I take it that it isn't sufficient if I, in my capacity as someone with past mental health issues, give you permission to use the term "mad"? No? Oh well... was worth a shot.
More substantially, the problem with the phrase "mad science" has little to do with the history of the term "mad". The primary problems are:
1) it almost inevitably confuses engineering and medicine with science. Agatha Heterodyne for example does steampunk robot engineering. Narbonic does genetic engineering. They aren't testing hypotheses, which is the core of science.
2) The idea reinforces negative stereotypes about science and scientists in the prevailing world-view regarding ethics and consequences. There's a perception that scientists are amoral entities more interested in peering into the dark depths and finding out the True Secrets We Were Not Meant to Know. This is inaccurate. While there certainly have been unethical or dangerous experiments (Tuskegee and LA-602 both come to mind) that's not generally what scientists do.
3) The stereotype of "mad scientists" also connects strongly to certain other stereotypes of scientists: they are nerdy, asocial, and are generally not "cool". With the sometimes exception of certain Heterodynes, when was the last time you saw a "mad scientist" who didn't have hair all askew? What fraction of mad scientists look like http://particlezoo.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/richard_feynman.jpg or http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/doc/image.rhtm/Turing2.jpg ? To some extent this is the fault of Einstein who popularized that look as the scientist look but at the same time connected it with some very negative stereotypes.
Note that an adoption of the term "diabolical science" probably reinforces 1 and 2 while avoiding issues with 3 since everyone knows that evil is cool.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2010-12-15 01:40 am (UTC)More substantially, the problem with the phrase "mad science" has little to do with the history of the term "mad". The primary problems are:
1) it almost inevitably confuses engineering and medicine with science. Agatha Heterodyne for example does steampunk robot engineering. Narbonic does genetic engineering. They aren't testing hypotheses, which is the core of science.
2) The idea reinforces negative stereotypes about science and scientists in the prevailing world-view regarding ethics and consequences. There's a perception that scientists are amoral entities more interested in peering into the dark depths and finding out the True Secrets We Were Not Meant to Know. This is inaccurate. While there certainly have been unethical or dangerous experiments (Tuskegee and LA-602 both come to mind) that's not generally what scientists do.
3) The stereotype of "mad scientists" also connects strongly to certain other stereotypes of scientists: they are nerdy, asocial, and are generally not "cool". With the sometimes exception of certain Heterodynes, when was the last time you saw a "mad scientist" who didn't have hair all askew? What fraction of mad scientists look like http://particlezoo.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/richard_feynman.jpg or http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/doc/image.rhtm/Turing2.jpg ? To some extent this is the fault of Einstein who popularized that look as the scientist look but at the same time connected it with some very negative stereotypes.
Note that an adoption of the term "diabolical science" probably reinforces 1 and 2 while avoiding issues with 3 since everyone knows that evil is cool.