I saw a man sporting a pocket-protector this morning in the Park Street T-station. It was in his left breast pocket (its natural place for a righty), holding a modest three pens, and doing the job it was born to do. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen one in practical usage.
The pocket protector was once an icon indicating a technical education, perhaps THE icon. They were tiny vinyl billboards not only proclaiming to the world that you knew important things but also which brand of reagents you preferred (my own vintage specimen says “STP”, my dad was a mechanic).
The pocket protector is now something like the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, rarely seen in the wild, never caught on film. I was left to wonder if equivalent scientific icons exist today. I simply cannot think of what the modern equivalent would be. Maybe it’s ok that we have weaned ourselves from the pocket-protector. I have a subtle feeling however, that its extinction is unfortunate. I’ll tell you why.
I worry that we are losing our public identity as scientists. This is particularly troubling when living in a time where science has not only lost some of its luster but also its credibility. Declining matriculation rates in science education, scandals, and various anti-science positions within our government have us in a tough spot. Compounding this is a public perception of scientists as either maniacal personalities working towards the denigration of humanity (ala Dr. Frankenstein) or as bumbling idiots (ala Ross on “Friends”). It’s a crazy idea, but maybe bringing back the pocket-protector could actually help scientists to regain some of their cachet.
Absent such badges of membership, the public is unaware that scientists walk among them. Without knowing that the lady holding a Gucci bag on the platform next to you is a Ph.D. working on tyrosine kinase signaling, the fact is missed that not only are scientists regular people but they often have good taste. Though the pocket-protector would no doubt diminish one’s impression of the latter, it might actually do something to reinforce the former.
One of the central issues I try to address in public speaking is that scientists are people. In some debates, individuals opposing science speak of “scientists” as though they were distant things. Things have no spirit, no compassion and thus may be objects to fear, especially where powerful technologies are involved. By stepping up to the microphone and saying “this is who I am and this is what I do”, scientists move closer to regaining trust. True, it is a small step, but an important one nevertheless. Maybe a few more pocket-protectors could do the same thing.
My own pocket-protector may be seen by clicking here .
The fashion meets pocket protectors scheme may hit a snag once summer hits. It’s a bit hard to wear a pocket protector with a dress. And I’m not sure that shorts, a T-shirt and a pocket protector is really all that.
In general I like the notion of “America’s Next Top Scientist Model”, though. Maybe it could be broadcast back-to-back with “America’s Next Top Model Organism”…
Scientists are people, too, but so are nuns and nurses and any manner of professionals who have literally stripped off the crumbling old fetish raiments of the past. It’s only too perfect that it’s a “protector” at issue here. Pull out the pen and record the data, and damn the public perception (Ross was VERY cute, even without a Gucci bag, and for all his love of dragons, at least he didn’t confine himself exclusively to a circle of scientific friends – excellent scientific P.R. activist, really).
If you’re losing your public identity as scientists, at least you’re not losing your heads for daring to question the current understanding of the natural world. Not yet. Put an army of smart people outside the white house wearing pocket protectors and shouting, “What do we want? Stem cells! When do we want them? Now!” and see what happens.
I really like this post, M. William, and I think “the public” deeply respects science and scientists – we regular folks sometimes go to great lengths to look above every kind of plastic billboard, from the pocket protector to the priest’s collar to the rocker’s back-pocket comb.
Wendy, what a delightful insight you have. I must ask though, do you at all feel that your role in research might shade your opinion of scientists, change it in a way where most members of “the public” have no experience? Hmmm?
I haven’t seen any recent findings suggesting that an admiration for scientists is the product of environmental influences – citation, please. If I have a higher opinion of the scientific community than Jill Everywoman (and I’m not convinced – I merely said science and scientists are deeply respected, that you were “people too” and that one of you who is the product of a writer’s mind was cute), then I’m pretty certain my partiality is purely genetic in origin.
Allow me to give you some worthlessly anecdotal (and, to be perfectly honest, apocryphal) evidence to support my claim. My first words were, “Scientists RULE!” When I was but twelve, I thought Einstein had a “dreamy profile” and had a huge poster of Watson and Crick over my bed (playing guitars in the now largely-forgotten rock group Purines and Pyrimidines – both playing bass, of course).
Seriously, M. William, in a pilot study of five non-scientists, all five associated pocket protectors with mathematicians and engineers. I can’t stop you if you want to be mistaken for a member of either or both of those groups, but I can tell you that garnering the respect of Jill Everywoman or improving your tribe’s reputation in the greater world – while estimable in a very limited way – can’t hold a candle to sitting your BACK pocket on the bench and getting the data.
Anyway, I thought pocket protectors were condoms until I read this blog.
That movie Proof has a character who is a mathematician who tries to follow a more “sociable” look… Would you classify him along with Ross?
I used to wear a fanny pack… But I was forced to abandon it for my genes to conform natural selection.
Now if you think of it, pocket protectors and vests and all are perhaps only symbols of the 1950’s american scientists. Their disappearence is just times changing. If we need a kind of science fashion statement, it should be contemporary!…
I do like your pocket protector tough, looks great! :) I have a collection of family slide rules too, now THAT was a symbol impossible to replace.
I don’t see what could be the modern day “I’m a scientist” scout patch… Perhaps the problem is that pens and slide rules are not that much important anymore. Now people just work in computers all the time, everybody tends to look the same, I guess…
Wow, the old pocket protector blog is resurrected. Nice. Proof was an interesting flick. I don’t recall any idiot types in it (refreshing).
I guess we’re all just blending in, but into what is curious to consider. I guess my point was that badges of membership, like the pocket protector, are synthetic. Scientist don’t really wear them and the surprise here comes when I meet people that think they do. What I would dig seeing is a connection between people from different walks of life. One that doesn’t come with such BS notions like that scientists wear pocket protectors, i.e. that they are not like everybody else. I think that’s what I meant.