If you look around your colleagues at a meeting, or in your lab, or at the cafeteria, you will see a pretty good cross-section of people, many of whom you know are scientists. They look no different from the people you might see at a meeting of a parent group at your children's school or at the symphony,of whom the vast majority are not scientists. And yet, according to the media,there are some pretty strong stereotypes of how scientists should appear, the clothes that they should be wearing and their overall bearing and attitude,and how they differ in all those aspects from the average non-scientist.
My admittedly non-scientific [i.e. not controlled, or double-blinded (tough in the case of the TV analysis), or exhaustive] analysis of recent television programs has identified several trends, the most glaring of which is that many of television's `scientists' retain what I will call the `boffin' look. You know, the rumpled, crumpled, frumpy, “I am too busy trying to understand complicated stuff to dress properly” look.
Here is one example. Patrick Moore frequents television and radio programs,and has done so for three decades or more. For those of you who do not know him, he is an astronomer/star gazer `personality' in the UK. Frankly, I do not know any scientist, and I know quite a few, who looks like Patrick Moore. And yet, he is the quintessential image of a `scientist' projected to millions. Patrick Moore is from the Einstein-look-alike school. He has a shock of silver, white hair, and I mean a `shock' in the sense that it looks like he has been recently electrocuted, which sprouts outwards and upwards from his head. He has the eyebrows to match - hairy caterpillars that wiggle and writhe independently of each other as he talks. And then there are the eyes -incandescent orbs that flash as he looks around - and yes, they look like they belong to a crazy man, but I'm not going to challenge him on it! Finally,there are the clothes. Now, I will admit to dressing quickly and with the purpose of modesty and comfort. So, how long does it take for people, like Mr Moore to dress so that their collars are askew, their tie crooked, buttons on their sweater out of phase with the holes and trousers that look like they have been slept in? Imagine the conversation with the director of the program:“Mr. Moore, you look terrific as always. Please, a few adjustments before we go on the air. Let's tease out your hair a little more, turn one side of your collar up, yank your tie down a bit more, please rebutton your sweater and if you wouldn't mind spilling this small cup of coffee on the front of your shirt”. What is remarkable to me is that in an era of brand names, star-conscious, sports-person-copying fashion, this is the image of a scientist that is portrayed to the outside, non-scientist world. Again, I do not know any scientist who looks like this, and yet this is one of the`faces of science'.
Now, despite the appearance of the cartoons of me that accompany these Sticky Wickets, I am not a slave to the `boffin' look. My hair and eyebrows are relatively tamed, and I have a reasonable notion of the combinations of shirts and trousers that match. In fact, it has been argued, I do not look like a scientist at all.
This was pointed out to me several years ago. The leaders of my institution had decided to put together a promotional brochure featuring scientists at work in the lab, real doctors treating patients, and administrators doing whatever it is that they do. My lab was chosen as the venue for the `shoot'for scientists at work in their lair. The `director' and an army of assistants to the director, lighting technicians, cameramen, and assistants to the cameramen converged on my small lab - with all of them in my lab the concept of photographing `scientists at work' was lost in the melee.
The director of this production looked around at the motley crew that was my lab and said, “So, which of you is the head scientist of the lab?” I volunteered. He looked me up and down and said (and this is the absolutely truth), “No, no, no. You won't do. You don't look like a scientist.” Well, I was a little peeved at this put-down in front of my lab, who, with their heads down, side-ways glances and shoulders shaking, were clearly enjoying this little distraction from their experiments. As I formulated some pithy response along the lines of my expectations of what a director might look like with a 25 ml pipette up his nose, he looked around the people in my lab and pointed to one of them, “There, that's more like it. He looks like a scientist. I want him.”
The person he was pointing to, a postdoc, was tall, thin and had a`salt-and-pepper' head of hair and matching trimmed beard. He had on a pressed shirt, unlike my T-shirt, and wore glasses, which I did not. Frankly, I did not have a problem with this - really, it was not a big deal, and anyway the sooner they had completed the `shoot' the quicker we could get back to normality. Oh, if only it had been so easy. The director walked over to my postdoc, looked him up and down and then said, “Great! Perfect! Now, put on a lab coat and stand over there.” Steve, my postdoc, responded,“I don't wear a lab coat.” The director, unperturbed, said,“Go on, put one on just for the pictures.” Steve replied, using his height, hair and beard to good effect, “I will not wear a lab coat!” After some ineffectual haggling on the part of the director,the camera crew packed up its equipment and left the lab in search of a more cooperative victim.
So, what happened to the brochure? I am not making this up when I tell you that the picture that went with `the scientist at work in the lab' section ended up being a picture of me, except that I was sitting, at my desk with my back towards the camera, probably doing some idiot administrative stuff. So much for the concept of the `scientist at work at the bench'.
So, as you look at the cartoon accompanying this Sticky Wicket, remember this rendition of me `as a scientist' is just pandering to your notion of what I should look like, how I dress and my general lack of social skills.
