Dr Andrea Sella on showmanship in science
By Lara Carim, on 10 June 2010
Dr Andrea Sella, EPSRC Senior Media Fellow at UCL Chemistry, yesterday previewed on BBC Breakfast (footage unavailable) some of his Cheltenham Festival demonstrations, for which he is renowned.
Today, in a New Scientist blog, he questions the value of “bangs and flashes” demos that “leave out the deeper story that underpins the amazing phenomena that we can illustrate through demos.”
He says: “The demos ought to be subservient to the science in much the same way that diagrams support the text rather than the other way around. Coffee table books may look beautiful but they seldom get you through that exam.”
“What we need to do is to become real storytellers, bards of science, singing tales of valour, heroism, and mystery of our subject.”
What do others think? Any ideas about how this can be achieved?