Haynes, Roslynn D. From Faust to Strangelove Representations of The Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1994

 

“Popular belief and behavior are influenced more by images than by demonstrable facts.” (First sentence, page 1.)

 

Stereotypes of the Scientist

 

• The Alchemist
• The Stupid Virtuoso, a.k.a. the absent-minded professor
• The Romantic Scientist questing for science to the expense of human affections and relationships
• The Heroic Adventurer who towers above his contemporaries in both the quest for and the discovery of great knowledge.
• The Helpless Scientist who has lost control of the consequences of his own actions and those of his colleagues
• The Scientist as Idealist who strives for a scientific utopia based on humane values against the de-humanizing forces of technology harnessed to greed

 

 

The Gentleman Scientist as, ca. 1830 in England, in the amateur tradition of science:

 

“The ideal was ‘that of a man liberally educated, whose avocation was science as an intellectual cum philanthropic recreation, to which he might indeed devote most of his time without ever surrendering his claim to be a private gentleman of wide culture. In particular, to be thought to be pursuing science for money was distasteful.’”

 

William Whewell in 1848 (Haynes 7)

Works Cited

 

 

Haynes, Roslynn D. From Faust to Strangelove Representations of The Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1994