Alice Roberts on geeks
“There’s been a movement towards reclaiming the word ‘geek’ but I’d rather get away from it entirely”
- Alice Roberts, quoted in the London Evening Standard
In a recent interview by Andrew Williams, the anthropologist and Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham says she thinks people don't tend to get excited by science for a variety of reasons, including unenthusiastic teachers, the jargon, and the perceived scariness of mathematics. Another reason is that science, she says, has an image problem. But trying to make geeks "cool" is not, in her view, the best way forward. "If you say: 'It's cool to be a geek," where does that leave people who don't consider themselves to be geeks? Aren't they allowed to be interested in science? Science is for everyone."