Scientists used to be our heroes

There is nothing wrong with "The Real Housewives of New Jersey."  Of course, I don't mean that these people don't have problems, but I mean there is nothing wrong with the show itself and the fact that it is popular.  I lament, however, that such entertainment is the source of our society's heroes.  Why are people whose lives are real, who celebrate shallowness, sarcasm, elitism, and crass idiocy the idols against whom we measure ourselves?

This was not always the case.

Read Neal Stephenson's series, The Baroque Cycle, historical fiction about the original Royal Society of Natural Philosophers from the late 17th  and early 18th century.  These men, including Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Denis Papin, and many others, developed a method and approach to understanding the world and made discoveries which still influence the way the world work.  They also operated near the pinnacle of society despite often lacking great wealth or lineage.

As recently as the 1950s in America, the post-war boom was accompanied by a passion for science, engineering and discovery that permeated every part of our society.  Our superheroes' alter-egos were scientists, inventors, or at least brainy nerd-types.  Popular fiction for kids featured kids like Danny Dunn, son of a phyisicist, Encyclopedia Brown, and The Three Investigators' brainy if big Jupiter Jones.  Television series like The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone nearly always featured scientists as the protagonists, gurus, or otherwise focal point of each episode.

Today, while popular movies often involve a science fiction theme, the hero is typically the big, strong Luddite-type and the scientists are even more typically the bad guys.  Sometimes, in a darker mood, I wonder if there is a war on cultivation of intelligence.  Forceful ignorance is celebrated, determined idiocy equated with hip, and academic achievement the refuge of the unpopular.

Take a moment to watch this excerpt from the opening scene from HBO's The Newsroom - herein lies the rub.