"Studying the evolution of representations of scientists in Western literature, and more recently in film, allows us to see how clusters of these fictional images have coalesced to produce archetypes that subsequently have acquired a cumulative, even mythical, importance. The pageant of fictional scientists, from the medieval alchemist to the modern computer programmer, atomic physicist, or cyberneticist, is grouped around six recurrent stereotypes:
-The alchemist, who reappears at critical times as the obsessed or maniacal scientist. Driven to pursue an arcane intellectual goal that carries suggestions of ideological evil, this figure has been reincarnated recently as the sinister biologist producing new (and hence allegedly unlawful) species through the quasi-magical processes of genetic engineering.
-The stupid virtuoso, out of touch with the real world of social intercourse. This figure at first appears more comic than sinister, but he too comes with sinister implications. Preoccupied with the trivialities of his private world of science, he ignores his social responsibilities. His modern counterpart, the absent-minded professor of early twentieth-century films, while less overtly censured than his seventeenth-century prototype, is nevertheless an ineffectual figure, a moral failure by default.
-The Romantic depiction of the unfeeling scientist who has reneged on human relationships and suppressed all human affections in the cause of science. This has been the most enduring stereotype of all and still provides the most common image of the scientist in popular thinking, recurring repeatedly in twentieth-century plays, novels, and films. In portrayals of the 1950's there is an additional ambivalence about this figure: his emotional deficiency is condemned as inhuman, even sinister, but in a less extreme form it is also condoned, even admired, as the inevitable price scientists must pay to achieve their disinterestedness.
-The heroic adventurer in the physical or the intellectual world. Towering like a superman over his contemporaries, exploring new territories, or engaging with new concepts, this character emerges at periods of scientific optimism. His particular appeal to adolescent audiences, deriving from the implicit promise of transcending boundaries, whether material, social, or intellectual, has ensured the popularity of this stereotype in comics and space opera. More subtle analyses of such heroes, however, suggest the danger of their charismatic power as, in the guise of neo-imperialist space travelers, they impose their particular brand of colonization on the universe.
-The helpless scientist. This character has lost control either over his discovery (which, monsterlike, has grown beyond his expectations) or, as frequently happens in wartime, over the direction of its implementation. In recent decades this situation has been explored in relation to a whole panoply of environmental problems, of which scientists are frequently seen s as the original perpetrators.
-The scientist as idealist. This figure represents the one unambiguously acceptable scientist, sometimes holding out the possibility of a scientifically sustained utopia with plenty and fulfillment for all but more frequently engaged in conflict with a technology-based system that fails to provide for individual human values.
The majority of these stereotypes (as well as the overwhelming majority of individual characters) represent scientists in negative terms, as producing long-term liabilities for society. Yet these depiction have not only reflected writers' opinions of the science and scientist of their day; they have, in turn, provided a model for the contemporary evaluation of scientists and, by extension, of science itself. "
-Roslynn D. Haynes
From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature
p.3-4
