating a problem and then coming up with a solution based on all their observations.

kuhnigget, somehow you got me thinking of House – and not because of the lone maverick in charge. Close enough?