This weekend the small horrors invading streets in the US and around the world will include a familiar trope: the mad scientist. With wild hair, a lab coat, and safety glasses, we know that she is pushing the boundaries of knowledge. But when and why did this become scary?

In her recent Discover Magazine article, Kate Golembiewski explores the origins of mad scientists in science fiction and horror stories providing a glimpse of how our society views science and how stories can help guide our relationship with new discoveries.

The idea of the mad scientist, she suggests, arose as science became impenetrable to ordinary people and detached from the humanities. The word “scientist” was not invented until 1833. Still, early literary examples such as Doctor Victor Frankenstein already include the key elements: a heedless desire for ‘hidden knowledge’ without considering the consequences. The first feature-length science-fiction movie, Metropolis, features an inventor whose robot, created to replace his lover, is set to destroy the city. But the stories we tell in movies and science fiction can also play a positive role. They can give us all a chance to ponder the consequences of research that is just emerging. They reconnect science to moral guidance. Perhaps current efforts to consider the environmental, social and governance (ESG) consequences of research and development are also reducing the risk of madness? In a quote from Metropolis: “The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart.”