According to the papers, it's Sherlock Holmes' sesquicentenary.
Through the stories, Arthur Conan Doyle and those who imitated him took a profession which is, frankly, unpleasant, and gave it glamour. There is very little innate glamour to detective work: it deals with the worst aspects of society, broken lives and shattered dreams. Yet what boy (or, lately, girl) wouldn't want to be Sherlock Holmes?
I wonder if one could use the same trick for the profession of scientist; it is in many ways a poorly understood profession (ask a 12-year-old - or even a year-12-old - what a scientist does), and as such tends to be discounted below its value. It deserves high status - it's been fairly said that cutting research is akin to eating the seed corn, short-sighted. It even uses some of the same skills so popularised by Sherlock Holmes.
Obviously, one could simply make a Harry Potter clone, with Hogwarts becoming a school for the gifted (rather than the magically gifted); but that seems rather uninspired. Indeed, J.K.Rowling seems to be somewhat flailing about what it is adult wizards actually do, what with magic and slaves to do pretty much everything, and research is one of the things left. It even seems to be well regarded, if mentioned only in passing.
Science fiction is also close to this, but rarely is it fiction about science the process. Usually, advanced science the end product seems to be taken for granted. Rarely are there pure scientists (as opposed to applied scientists, bordering on engineers), and when there are their work is poorly described, more often seeming an incomprehenisble obstacle to the rest of the plot than a sensible, rational course of action. That's when they don't turn out to be megalomaniac evil geniuses carrying the mantle of scientist purely as cover in the first place. Occasionally there are positive glimpses, though - Crusade comes to mind as having had quite a few of them, even in the little of it that had been made; while ostensibly on a ridiculous medical mission, they were basically doing pure science, sad as it is to realise that such subterfuge is the best chance of actually doing pure research.
How would one write a story that draws the readers in, makes them follow with the protagonist through the scientific process (or some reasonable romanticization thereof) to a new discovery - or perhaps an old one - and generally makes them dream of becoming scientists when they grow up? Or are there any stories like that out there already?
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