JUST as everyone is a philosopher and critic now, so we are all devotees of science. It never used to be like this.
Science used to be frightening and an object of dread at school. Scientists themselves were stereotypically peculiar, with John Curtice hair (now sadly tamed) and white coats with too many pens in the top pocket.
Today, however, popular magazines are devoted to science, and festivals celebrate it. There are good reasons for this. Science is about wotsname – life – and, today, it often focuses on ooter space and our bodies, rather than periodic tables and abstract formulae far from reality.
Some surveys even suggest that scientists are trusted more than journalists. But, beyond such palpable absurdity, there’s no doubt that science is now sexy, so to say, and has also booted religion right up the behind in the popularity stakes.
All of which incisive and authoritative preamble brings me to the Edinburgh International Science Festival, which gets under way at the end of this week. First held in 1989, the festival features hundreds of events at various venues across the capital.
The flagship family venue is the City Art Centre, commandeered for the duration and turned into a six-floor science playground. There’s a Blood Bar, where those so inclined can make their own scab and even touch a real heart, while the more cerebral can explore the function of the frontal lobe at Carnival of the Mind.
Over at Summerhall’s Anatomy Lecture Theatre, what better way to spend Sunday afternoon than exploring bacteria (in a presentation by Professor Sebastian Amyes)? Or those who prefer the bigger picture might join geoscientists at the National Museum of Scotland, who from Saturday to next Wednesday will be investigating Our Changing Planet, with a focus on pollution.
Other topics abound, with a key theme across the festival being the Information Age and how we connect to each other.
The festival sees itself indeed as “a node in a global network of like-minded organisations”. And, as we all know, a node’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, though that has never been scientifically proven.
The Edinburgh International Science Festival runs from Saturday, April 1, to Sunday, April 16.
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