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New research released today to mark the start of National Science Week reveals that great figures from science and engineering are very well-known by the British public. More people have heard of Thomas Edison, Marie Curie and George Stephenson than contemporary arts figures such as Damien Hirst and Zadie Smith.
The survey, commissioned from YouGov by NOISE (New Outlooks in Science and Engineering) generated some bizarre comparisons. While 96% of people had heard of Marie Curie, discoverer of radioactivity, just 25% had heard of Zadie Smith, best-selling modern novelist. And the recognition rating for Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph and the light-bulb, was at 87% comfortably ahead of the animal-pickling artist Damien Hirst at 75%.
Jenny Goodman, a spokesperson for NOISE, said, “Women have been said not to be interested in science and engineering. But the survey shows that two in five of us girls, young and old, know that Frank Whittle invented the jet engine. I’m a PhD student at Oxford University, working on a Mach 6 ramjet engine, so you’d expect me to know – but it’s great that so many other women do, too. And 30% of all young people also knew. Science and engineering aren’t the big turn-offs that some would have us believe.”
The survey also showed that almost all of us, of all ages and both genders, know the root of Alexander Fleming’s fame. A massive 82% of people know he discovered penicillin.
The NOISE campaign, funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) aims to promote careers in science and engineering to young people, so these results are hugely re-assuring. Working with a group of enthusiastic ‘NOISE makers’ – young, role-model scientists and engineers – the campaign works to encourage teenagers to take up these important and genuinely fascinating subjects.
Vicki Morris, a NOISE maker whose job, like Jenny Goodman’s, involves testing and monitoring jet engines, commented, “I’m really enthused by these results. We want to see more young people following in the footsteps of our great historical scientists and engineers, so that Britain remains a nation of scientific innovators”.
The NOISE campaign aims to demonstrate the fantastic career opportunities and rewards that studying these very hands-on subjects can bring, creating a new wave of Brunels and Einsteins.
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