Step out of the lab, into the spotlight

Television pioneer Don Herbert, better known as Mr. Wizard, performed science demonstrations with household objects such as these forks.
Television pioneer Don Herbert, better known as Mr. Wizard, performed science demonstrations with household objects such as these forks.

Scientists make discoveries, and the rest of us discover scientists. The lineup extends like a chain of molecules from Frankenstein's lab to Kevin Delaney at the Museum of Discovery.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley set the standard for the old-style mad scientist in her novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, published nearly two centuries ago.

"Workin' in the lab, late one night," as Bobby "Boris" Pickett sang in the 1962 pop hit, "Monster Mash."

By then, the mad scientist had acquired a lab partner, The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), as personified by Fred MacMurray in the title role.

Don Herbert presented children with a different image as television's Mr. Wizard, 1951-1975. Making use of his teacher's college science degree, Herbert experimented with materials that could be found around the house.

Beakman's World with Paul Zaloom and Bill Nye, the Science Guy carried on the gosh-wow school of inquiry that began in Mr. Wizard's kitchen.

Workin' in the lab paid off in the meantime with the latest creation: the scientist as media celebrity. Among the first, prolific author and biochemist Isaac Asimov mingled science and science fiction. He coined the word "robotics."

Carl Sagan's public television series, Cosmos (1980-81), and appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson made him the world's most famous scientist of his time. Whether or not he ever really said "billions and billions of stars," he became one.

And now, with technology's billions and billions of new ways to be a famous scientist, the field is expanding like the universe.

Author Declan Fahy counts stars in his book, The New Celebrity Scientists: Out of the Lab and Into the Limelight (Roman & Littlefield, 2015). He names Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Stephen Jay Gould, Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield and James Lovelock.

"They are the emblems of a new era of science," he writes in an excerpt from the book, featured in the current issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Today's Dr. Frankenstein would tweet, "It's alive!," post a picture of the monster's first step on Facebook, and demonstrate for Jimmy Fallon how anyone could do the same thing at home.

Style on 07/14/2015

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