The changing identity of the scientist.

Abstract

Last year's Science and Engineering Indicators 2002 , the US National Science Board's biennial report about science, technology and engineering in the USA, stated, “It is generally conceded that scientists and engineers have somewhat of an image problem” (US National Science Foundation, 2002, pp7‐25–7‐31). It further describes how a ‘Draw‐a‐scientist’ test administered to children revealed that the stereotypical images of scientists are “alive and well in the minds of children”. And the stereotype is not confined to children. A survey of general public opinion would readily find a scientist depicted as a white male, middle‐aged or older, wearing a lab coat and glasses and featuring some type of facial hair. This image and various literary characters from Dr Faust and Dr Frankenstein to Dr Moreau and Dr Jekyll have contributed to a constructed and more or less unattractive vision of the scientist, often at odds with the self‐image cherished by the scientists themselves. These fictional representations and the collective imagination of the scientist are reflections of the response to the role of science and technology in the social context. Even more radically, the actual image of scientists is inseparably linked with the transmutations of science itself, of which the scientist is at the same time product and agent. Without doubt, science has put on a new face in the past century. It has come to occupy a central role in society and now enjoys a privileged position among the knowledge‐producing disciplines. As a consequence, the resources devoted to science have increased hugely. There has also been, in general, a visible shift in the way in which science is organized and in how it produces knowledge. Science has become ‘big’, global and complex (Price, 1971), and the emphasis has shifted from the individual scientist to collaborative work. Similarly, scientific knowledge …