Who is the greatest promoter of science in recent memory?

[SmashTheState]

There have been many scientists, philosophers, entertainers, and scoundrels who, over the last few decades, have taken up the gauntlet of promoting science, tantalizing people with the wonders of scientific endeavour and trying to waft away the ever-present miasma of religion and superstition. Who among them has done the most to promote science, by convincing children to become scientists or shining a light on our ignorance and convincing us it's better to light a candle and know than huddle in the darkness and pray? Is it Magnus Pike? Bill Nye the Science Guy? Mr. Wizard? Richard Dawkins? Karl Popper? Steven Pinker? Daniel Dennet? The Muppets? Gene Roddenberry? Isaac Asimov? Arthur C. Clarke? Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman? Gene Ray?!

Remember, we're not talking about contributions to science itself, but to the promotion of science as a philosophy.

[dolphinboy]

I suppose it depends what you mean by 'recent'... but I would nominate Carl Sagan at least as far as promoting astrophysics goes.

[Zsofia]

Carl Sagan, for sure.

[ultrafilter]

Stephen Jay Gould or Carl Sagan. It's tough to pick between those two.

[lieu]

Steven Hawking, in my mind at least.

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by ultrafilter

Stephen Jay Gould or Carl Sagan. It's tough to pick between those two.

I prefer Gould's writings, but he seemed to target people who already had a fair amount of interest in science. I'd say Sagan probably did far more outreach type stuff, is better known to the public, and so is the greater promoter.

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

Originally Posted by SmashTheState

Magnus Pike?

At least on this side of the pond, he didn't exactly blind anyone.

[Bosstone]

Zombie Feynman!

[Voyager]

I'll go with Carl Sagan also. Having articles in Parade Magazine, and being on Johnny Carson, probably reached more people who needed reaching than all the books of the other people mentioned combined.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Rhoddenberry

[ashman165]

Originally Posted by Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

Rhoddenberry

Drats. I was going to go with that.

[KneadToKnow]

Alton Brown

[Tangent]

For someone currently active, I'd nominate Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Brian Greene (author of The Elegant Universe and host of the NOVA special) deserves mention also. Even if string theory doesn't live up to the hype, that program does a good job of explaining the basics of modern physics for the lay person.

[Gfactor]

I think this belongs in In My Humble Opinion. I'll move it there from General Questions.

Gfactor
General Questions Moderator

[scr4]

I think David Attenborough deserves a mention - natural history is still science, isn't it?

[ZipperJJ]

Bill Nye the Science Guy!

[pravnik]

Originally Posted by ZipperJJ

Bill Nye the Science Guy!

Beat me to it, I was going to say Mr. Wizard.

[Chimera]

Carl Sagan by a factor of billions and billions.

[jakesteele]

Originally Posted by Chimera

Carl Sagan by a factor of billions and billions.

I would go with Carl Sagan. But I like Bill Nye because he made science understandable and accessible to the general public. But honorable mention would have to be Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov and Captain Kirk and Spock.

[Yllaria]

For me, it's either Sagan or Azimov. And I have to ask:

Muppets?

[Captain Carrot]

Bill Nye/Mythbusters.

[JThunder]

Originally Posted by Yllaria

For me, it's either Sagan or Azimov. And I have to ask:

Muppets?

Honeydew, maybe. Strangepork was a quack.

[Smeghead]

Richard Dawkins has been getting a lot of attention lately, especially in Britain.

[astorian]

I'm not sure how you'd quantify this. But I'd guess that, if you polled a large sample of REAL American scientists, a big chunk of them would point to pop culture. WHICH role models inspired them probably varies by discipline.

That is, NASA's most brilliant astronomers and rocket engineers were probably inspired by James T. Kirk and Montgomery Scott more than by Robert Godard.

On the other hand, a lot of marine biologists would probably admit that they grew up watching Jacques Cousteau specials. And numerous zoologists would probably give the nod to Marlin Perkins.

[astorian]

Originally Posted by Smeghead

Richard Dawkins has been getting a lot of attention lately, especially in Britain.

But is he really inspiring young people to study evolutionary biology, or just to scoff more loudly at organized religion?

[Wendell Wagner]

A lot of mathematicians were inspired by Martin Gardner's columns in Scientific American.

[SmashTheState]

Originally Posted by Yllaria

For me, it's either Sagan or Azimov. And I have to ask:

Muppets?

The Muppets (through Sesame Street) have introduced generations of children to everything from logic to basic mathematics to biology. Who knows how many people grew up to be scientists because they watched Grover demonstrating the difference between "near" and "far" when they were 5.

[emjaya]

The "Why is it so?" man: Julius Sumner Miller.

[Yllaria]

Originally Posted by SmashTheState

The Muppets (through Sesame Street) have introduced generations of children to everything from logic to basic mathematics to biology. Who knows how many people grew up to be scientists because they watched Grover demonstrating the difference between "near" and "far" when they were 5.

Ah. Along those lines, I miss 1-2-3 Contact and Square One.

[Auntbeast]

Alton Brown, Neil Degrassi Tyson, Discovery Channel (I love the whole world). For making science be interesting, entertaining and approachable. For shoving it in to silly things. I'd love to say someone like James Randi, but he preaches to the choir.

I am saying those for currently influential.

Hell, Mr. Tyson on The Daily Show did more for astronomy in 10 minutes than I could even believe. He made science look GOOD.

I wish more folks read Steven Hawking, or watched the Ted Talks, but that isn't average Joe stuff. I used to love watching Jacques Cousteau, it was the highlight of my childhood. I'm thrilled that science is far more accessible now, in broader areas and in more tangible ways.

[Cliffy]

I think it's tough make the case for anyone other than Sagan. Bringing science to people who weren't into science was his main mission, but unlike Dawkins, for instance, he didn't do so by just saying why science and critical thinking were right and other approaches to understanding the universe were wrong. He understood the yearning for meaning and beauty that undergirds the religious/quacksalver impulse, and rather than discounting it, he helped you understand that an appreciation of the natural world salved that yearning as well as anything. One assumes this was at least partly related to his parents' deep religious belief.

Also -- Bill Nye once swooped in and picked up a girl a friend of mine had been working all night, so props to him, too.

--Cliffy

[Johnny L.A.]

Originally Posted by Auntbeast

I used to love watching Jacques Cousteau, it was the highlight of my childhood.

I loved watching The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau when I was a kid. I'd pore over the books in the school library. In elementary school we took field trips to Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I developed a life-long love of the oceans.

When I was a kid Jacques Cousteau was The Great Promoter of oceanography. I learned a little about animals from Marlin Perkins on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I learned about space by watching Walter Cronkite's coverage of the Apollo missions. And then there was Cosmos.

The Day The Universe Changed, and the same show with a different name that I do not recall, was fascinating and showed step-by-step developments in science (and other things) that lead to a particular invention. But Cosmos opened up the universe for me. Aboard Carl Sagan's 'ship of the imagination' I was engrossed by his portrayal of biological, geological, and cosmic systems. Sagan presented his science in a way that was entertaining and accessible. Later there were Bill Nye the Science Guy, David Suzuki, and Michio Kaku. Entertaining and enlightening all, but I think their science shows might not have happened had it not been for Carl Sagan.

[LouisB]

The Mechanical Universe, as presented by PBS.

[KneadToKnow]

Originally Posted by LouisB

The Mechanical Universe, as presented by PBS.

I f&cking loved that show. Is it still being rerun?

[blondebear]

E.O. Wilson deserves a mention.

[Smeghead]

Originally Posted by Johnny L.A.

The Day The Universe Changed, and the same show with a different name that I do not recall, was fascinating and showed step-by-step developments in science (and other things) that lead to a particular invention.

Connections (I, II, and III)

[Shagnasty]

I will go with the cast of Mythbusters/Carl Sagan/Steven Hawking not in any real order but kids love explosions and TV so maybe Mythbusters wins for popular appeal.

[Alienhand]

Originally Posted by KneadToKnow

I f&cking loved that show. Is it still being rerun?

I did see a clip of one the animations played somewhere recently which made me go look for it. I did find somewhere that pbs can't show it anymore or needs additional permission (or something like that) but the internet isn't just for porn anymore.

[JThunder]

Originally Posted by astorian

But is he really inspiring young people to study evolutionary biology, or just to scoff more loudly at organized religion?

What's more, much of what he promotes is either highly speculative "science" (e.g. all his talk about memes) or philosophizing. Rather atrocious philosophizing at that, which is why I'd rather not call it "philosophy."

[Typo Knig]

A very important promoter of science, IMHO, was Johnny Carson. He *made* Sagan. He had authors on his show as guests, including science authors, promoting them to a wide audience. As a former magician Carson was a friend of James Randi, debunked "psychic" Uri Geller and publicized Randi's debunking of "faith healer" Peter Popoff. Randi's obit for Carson is here. Sure, science wasn't Carson's primary focus, but the science was delivered in an entertaining way to a huge audience.

[Duck Quack's Echo]

David Attenborough would be my choice.

[ambushed]

Originally Posted by ultrafilter

Stephen Jay Gould or Carl Sagan. It's tough to pick between those two.

Originally Posted by Simplicio

I prefer Gould's writings, but he seemed to target people who already had a fair amount of interest in science. I'd say Sagan probably did far more outreach type stuff, is better known to the public, and so is the greater promoter.

I have serious doubts that Gould should properly be included in any list of real contenders. I would argue that any genuine candidate must be someone who was widely respected both by those in the candidate's own scientific specialties as well as the mainstream scientific community, and that, I contend, should end up excluding Gould. He was famously (or perhaps infamously, depending on one's own opinion) insulted in print by John Maynard Smith, easily one of the world's most predominant and respected evolutionary biologists, when he wrote:

Originally Posted by John Maynard Smith

Because of the excellence of his [Gould's] essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists.

(As a personal aside, I find that statement to be rather self-contradictory, for there Smith was, publicly criticizing Gould!)

I share the view of many leading scientific lights who thought that Gould's politics (he was an avowed Marxist) seriously impaired his scientific objectivity and thus his credibility, particularly in his feuds with E. O. Wilson and other cautious sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, who rejected Gould's Marxist, pseudo-religious ideological belief in the inevitable historical perfection of humankind. There was an undue amount of political bias in Gould's widely acclaimed book The Mismeasure of Man, for example. And he stirred up extensive and, I think, well-justified criticism for propounding his notion of "Non-Overlapping Magisteria", which is widely seen by skeptical scientists as a bogus concept apparently designed to immunize religious beliefs from scientific scrutiny and analysis.

To be fair, however, I must note that some mainstream scientists saw Carl Sagan as a bit of a pretender to the throne, too, in the sense that a few remarked that he was considerably behind the times in the domain of planetary science. My own view is that even if that were true, it's a trite criticism, as Sagan was very highly respected and admired by the larger scientific community and by the public. And he was so to a degree far greater than Gould could have ever even approached.

Finally, my own list of the most influential promoters of science and the philosophical outlook it embodies would include Martin Gardner, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov ("s", not "z", Yllaria), Bill Nye, E.O. Wilson, Ray Hyman, and Paul Kurtz.

I'm tempted to add James Randi as well as to second Typo Knig's nomination of Johnny Carson, who took significant risks by putting alleged "psychics" like the vile Uri Geller to valid, on-air tests (typically guided behind the scenes by Randi). These tests were risky for Carson because the studio audience, as well as those watching on TV, often became very quiet and uncomfortable for the sometimes-considerable duration of the excruciating failure. You can bet your ass the Network people were not at all fond of Johnny's ventures into these still, quiet moments, so the fact that he insisted on continuing such tests involved power contests with NBC executives -- contests Carson obviously won. Hooray for Johnny Carson!

But neither Randi nor Carson were scientists themselves, so they wouldn't make my own personal list.

[SmashTheState]

I can't believe there's no love for Gene Ray. You are all educated stupid!

[SmashTheState]

Originally Posted by Earl Snake-Hips Tucker

At least on this side of the pond, [Magnus Pike] didn't exactly blind anyone.

I suspect most of the people here aren't old enough to remember a time when Magnus Pike was the archetypal face of science. I know I eagerly awaited each episode of "Don't Ask Me" so that I could enjoy the mad scientist spectacle of Magnus Pike explaining how the Universe worked while simultaneously swatting hundreds of invisible flies.

[Lust4Life]

Patrick Moore has brought an incredible number of people to astronomy,not just from the sky at night but from his personal actions in normal life.

Steven Hawkings for obvious reasons.

David Attenborough for his totally incredible documentaries.

Been said up thread but heres another endorsement ,Carl Sagan.



Also Science fiction authors,Robert Heinlein,Issac Asimov and Arthur C.Clarke.

[Little Nemo]

A shout out for CSI.

[Kneepants Erasmus, the Humanist]

Originally Posted by Tangent

For someone currently active, I'd nominate Neil deGrasse Tyson.

YES! I absolutely adore this man, perhaps unhealthily so. I have always been fascinated with science in general, physics in particular, but had tons of trouble getting my head around the concepts. I first heard Tyson on Science Friday on NPR (this is his most recent appearance:linkity link) and was shocked that I actually followed what he said. I understood someone talking about Astrophysics ... that is fairly amazing. I immediately went out and bought his book, which he talks about here (it's almost two hours, but if you have time you really oughta watch it ... he is extremely entertaining).

And, wouldya look at that ... he will apparently be on Colbert Monday.

[Typo Knig]

Dr. Tyson has an thread of his own from January. Some wag killed the thread with a link to Tyson's first appearance on The Colbert Report, just a few days after The Report started. The video is made of genius.

[Declan]

Thomas Dolby

She blinded me with science

Declan

[drachillix]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

A shout out for CSI.

Despite the often poor representations of the reality of science, I think they do a decent job of bringing the idea of critcal thinking to the masses more than many give it credit for. What it looks like at first glance vs. what it really is a recurring concept.