No, we think this is a poorly-conceived attempt at doing so.

Why the focus on old people? Why *not* 20-something postdocs doing cool work? And who are likely to look better in the fashionable clothes, and less like fish out of water.

Given GQ’s demographic, it seems readers are largely past the point of choosing careers, so it’s not like these campaigns are going to result in more people going into science. You have people who’ve committed to a non-science career path reading about late-career scientists whose CV’s are so diffuse it can be hard to focus on what they’re doing that’s cool. (Hell, they’re probably in meetings a lot, and those definitely aren’t cool.)

A campaign targeting teens, focusing on 20-something scientists doing cool things *now*. That’s not an insurmountable age difference, teens can identify more with 20-somethings, and it’s easier for a teen to conceive of attaining a similar position.

If I’m 30 years old, and reading the GQ thing about 50 year old scientists, I’m seeing people who I can’t really seek to emulate. The gap is too large.

If I’m 15, and reading about a 26 year old doing work with MEMS or optogenetics, that gap is not very big, and the 15 year old is at a point where they can choose their path in life. The 15 year old can see him or herself attaining that position themselves, and still has the opportunity to do so, like a 15 year old reading about a 26 year old rock star guitarist and deciding to learn guitar and start a band.

(Granted, sometimes 15 year olds idolize 40-50 year old rock stars. But such rock stars typically had success when in their 20s as well, so a 15 year old can look to that 20 year old Eric Clapton, for example, and not just the late-career Clapton.)

Besides all that, the art in this one is pretty terrible. It’s like someone took celebrity photos and stock photos and played ColorForms with them. There’s no implied relation between the musician and the scientists. By contrast, a while back I saw photos of the British science fiction novelist China Mieville with Debbie Harry and Blondie in London; apparently the band had been reading his work on their tour and became fans. I found that far more impressive than a photo of Debbie Harry posed with some random scientists.

If this campaign could foster that kind of connection between artists and scientists, I think it’d work better. In addition to the awkward posed and composited photos, they should have a photo of the artist with the scientists in the lab, in regular clothes. (To make this work, they’d probably have to pair each artist with the postdocs and grad students of a given lab, rather than with scientists from different labs.)

However, I also want to see the evidence that this type of outreach works. I’ve not seen any research that suggests that photos of scientists in a popular magazine will promote the profile of science. I certainly don’t think it will improve “scientific literacy” (whatever that is).

I also think it’s pretty demeaning to scientists that the only way that GQ would consider having them in the magazine is if there are also members of popular beat combos in the photos as well.

On the flipside, it’s nice to see that mainstream media are engaging with something considered minority.

It’ll be great to see the research metrics coming in from this, which I’m sure the Rock Stars organisers have organised for the second year of the program…

As a suggestion, have we tried getting “amazing pictures” into magazines for the target audience, along with a brief (1 para!), audience-appropriate commentary which provides context? Some of the Hubble photos, micrographs of critters, that sort of thing? Wouldn’t one photo a month make more of a long-term impact than this rather forced concept?

Martin, as a scientist…you must be aware of the problem with demanding data on the spot that isn’t easily obtained, especially when this campaign has just launched.

Didn’t you run the campaign in GQ last year? So shouldn’t you have started to garner some evidence from that? Also, what evidence was used in your decision to advertise in GQ?

Mooney: high five. Martin: High (different) five. We’re all on the same team here.

So?

How is the GQ spread a BAD thing? Indeed, one might think it’s a good thing from a marketing perspective, albeit perhaps just a little blip. Indeed, the fact of discouraging further such endeavors through snark may cause more anti-science feeling than the program generates in positive feeling… assuming an appreciable number of Americans have read Mr. Robbins’ column.

Maybe Martin’s just angry he wasn’t asked to be on there? I mean, the snark seems to have a whole lot in common with barroom sports arguments and not a whole lot in common with scientific endeavor. Just ask any American sports fan whether he or she thinks Boise State should play for the national championship (I’m sure there is a corresponding Brit question) and you’ll get a lot of impassioned responses that look a lot like Mr. Robbins’ column – long on invective, about what amounts to entertainment.

So perhaps American politicians should stop taking pictures with notable sports figures and celebrities and if GQ does a spread with movie stars and teachers, the teachers should stand in front. Whatever.

Fluff is fun and fun is fine. The GQ spread merits a chuckle and we should all – including Mr. Robbins – move on from there.

I was aware of the Rock Stars campaign through blogs (including this one) and thought it was neat. (I also liked it when Stephen Hawking showed up on the Simpsons.)

Agreed that promoting interest in science does have to start in the classroom, but I also think it’s important for the general public and young people to see being a scientist as something desirable and exciting to be — there are plenty of other media images of scientists that show them as socially inept and culturally clueless, so this is a counter balance.

Finally, some of the rock stars pictured are musicians my teenaged kids actually listen to. Which surprises me, but along with acts I’ve never heard of, they like the ones I listened to growing up. Since the music distribution industry decompensated, it’s all apparently one big musical mashup.

My daughter’s boyfriend’s favorite band is the Ramones (!); and my daughter has been shocked and somewhat annoyed to find out that some ‘cool’ bands she thought she discovered were ones her mother listened to . . .

So I think this campaign may be on to something, and I certainly think it reaches beyond the limited demographics of GQ.