Magic Fiction

So, as mentioned in my last post, there was a recent attempt by 'terrorists' to blow up a plane using liquid explosives. The Register has an interesting article about just how unfeasible this would be. IANAC (I am not a chemist) so I cannot comment on the chemistry required for making a liquid bomb but the Register raises the interesting idea how we are conditioned to fear mixing two chemicals together to make a bomb from movies as opposed to anything that is reasonably feasible - scientifically achievable.

This brings me to another encounter, one I had at a scientific conference last year where a couple had paid a large amount of money to be at the conference and were trying to sell some magical cure all chemical from garlic (something about an oxidized dicysteine bond). Anyway, they claimed that it cured cancer, was antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and also boosted the immune system. They were trying to find people in the research community to not only do research on their magic compound but to fund the research as well. They weren't well received and I suspect that this is an example of where people develop ideas that the scientific community is out to 'hide the truth' and supress these amazing cure all findings. No doubt conspiracy theories of this type abound.

I'm sure everyone is an expert in their own field, what would you think if someone with an interest but no real experience came in and said they knew a way to solve all the major problems of the field that has no side effects and that somehow everyone else had missed the boat. Or they were all evil and hid the good results. Why does the public assumes that the magic cure alls, amazing fuels and super bombs of science are any more possible? Because science is the new magic.

This is were magic fiction has come in (and refers back to The Register article). Science is the deux ex machina of so many stories. It is the plot device that with some hand waving solves all the problems. Sure, the scientist in the movie is the hero, they peer into the microscope ("wait a minute, this is cat DNA"), come up with the antidote and the planet is saved, but does it do science as a discipline any good? What about when the scientist is the villan ("I've created a virus that will destroy the world!!"). How does this 'magic' affect peoples judgement of science? Science fails miserably when compared to Magic Fiction. Results are slow, conflicting variables confound interpretation and there are no magic bullets. Look at all the confusion over global warming, or the theory of evolution (after all the critics say, its just a theory).

Anyway, these are just some musings as I think about science in society. I realize any discipline is going to be misrepresented in the popular imagination but while CSI might lead to some poor career choices ("tv didn't say dead bodies would be gross and boring") science and scientists touch a great deal of our life - medicine, technology and terorist plots.