The Guardian recently ran an article on how science was cool again – a real ego boost for a practising research scientist like me (especially after I failed to make this list) – and they had a group of scientists and science journalists to give a mixture of interesting and facile comment to this effect. I find it pretty hard to see how this ‘cool science’ zeitgeist (assuming it existed and were not made up, so we are talking hypothetically) would do much apart from trivialise science. Individual scientists are cool, and can inspire people to become more interested in science; individual bits of science are cool, like levitating a frog magnetically; but science as a whole, and people understanding and engaging with it is more important and serious than these individual whizz-bangs. Is curing cancer cool? What about modelling climate change? Or building a better nuke? “Science” is trying to do all of these things, and presenting a ‘funky science’ flattens these nuances to an ephemeral cardboard cutout. Ok, cardboard is hardy, so maybe that’s a mixed metaphor. Ironically, the Guardian also recently ran an article taking a series of cheap shots at “middle-class” comedians, in many cases seemingly on the basis that they espouse the rational skepticism, lack of anti-intellectualism, and enthusiasm for learning and discovery intrinsic to the science that’s apparently so ‘cool’ at the moment. Or, to summarize, meh.

And so, the digital economy act, a wet dream that an EMI executive had in 1995 and which inexplicably popped through a wormhole, in time for close of Parliament last week. People smarter and better-informed than me have said this better before, but from where I’m standing, the response of major label record label to the mp3 revolution has been a case study in greed and denial. Their delaying getting their good quality legal downloads to the consumer turned a whole generation raised on the idea of convenience to the dark arms of that black widow, filesharing. They continue to view mp3s as a way to charge nearly as much as a CD, but with none of the overheads (or, to put it another way, justification), allowing small labels and independent artists to undercut them, charge what people want to pay and STILL make a better living. I find it difficult to believe that ISPs and the internet-reliant industries who have no vested interest in increased net bureaucracy will get behind with this ambiguous and watered-down bill. It’s probably a good time for them to get legal advice.