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Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 13 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
Question: are all scientists mad or is that just a stereotype?
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Ian Stephenson answered on 13 Jun 2014:
Probably a little bit…
“Mad” is often a social construct – sometimes people get called mad when they don’t quite conform to what everyone else is doing and saying.
Scientists often thing about things differently to other people which makes them appear a little mad, but also in science if you think something you’re encouraged to shout it out – we share ideas, as by passing them around its the fastest way to figure out if they’re GOOD ideas or not.
In science if you have an idea, do an experiment and find out your idea was completely wrong then it was still a good experiment and you learnt something good from your bad idea. So perhaps scientists generally feel more confident to express their crazy ideas.
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Edward Hughes answered on 14 Jun 2014:
I don’t think scientists are any more mad than other creative people – like writers or musicians. Just like your favourite artists or sportsmen, we’re always trying to come up with new ideas! So we’re often quite quick, quirky and enthusiastic. But that’s also true of other creative people!
In my experience – other people tend to like it if you’re quirky. It’s a bit harder at school because there’s so much pressure to fit in. But once you’re in the real world it’s much better to be a little bit mad!
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Naomi Osborne answered on 16 Jun 2014:
I don’t think all scientists are – but some appear “mad” because they are different and sometimes eccentric. Scientists are very passionate about what their work and really do it for the love of it, and in the past this meant going to extremes to explore their ideas (check out what these “mad scientists” did – http://www.livescience.com/11380-top-10-mad-scientists.html), giving scientists their “mad” stereotype!
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