The Public Image of Chemistry.

Are chemists creative benefactors of humankind? Or sorcerer's apprentices who befoul the environment and manufacture chemical weapons? The public's "chemophobia" has long and grounded historical roots, and it is in direct opposition to the way chemists see themselves.

The Public Image of Chemistry dives deep into the history of chemistry's bad reputation with contributions from a literary scholar with a chemistry background, a chemistry philosopher, freelance science writers, historians, and a chemistry professor turned science writer. The editors have formed three main sections--Popular Images in Fiction and Movies, Self-Images in Chemistry Popularizations, and Mediated Images--to discuss the demonization of the discipline.

The first section indicates that the public's perception of the chemist is typified by Mary Shelley's chemist Dr. Frankenstein. Roslynn Haynes argues that born from this indelible image is the misconception that Frankenstein is not just the monster's creator but the monster himself! In English horror films from 1931 to 1960, 30 percent of the villains were scientists, 40 percent of the threats were spinoffs from science, and only ten percent of the heroes were scientists.

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The evil scientist image began with the 18th-century English satirists who depicted scientists as being separate from reality because of their narrow focus on their own interests and their inability to relate to human concerns. English romantic poets such as William Blake condemned Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke. Editor Joachim Schummer notes 19th-century images of the mad scientist are frequently found in literature, and the era was marked by the theme of "Chemists against God." The notion described chemistry, or alchemy, as materialistic, and therefore atheistic. Materialism includes the denial of spiritual and mental realms. If materialism meant denial that material nature is God's creation, any chemical change of matter was suspected to be against God's will.

Both Schummer and contributor Peter Weingart comment on Michael Crichton--scientist, writer, and movie producer. Crichton made a presentation to the American Association for the Advancement of Science arguing that the media have not created a bad public image of scientists in fiction film, but rather scientists have misunderstood the media. According to Crichton, "All professions look bad in movies." Weingart submits an interesting analysis of fiction films portraying chemistry--a quarter of which fall into the horror genre. But chemists are not singled out--physicians and physicists don't fare much better in Hollywood.

David Knight, a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Committee for Promoting Chemistry to the Public, relays a hands-on and hands-off approach to popularize chemistry. Hands-on people practice chemistry and hands-off people appreciate, enjoy, and support chemistry. Knight reviews previous attempts to promote chemistry in the past and poses questions for the future.

Marika Blondel-M6grelis expounds on Justus yon Liebig, a famous chemist who worked to popularize a new image of chemistry. Andrew Ede from Simon Fraser University looks at Abraham Cressy Morrison's book Man in a Chemical World. The book describes the American Chemical Society's attempt to create the "American" chemist as opposed to the "European" chemist. Ede discusses the image of a man in a white lab coat and Morrison's view linking chemistry to American prosperity and divinity.

In the second section, Schummer and chemistry professor Tami Spector speculate on the prominent chemistry images and what they say about the profession. They emphasize the gap between how outsiders portrayed chemists and how chemists portrayed themselves in the 19th century. Instead of the typical image of a man gazing at a flask, chemists of that era depicted themselves surrounded by books with chemical glassware far in the background--potentially in effort to associate themselves with the philosophers and literary scholars who regularly denounced them.

The final section, Mediated Images, begins with a chapter on the Science Service. This not-for-profit, independent news organization strived to popularize science and chemistry in the 1930s. Peter J. T. Morris examines the history of the chemistry galleries at the Science Museum of London, and he questions their influence. Peter Laszlo examines chemists' image of themselves in the last half of the 20th century, in relation to the major chemistry technology of the era. The public's image of chemistry certainly differs from the chemists' image of chemistry, and the book's contributors make an interesting study, reaching back into history to present the origins of both.

Anne Campbell, MCIC