Still Two Cultures

"The human race may begin to fear its scientists to such an extent that it will take uncontrolled action toward them. "

When Canadian Psychiatrist Brock Chisholm, former head of the World Health Organization, issued that somber warning in 1957, the public seemed to be of two minds about scientists--awed by their stunning achievements, but increasingly apprehensive about new dangers brought by technological progress, from nerve gases to nuclear weaponry. How do people feel about scientists today? Two British weeklies, the New Scientist, which reports developments in research and technology for a largely scientific audience, and New Society, which is dedicated to the social sciences, recently collaborated on an unusual readership poll in order to find an answer--and also to determine whether scientists see themselves differently from how nonscientists see them.

The results show a wide chasm between what C.P. Snow called the "two cultures." For example, most scientists pictured themselves as approachable, open and admired people with wide-ranging interests. Yet most nonscientists thought they were remote, secretive and rather unpopular, with few interests outside their fields. The two sides disagreed most sharply on whether scientists had a strong sense of right and wrong. Generally, scientists affirmed that they "would stop their work if they thought it was harmful." But nonscientists were skeptical. Said one reader: "When I think of a scientist, I think of intellectual curiosity triumphing over moral responsibility."

Strong Disenchantment. A few nonscientists were openly abusive. One reader defined a scientist as "an uncultured illiterate." Others expressed their concern about the "dangers" of science, citing such worries as pollution, weapons research and what one writer described indignantly as experiments on "dogs, rabbits and other small animals in cages." Disenchantment with scientists was strongest among people in their 30s and 40s; rather surprisingly, given their supposed doubts about the benefits of modern technology, younger people were the least critical.

Many nonscientists said that they still think of scientists as intelligent, highly logical and well educated in their fields--despite a tendency to absentmindedness and eccentricity. Scientists for their part concurred, at least about their own intellectual capacities. They also stressed what has long been regarded as their special virtue: a philosophical commitment to objective truth.

Asked to give their mental image of the typical researcher, nonscientists tended to see him as a thin, balding, white-coated, middle-aged man in spectacles. But one reader added a telling apology: "Actually, I know a lot of scientists and they aren't a bit like this." As a matter of fact, the poll showed that a great many people who have strong opinions about "the scientific community" today are not really familiar with it. Of the 20 scientists most frequently mentioned by name in responses to the survey, only seven are living. Among them: Astronomer Fred Hoyle, Chemist Linus Pauling and Physicist John Taylor. The rest included such figures from the myth-laden past as Archimedes, Galileo, Marie Curie, Darwin and Einstein.

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