It's rare that you'll see a movie, TV show, book or video game with a scientist in a starring role. For the brain boxes on the side of good, they're usually relegated to supporting roles, playing the part of Basil Exposition or giving the real heroes the justification and/or technology to go fight the bad guys or stop the Sharknadoes or whatever. That's because what most scientists do day-to-day is hang around in labs, looking at things under microscopes and massaging their brains to come up with new, ground breaking theories. We assume. Then you have the evil geniuses, those who use their scientific knowledge as a force for bad. They're in direct opposition to the heroes and their smarty pants sidekicks, but at least these lab coat-wearing jerks get to be more screen time as the main antagonists rather than supporting protagonists. The villains in Bond films and the like are usually playing on our lizard brain distrust of smart people, who are doing things us laymen couldn't possibly understand. So it's probably bad stuff that will involve them enslaving or eradicating humanity. In reality, scientists are somewhere between these seemingly contradictory fictional depictions. The researchers and PHD graduates you come across in the real world do spend a lot of time doing experiments and staring at data, and usually it's for a good reason. Sometimes, though, they have to do bad things to get to that important discovery. Torturing animals, testing things on people without them knowing, shoving kids in boxes...these are ten unbelievably cruel studies done in the name of science than even Victor Frankenstein would baulk at.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
