A Sense of Wonder gets its Ten Metre Badge

Following on from my post last night and facing a Monday, my thoughts turn to preparations for this year’s event at the British Science Festival in Bradford. Once again, the same team will be presenting a fusion of the humanities and science in a unique way.

Let me tell you what we did last year in Birmingham. Within the Old Rep Theatre, a traditional and beautiful establishment, one hundred and four people waited expectantly for their ‘singular opportunity to experience the wonder of a botanical oddity… The Greatest Smell on Earth!’ The string quartet entertained with a set of quirky and light hearted songs and the stage was set behind the red velvet. David Gregory, Science Correspondent for the BBC was filming and interviewing punters ahead of the show. The floral displays were spectacular and the toffee waffles and coffee were maintaining an unparalleled excitement backstage.

During the lecture that followed, the story of smell was told. What do we smell? How do we smell? Why do we smell? How animals use smells? How plants communicate with smells and which ones smell the most. Evidence of the newly discovered Rafflesia arnoldii was presented with video footage of its discovery in Amazonia from YouTube and details of it from Wikipedia. As the vial of extract was delivered on stage by a security guard the audience were in expectation of their hands to be part of history.

And so a quarter of the audience dutifully raised their hands and pressed they keypads indicating they could smell the opened vial. Some even described the smell to me… at least before I explained it was sterile water, anyway.

There followed a short history of the psychology behind authority and Stanley Milgram and the social conformity of Solomon Asch. Everything had been done to maximise the strengths of both. The environment; my credentials as a scientist; the seemingly real evidence; the ‘live’ linkup to other parties; the presence of the BBC; the fact that others were claiming to smell it. The clues we had provided in the poster and the performance were highlighted and science was given its seat. However, the history of this sort of event was beautifully handled by one of Birmingham’s most prestigious historians, Sally Hoban, as she shared the visuals from the archives of parades and similar extravaganzas with a local focus. You can see David’s write up for the BBC here as well as on his blog.

I did allow myself the little pleasure of posing the final question about where is our sense of wonder? There was a time when onlookers would have marvelled at Phineas Barnum’s ‘Fiji Mermaid‘, fully believing that such a thing was real and not the head of a monkey stuck on a dead fish. So small was people’s world view that anything was possible. And if anything was possible, then we were open to a life of stories and wonder.

I did allow myself the little pleasure of posing the final question about where is our sense of wonder? There was a time when onlookers would have marvelled at Phineas Barnum’s ‘Fiji Mermaid‘, fully believing that such a thing was real and not the head of a monkey stuck on a dead fish. So small was people’s world view that anything was possible. And if anything was possible, then we were open to a life of stories and wonder.