Tag Archives: science awareness

Cox and McDonnell effects?

What would a Cox or a McDonnell effect be? Well, Brian Cox (the physicist not the actor) and Charlie McDonnell are each in their own way popularizing science in the UK and also, in McDonnell’s case, internationally. Recently there was an article in the Telegram about the Cox effect, i.e. the impact he’s had on public awareness of science in the UK, which aroused commentary from Pasco Phronesis (David Bruggeman) about the US situation and commentary from Andrew Maynard at 2020 Science about Charlie McDonnell and his impact via Youtube on science awareness in teens.

Brian Cox is probably better known to the general public than McDonnell (from the Wikipedia essay about him),

Brian Edward Cox, OBE (born 3 March 1968), is a British particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. …

He is best known to the public as the presenter of a number of science programmes for the BBC. He also had some fame in the 1990s as the keyboard player for the pop band D:Ream.

From David’s Sept. 11, 2011 posting on the Pasco Phronesis blog,

So, is there an American Cox?

Neil Tyson and Bill Nye are, like Cox, genial communicators and good on television.  Could they draw people to a tent at the next Caravan, H.O.R.D.E. Festival, Lilith Fair or other massive outdoor gathering of the young?  I don’t know.  Arguably it’s Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, who bears the closest comparison to Cox in this respect, though he’s not been as widely disseminated on American television like Cox has in the U.K.  I blame the lack of a BBC.

Science and technology guests have made the rounds at various U.S. conventions for a while now (Plait has been to both the San Diego Comic Con and Dragon*Con.  But these are of a different kind than the music festivals Highfield [author of the Telegram article about the Cox effect] writes about.

David also points out that in the past, both in Britain and the US, science and art were housed in the same museums.

They certainly seem to have integrated science into their music festivals and other events in the UK in a dynamic, fun way as I noted in my July 12,2011 posting on the Glastonbury fair. There are signs (my Sept. 9, 2011 posting about the Micro Zoo at the 2010 Burning Man festival) that this may be happening in the US too.

Meanwhile, Andrew Maynard’s response to the Telegram article was to discuss Charlie McDonnell, from his Sept. 11, 2011 posting on the 2020 Science blog,

… I haven’t heard anyone talking about the “Charlie McDonnell Effect”.

Maybe it’s because Charlie appeals more to a growing movement of teens who just want to immerse themselves in awesomeness, rather than science advocates on the lookout for the next Carl Sagan.  Maybe it’s because Charlie doesn’t fit the mold as science communicator extraordinaire – he didn’t even go to University for goodness sake!  But like it or not, 20 year old Charlie McDonnell is reaching out to millions of teens when it comes to science, and engaging with them in ways few others are even getting close to!

Charlie McDonnell may not fit middle class expectations of an educated yet hip science advocate.  But believe me, he’s the one your kids are more likely to be listening to.  Which means I expect that the “Charlie McDonnell Effect” is alive and kicking – albeit hidden down in the grass roots of a science-hungry on-line community.

I do like to imagine a “science-hungry on-line community.” I often find that if it’s not couched as ‘science’ people are interested in all kinds of science. Take for example, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. If you billed that as a discussion about prosthetics or human enhancement, very few people would be interested.