What Kind Of Scientist Are You?

The Alchemist, a mad, bad and dangerous scientist, seeking for the essence. This archetype represents the dark side of biological and medical science and the immoral obsessions of its practitioners and the most common indictment of scientists today concerning their inability to retain control over their knowledge. Of course, today, the alchemist’s cave has become the high-tech laboratory, but the scientist, with the obsessive desire of knowledge, is still widely perceived as powerful, frightening, and isolated figure, speaking a language and thinking thoughts accessible only to his/her colleagues and willing to open the “Pandora Box”. The most explicit example of the alchemist archetype in the western culture is Dr Faustus, the main subject of the German 16th century folklore and the protagonist of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe tragic play Faust. The character is based on the historical figure Johann Georg Faust, a 15-16th century German scientist. Being perceived as a magician with the inhuman knowledge, later in the legends, he was depicted as a desperate scholar, who made a deal with the Devil, committing his soul to eternal damnation in return for power and knowledge in this life. To explore further: Gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis StevensonScience fiction novel The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), by Herbert George WellsPolitical satire black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) scripted and directed by Stanley Kubrick  

A foolish virtuoso, who is constantly putting himself and others under unjustified risks for the sake of science. In the western literature, this archetype is usually depicted as untrained dilettantes in natural philosophy, enthusiastically acquired expensive collections of freakish objects, believing that their cabinets would advance the great Baconian project of documenting all knowledge. Stupid virtuosos are caricatured as obsessed with trivial, but often a bad-smelling research while being totally uninterested in the study of humankind. The absent-minded professors, who often appears in a modern sci-fi pop culture, are descendants of the 17th century virtuosi scientists, presented as being madly engaged in their research that made them wear unmatched socks, never remember to cut hair, and remain oblivious to the danger confronting their beautiful daughters in the next room. Albert Einstein, with his involvement at a theoretical level in the development of nuclear weapons, become a prototype for the absent-minded professor. The image of foolish scientist has been widely used to ridicule the members of Royal Society who were dabbling in sensational curiosities, without any serious scientific purpose and pursuing useless, irrelevant and often disgusting research into topics with which no gentlemen should concern themselves. At the same time, they have been accused of the subjectivity in the decision-making process.  To explore further:  Satirical poem The Elephant on the Moon (1676) by Samuel ButlerNovel Book III of Gulliver’s Travels (1726), by Jonathan SwiftAn incomplete utopian novel New Atlantis (1624-26) by Francis Bacon 

The Inhuman researcher, the one who has sacrificed his/her emotions and human relationships in an obsessive pursuit of scientific materialism. The inhuman researchers have been criticised for seeing science being separated from humanity, denying the value of the emotions, and generalizing and abstracting individual experience.  One of the famous examples of such critic is William’s Blake monotype of Newton, where he criticises Newton for diminishing humanity to mathematical principles.Victor Frankenstein is an example of inhuman researchers, who sacrifices his human relationships in pursuit of science, the one, who rejects relationships with his father, fiancée, Nature, and even his own creation – the Monster. He is a personalisation of the naive optimism that knowledge will inevitably be for the good of all. The inhuman researcher the one who has the desire to be always the first to discover something new, by the meaning of voluntary isolating him/herself and sacrificing the ability to appreciate natural beauty. One of the brightest features of the inhuman scientist is the fanatical desire to complete a project whatever the human cost. The atomic scientists working on the bomb during World War II and then during the Cold War have strengthened this stereotype with their documented declarations of the crimes against humanity. To explore further:  Poem The Kingdom (1943) by Louis MacNeiceNovel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Shelley Poem The Mathematician in Love (1874) by William John Macquorn Rankine

The Heroic Adventurer who towers above his contemporaries in both the quest for and the discovery of great knowledge, transcending boundaries of space and time.The image of a scientist as an adventure emerged when western society entered the era of technological progress and started perceiving scientist as a driving force; someone extending the frontiers of experience and transcending former limitations. The heroic adventurer, empowered with the right to dominate nature, universe or extra-terrestrial societies, has been often questioned the origin, necessity, and morality of this right. This led to the wide discourse on the myth of conquest: wherein the miracles of science engage with and overcome the miracles of nature. To explore further: Five weeks in a Balloon (1863), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) by Jules VerneThe Time Machine (1895), by Herbert WellsThe Lost World (1912), The Poison Belt (1913), The Maracot Depth (1928) by Arthur Conan Doyle