By Roslynn D Haynes. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8018-4801-6 (8018-4983-7 in Australia) $42.50
Reviewed by Janice Emens McAdam
When careers are being decided or university courses selected, science and engineering do not rank highly. The reaction to a student contemplating a science career - unless it is in medical science - is often negative and illogical, especially if the student is a girl.
How do you see a scientist? If you answered "an eccentric old man either bald or wild haired, working alone on secret research" you are in good company, for that is how most people respond.
Where does this image come from? Why don't I visualise a woman scientist?
In most cases our ideas come from our reading or from film or television. Unfortunately the politicians responsible for research budgets are influenced by the same media and share the negative stereotypical image with industrialists, who use the outcomes of research, and journalists, who make jocular references to "Boffins" and "Frankenstein".
In From Faust to Strangelove Roslynn Haynes examines the image of science and its practitioners in western fiction over some seven centuries. Some of the literature reflects our fear of science - the unknown and the unknowable, and translates this fear into hostility towards those who practise it. This was seen in the attitude of the general public to alchemists whose researches were directed to attaining the unattainable, and whose secrets were closely guarded. She also reports on recent studies conducted on children's perceptions of science and scientists.
Many of the literary stereotypes that Dr Haynes identifies depict scientists in negative terms, which have "not only reflected writers' opinions of the science and scientists of their day, they have in turn provided a model for the contemporary evaluation of scientists and, by extension, of science itself."
The sixteen chapters include "Evil Alchemists and Doctor Faustus", "Foolish Virtuosi", "Arrogant and Godless ...", "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know ..." and "The Impersonal Scientist". This last deplores the cold, analytical approach favoured by some scientists and commonly seen as characteristic of the male scientist. (See Georgina Ferry and Jane Moore, "True Confessions of a Woman of Science", New Scientist 27, 1 July, 1982.)
Dr Haynes deals with such diverse topics as fiction based on the development of the atomic bomb, and the dramatised life of Galileo Galilei, in lucid and readable detail.
This book is a definitive and pioneering study, entertaining as well as educational. Its historical scope is vast, and the specialized analysis of the books is detailed and thorough. We are fortunate that Dr Haynes' academic qualifications in both science and arts allow her to review the literature with a scientist's incisive approach, avoiding the preciousness of a purely literary analysis.
The 59 pages of notes amplify the text and identify and locate the quotations used in it.
The bibliography of over 400 books of fiction can be regarded as an independent resource list of books which portray scientists, whether or not they are cited in the text. The bibliography is restricted to fiction, so some works discussed in the text are not listed, even though they appear in the index.
The index could be more detailed; more subject headings like "Mathematicians" and "Astronomers" would help the reader, and a listing of books by title as well as author would improve it.
The book concludes with a recommendation from the 1980s on the need for communication and collaboration between scientists and non-scientists on environmental issues, and a quote by Einstein: "A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the 'universe', a part limited in time and space ..." It is up to us with scientific training to redress the bias against science and scientists. Dr Haynes has given us both evidence and ammunition with this monumental study.
This book should be in the library of any institution interested in the sociological implications of the public attitude towards science and scientists. I also recommend it to all students interested in exploring the history and philosophy of science.
Janice Emens McAdam has an honours degree in Nuclear Physics and an MA in Children's Literature. Her thesis, "The Persistent Stereotype", was published by the University of Technology, Sydney in 1990.