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| Geeks, comedians and academics are putting the fun back into science | Geeks, comedians and academics are putting the fun back into science |
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| Michael Faraday's lectures at London's Royal Institution in the early 19th century were so popular that the carriages dropping people off to see him used to choke Albemarle Street in Mayfair – as a result, the street was designated the first one-way road in London. Faraday was a master communicator who thrilled audiences with the latest discoveries in chemistry and electricity. He was as much a brilliant entertainer as a great scientist. | Michael Faraday's lectures at London's Royal Institution in the early 19th century were so popular that the carriages dropping people off to see him used to choke Albemarle Street in Mayfair – as a result, the street was designated the first one-way road in London. Faraday was a master communicator who thrilled audiences with the latest discoveries in chemistry and electricity. He was as much a brilliant entertainer as a great scientist. |
| Somewhere over the course of the 20th century, though, the idea that entertainment could be a vehicle for science faded away, even as the fruits of scientific endeavour became more important and relevant to people's lives. As scientists became more professional after the second world war, the discipline grew up and lost its fun. For those who weren't experts, and didn't have time to learn the often complex basics, it also became dauntingly difficult. Science was too serious, too important, to make entertaining. | Somewhere over the course of the 20th century, though, the idea that entertainment could be a vehicle for science faded away, even as the fruits of scientific endeavour became more important and relevant to people's lives. As scientists became more professional after the second world war, the discipline grew up and lost its fun. For those who weren't experts, and didn't have time to learn the often complex basics, it also became dauntingly difficult. Science was too serious, too important, to make entertaining. |
| For anyone who cares that science should be a central part of our culture, this is clearly a disastrous conclusion. Fortunately for us, an emerging army of geeks, comedians and scientists is bringing back the Faraday-style spectacle. | For anyone who cares that science should be a central part of our culture, this is clearly a disastrous conclusion. Fortunately for us, an emerging army of geeks, comedians and scientists is bringing back the Faraday-style spectacle. |
| At the head of this re-emergence of science as entertainment is the comedian Robin Ince – his standup shows have incorporated elements of science for a decade but he has gained more attention as the driving force behind the Uncaged Monkeys show, which features Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Brian Cox and a string of celebrity guests and academic scientists. A spin-off from Ince's hugely successful Radio 4 show, the Infinite Monkey Cage, the live show treats audiences to songs and laughs, interspersed with mini-lectures on cosmology and evidence-based medicine. The last tour, which ended earlier this year, played to thousands of people every night at theatres across the country. | At the head of this re-emergence of science as entertainment is the comedian Robin Ince – his standup shows have incorporated elements of science for a decade but he has gained more attention as the driving force behind the Uncaged Monkeys show, which features Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Brian Cox and a string of celebrity guests and academic scientists. A spin-off from Ince's hugely successful Radio 4 show, the Infinite Monkey Cage, the live show treats audiences to songs and laughs, interspersed with mini-lectures on cosmology and evidence-based medicine. The last tour, which ended earlier this year, played to thousands of people every night at theatres across the country. |
| The Uncaged Monkeys are the kings of the scene and Ince has paved the way for a rapidly growing ecosystem of scientific entertainment. In the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, comedians Helen Arney and Matt Parker and broadcaster Steve Mould use tools of the scientific lecture – including PowerPoint and overhead projectors – to comic effect, adding songs about physicists falling in (and out) of love and setting the audience mathematical puzzles for the intermission. What started as a few people in a room above a pub just a couple of years ago has transformed into a sell-out UK tour. | The Uncaged Monkeys are the kings of the scene and Ince has paved the way for a rapidly growing ecosystem of scientific entertainment. In the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, comedians Helen Arney and Matt Parker and broadcaster Steve Mould use tools of the scientific lecture – including PowerPoint and overhead projectors – to comic effect, adding songs about physicists falling in (and out) of love and setting the audience mathematical puzzles for the intermission. What started as a few people in a room above a pub just a couple of years ago has transformed into a sell-out UK tour. |
| That attitude – that science is a good source of ideas for entertainment and discussion (even if you're not a scientist) – will reach its biggest audiences yet this week as the science-savvy comedian Dara Ó Briain unveils his new show for BBC2, Science Club. The first episode features celebrated geneticist Professor Steve Jones on sex – interspersed with laughs, demonstrations and debate. | That attitude – that science is a good source of ideas for entertainment and discussion (even if you're not a scientist) – will reach its biggest audiences yet this week as the science-savvy comedian Dara Ó Briain unveils his new show for BBC2, Science Club. The first episode features celebrated geneticist Professor Steve Jones on sex – interspersed with laughs, demonstrations and debate. |
| Much of the audience for Ince, Ó Briain and others are those who come with an interest in science. But the science-as-entertainment crowd are moving beyond their typical audiences: Guerilla Science started as volunteers giving talks at a music festival in 2008. Four years later, they work with the Wellcome Trust, National Portrait Gallery and Secret Cinema to embed science into interactive shows in unexpected places. The goal of founders Zoe Cormier and Jennifer Wong is to move people using scientific ideas, with the same emotional colour they might get from theatre or art. | Much of the audience for Ince, Ó Briain and others are those who come with an interest in science. But the science-as-entertainment crowd are moving beyond their typical audiences: Guerilla Science started as volunteers giving talks at a music festival in 2008. Four years later, they work with the Wellcome Trust, National Portrait Gallery and Secret Cinema to embed science into interactive shows in unexpected places. The goal of founders Zoe Cormier and Jennifer Wong is to move people using scientific ideas, with the same emotional colour they might get from theatre or art. |
| At the more high-brow end is the success story of the Wellcome Collection in London, a place "for the incurably curious" that opened five years ago to collide medicine and art. Its founders hoped it might attract 100,00 visitors a year; last year, almost half a million people wandered through the exhibitions, which have centred on everything from dirt to identity and events such as watching and talking to surgeons during a heart operation. Last week, the venue announced £17m plans to expand its galleries and the scope of its exhibitions. | At the more high-brow end is the success story of the Wellcome Collection in London, a place "for the incurably curious" that opened five years ago to collide medicine and art. Its founders hoped it might attract 100,00 visitors a year; last year, almost half a million people wandered through the exhibitions, which have centred on everything from dirt to identity and events such as watching and talking to surgeons during a heart operation. Last week, the venue announced £17m plans to expand its galleries and the scope of its exhibitions. |
| The audiences that might go to see Uncaged Monkeys or the Festival of the Spoken Nerd overlap with another, more grassroots, movement around the country. There are Skeptics in the Pub meetings in Sheffield, Cardiff, Nottingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Winchester and scores of other towns – volunteers organise guest lectures in back rooms on science or philosophy or whatever else floats their rational boat. And it is not always about entertainment: it was at a Skeptics in the Pub meeting in Holborn in 2009 that Simon Singh's campaign to fight the British Chiropractic Association's charge of libel took off. With the support and momentum provided by UK skeptics, the Libel Reform campaign has had a big impact, with commitment to update the UK's outdated libel laws appearing in the manifestoes of all three major political parties during the 2010 general election. | The audiences that might go to see Uncaged Monkeys or the Festival of the Spoken Nerd overlap with another, more grassroots, movement around the country. There are Skeptics in the Pub meetings in Sheffield, Cardiff, Nottingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Winchester and scores of other towns – volunteers organise guest lectures in back rooms on science or philosophy or whatever else floats their rational boat. And it is not always about entertainment: it was at a Skeptics in the Pub meeting in Holborn in 2009 that Simon Singh's campaign to fight the British Chiropractic Association's charge of libel took off. With the support and momentum provided by UK skeptics, the Libel Reform campaign has had a big impact, with commitment to update the UK's outdated libel laws appearing in the manifestoes of all three major political parties during the 2010 general election. |
| A few years ago, scientists would moan about an error they had seen on TV or when a minister made some incompetent statement about science. Nowadays, they act. The skeptics, and others who have found each other through the shows curated by Ince and the books and columns of Ben Goldacre, have become a social-media-enabled army of rationalists who has stepped up to fight a scourge of anti-vaxxers, homeopaths, politicians, companies and, frankly, anyone else who misuses evidence. | A few years ago, scientists would moan about an error they had seen on TV or when a minister made some incompetent statement about science. Nowadays, they act. The skeptics, and others who have found each other through the shows curated by Ince and the books and columns of Ben Goldacre, have become a social-media-enabled army of rationalists who has stepped up to fight a scourge of anti-vaxxers, homeopaths, politicians, companies and, frankly, anyone else who misuses evidence. |
| Ince plans to continue using science in his shows: his next tour will be based around the work of Richard Feynman and Charles Darwin. Does he worry he will one day turn off a crowd who want to just be entertained? "The public are constantly underestimated," he says. "I do believe that if you give people interesting things, they will rise to it." | Ince plans to continue using science in his shows: his next tour will be based around the work of Richard Feynman and Charles Darwin. Does he worry he will one day turn off a crowd who want to just be entertained? "The public are constantly underestimated," he says. "I do believe that if you give people interesting things, they will rise to it." |
| • Dara Ó Briain's Science Club starts on Tuesday 6 November on BBC2 at 9pm | • Dara Ó Briain's Science Club starts on Tuesday 6 November on BBC2 at 9pm |
| • This article was amended on 5 November 2012. The original stated that Simon Singh's campaign started in 2008. This has been corrected. |