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Science in popular culture is the treatment and use of scientific terms and issues in popular media such as cinema, music, television, and novels. [1][ page needed] Science fiction (SciFi), in particular, is a branch of literature that uses scientific ideas as a basis. [2]: 172 In such works, the science used is sometimes distorted in order to fit the content. [3][ page needed]
History
Before the 19th century, scientific developments did not uniformly influence society; the layperson would have no knowledge a new scientific discovery, and even if they did know about it, they would likely not understand the underlying principles nor the consequence the discovery had. As industrialization and urbanization rose, people began leaving their rural lives to work at large factories, where socialization had the effect of challenging their traditional beliefs, via exposure to scientific ideas. [4] One such idea is the theory of evolution, which provided a scientific theory for the origin of humankind that ran counter to many religious beliefs [5].
Beginning in the 19th century, there was a societal change where people were increasingly exposed to scientific and technological knowledge in their everyday lives. This was due to not only the increasing appeal for new science and technology, but the entrepreneurs, who capitalized on this appeal and would advertise those ideas to the general public. One example of such idea is the lobotomy, a medical procedure that was extensively used in the 1940s to treat mental illnesses [6], though it remains controversial for its effect on brain functioning and its supposed use to control minorities. A greater number of scientific discoveries made scientific research the foremost actor that people turned to in society, to help solve problems.
By the mid-19th century, knowledge became more specialized and institutionalized, such that only those that had spent years studying an academic discipline could fully grasp its knowledge and contribute to it. As more research was produced on a subject, the deeper researchers had to delve into it to produce something that hadn't been done before, [4] which resulted in different sub-fields being created. For example, in some biological research is concerned with classification, where biologists create a taxonomies to classify biological organisms, and show the perceived relationships between different species. [7] Other biological research focuses more on the building blocks of organisms, concerning itself with DNA sequences and proteins that are involved in the complex functions of life. [7] [8] As scientific research progressed, the specialization within fields meant that that two biologists that studied these fields would have little to discuss regarding their respective discoveries to one another. [4] Specialization of science also discouraged non-academic citizens from contributing to it. Due to the increasing gap between scientific discovery and its perceived usefulness by the general public, people began viewing some scientific discoveries as irrelevant. For instance, the general public wouldn't have experienced as much unrest about a recently discovered protein as they had at On the Origin of Species.
This gap lead to the development of popular science (also pop-science), which intends to inform the general public about scientific fields, while combatting the perceived irrelevancy of specific sciences. Usually in the form of written media, popular science has allowed scientific ideas to be presented to the public in a way intuitively understandable. [4] From popular science stemmed science fiction, a genre of speculative fiction that incorporated elements of science to add to its appeal. [9]
Examples
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encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (December 2019) |
Alternative worlds
Fictional worlds are worlds inhabited by fictional characters. They may be mirrors of the real world with some other-worldly traits, like in The Wizard of Oz, or can be fictional versions of the real world in the past, like The Lord of the Rings trilogy. They can also be similar to the real world but with an alternate history, as in the Eden trilogy by Harry Harrison, where the dinosaur mass extinction event never occurs. [10]
Androids
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The focus of androids is the invention and use of robots that look and act like humans. [10] As of June 2018, there has been development of some prototype androids like Hanson Robotics' Sophia, who can interact with humans and engage in sophisticated but limited movement. [11]
See also
References
- ^ Thurs, Daniel Patrick (2004). Science in popular culture: contested meanings and cultural authority in America, 1832–1994. University of Wisconsin Madison.
- ^ Erickson, Mark (2005). Science, culture, and society : understanding science in the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9780745629759.
- ^ Riper, A. Bowdoin Van (2002). Science in popular culture : a reference guide. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood press. ISBN 9780313318221.
- ^ a b c d Handlin, Oscar (1965). "Science and Technology in Popular Culture". Daedalus. 94 (1): 156–170. JSTOR 20026900.
- ^ "Overview: The Conflict Between Religion and Evolution". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. 2009-02-04. Retrieved 2018-06-23.
- ^ Levinson, Hugh (2011-11-08). "The strange and curious history of lobotomy". BBC News. Retrieved 2018-06-23.
- ^ a b "HISTORY OF BIOLOGY". www.historyworld.net. Retrieved 2018-06-23.
- ^ "Key Events in the History of Biological Study | Study.com". Study.com. Retrieved 2018-06-23.
- ^ Franklin, H. Bruce. "Science Fiction: The Early History". andromeda.rutgers.edu. Retrieved 2018-06-23.
- ^ a b Van Riper, A. Bowdoin (2002). Science in Popular Culture: a Reference Guide. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31822-0.
- ^ "Six Life-Like Robots That Prove The Future of Human Evolution is Synthetic". Futurism. 2017-08-09. Retrieved 2018-06-23.